----December 16th, 2005.

It's official. I'm 23 in Japan.

This morning I woke up feeling rested and happy. It's bright and sunny out and I was really happy to not be sick (a lot of people are catching the flu around here). I got a birthday call from my family and talked to them for a while, my father says the King Kong movie is really incredible so I have made tentative plans to see it soon.

Walking out into the hall, I realized that Will had set up a fan blowing into his room. I peaked my head in and his futon was gone and it smelled of smoke. While I was eating breakfast a little later, he burst in the door and apologized for the night before. Apparently, he had set up candles around his bed (??) before going to sleep. He says he must have "shifted" during his sleep because when he woke up at 5am his bed was on fire. "...And the flames were huge. There was hella smoke everywhere." I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't wake up until hours later when he was actually washing his blankets.

Today I'm going to mail some postcards, let me know if you want one. Yesterday I got my two first pieces of real mail: a birthday card from Ariana and one from Grandma White. They were both great.

I want to buy a woolen hat today. People rarely use the word 'woolen' anymore. English is losing those German-derived adjectives ending in -en (golden has become gold, but we still use rotten... which, you might want to note, is German for red). Back to discussing hats, the word toque is probably the only Canadian word that Americans don't understand. But somehow, they do understand the Australian term for toques, beanies. When I hear Australians say they're going to wear a beanie, I still can't help but picture them wearing propeller beanies like the Muppet Babies version of Fozzy Bear wore.

So... 23. Another little-known fact about me is that I've always loved that number. It's served to be very lucky in Roulette over the years as well. An activity that I do at work sometimes is have the students guess how old I am, which really amuses me. I would say that they'll usually guess around 25 or 26 (whereas other foreigners usually guess that I'm younger than I actually am). One of my students, though, when she found out that I was turning 23 today was shocked. She said something to the effect of thinking that I was a teenager.

I have just as hard a time guessing how old they are. This one guy the other day, who I thought was maybe a Junior High student, ended up being the same age as me. Other ones who I think might be around my age will end up being in their mid-thirties. I think people here age differently.

Tonight, I've organized for some people to meet up for my birthday. A couple of Jets are coming into town from the countryside, which is really nice. The tentative plan is to go sit down somewhere for a couple drinks (for those who work the next morning) and then maybe go to a club or something like that.

But first I have to work until 9pm, which is a bit annoying. People's birthdays should be holidays. One day... But luckily I've been planting some seeds all week in my students' minds about my upcoming birthday, so I'm really hoping for a present. I've heard they sometimes give presents. I don't think I'll get any, though, I'm too new. Well, we'll see.

Ryan