Potter Preparations

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18

I had today off from classes at Kogyo. I still had to be there, of course, so I spent the whole day lesson planning. I had to make the final exam, which, for some reason, always takes longer than it should. Like all my exams, this one was cobbled together. I spent a good part of the day injuring the Nintendo character Yoshi. He has a broken leg, burned finger, bloody nose and a blister on his foot. I live to amuse my students.

I also had to get a copy of my lesson plan to Seth for Wednesday's lesson at Nishi, so I had to bang that out as well. I'd sent Tamora an e-mail the previous week asking if the next lesson would be a review or new content. She had misunderstood and sent back a (slightly condescending) e-mail saying that this lesson would be the same as the previous week's because we hadn't done it twice yet. But, I clarified with her in class and it was decided that we would have a bit of new material but mostly review.

I struggled to figure out what to teach and eventually decided on pointers related to directions (so it ties in.) “It's on the right of the...”, “It's next to...”, “It's above...” etc. Something easy and practical. So, I started working on the worksheets for that lesson.

I couldn't work late, as I had things I needed to do after school. Namely, I needed to shop. See... Harry Potter is being released tomorrow and I need to get my costume ready. Ginny and I are going together. I'd spent last night browsing The HP Lexicon trying to figure out who to be. I can't get too complicated, as my options and wardrobe are limited. I eventually decided up on Bellatrix, owing to my black skirt and shirt and the fact that I thought I could pull off her hair, albeit not black.

There were some things I wanted: a black corset or, barring that a black, thick belt, long black gloves or fake nails, pale face powder, black eyeshadow, fake eyelashes, and black boots. I did, wonder of wonders find a black corset but even if I doubted it would fit a gaijin, I had no interest in it's $90 price tag. I bought a $3 belt that worked just as well, if not better. I couldn't find black gloves, but got good at asking. Claire's had bright pink ones, but that just wouldn't work. I browsed various hyaku-en stores for my stuff, but eventually got almost everything I needed. The last one didn't have fake nails (?!?!) so I vowed to pick them up the next day on my way home from work.

Boots were both too small and out of my price range for something not that great.

At home, I washed my hair and put it up in three french braids (which is hard to do on your own hair. Then I braided those so it looked a bit more respectable at work. I expect to receive comments on it today.