Boring day. Just me and my laptop. But things are getting done, and today I really enjoyed miso soup for the first time in ages. It was my first attempt at making miso soup without heating it (well, just a little) and it was quite nice!

Today I had:

huge green smoothie
2 huge bowls of hot raw miso soup (with myoga, cucumber, and baked satsuma)
currents

I slept after staying up late messing around on the Internet last night and spent the rest of the morning hours today doing the same. Then I finally settled down into my editing project. I have to finish it in a few days. It turns out that I will not be going to Osaka at the end of the month as hoped (to teach some Canada-bound HS students for a few days), as the powers that be decided it would be in their financial interests to find a local hire. In this economy, that is understood. It’s a downer for a person like me in need of extra income, though.

My aunt just sent me this video via email, so I just had to upload it and share here. Hopefully it’ll also give you 30 seconds of smiles, and a deep appreciation of marketing techniques:

Today I had:

green smoothie (no, this is not getting old!)
broccoli, cauliflower with leftover humus
peanuts
banana cacao ice cream
frozen raisins
lemon and water
Korean nori sheets (they have a lot of oil and salt…)

Today I was in Yotsuya, Tokyo, for the day testing locals for the oral component of the STEP test, the national English proficiency exam. I was paired with a lovely professor from Waseda University, and together we went through 30 test-takers, 10min. each, lasting the whole day. We struggled through the last few examinees due to fatigue, but the rest of the day went smoothly, and it was fascinating to meet the variety of people. We had one lady who had lived in Sri Lanka for many years, so her accent in English was interestingly more Indian than Japanese, and she was exceptionally well-versed in political and environmental issues. Another young man spent the latter part of his youth in Melbourne, and had a accent stronger than many native Aussies I have met in Japan. Quite a few graduate students in Japanese Universities were taking the test, and a majority of them had done undergraduate work in North America. In some cases it was hard to detect that they were not native speakers! Unfortunately the test also evaluates clarity and organization of thought, so this is where people lacking formal education were disadvantaged. As it was the first level, standards were very high and a great deal of tast-takers did fail, but most had a far better grasp of English than the learners I interact with on a day to day basis.

Today I ate:

green smoothie (fellow examiners were awed.)
zucchini pasta with tomato sauce
fresh papaya
papaya salad (minus the fishy stuff- went out for Thai after the test)
cooked veggies from remaining bento box
huge green salad with oil and vinegar
raisins
lemon juice and water

I was browsing the net last night I came across another great food-related documentary called “The World According to Monsanto.” YouTube has it broken down into 10 parts, which would take up too much real estate on my blog here, so here’s just part one for your enjoyment. This scares the crap out of me…

I spent the whole afternoon in front of my computer doing editing work, but it was a yummy day!

Today I had:

huge green smoothie
papayas
Asian salad
broccoli, carrots, and cucumber with humus
lemon and water
green tea

My students worked fairly diligently in a “free” class I let them have today, wherein they had the choice of working on one or more of several assignments. Deadlines are approaching, and most have left their work to the last minute, as we often all do.

I was very hungry this morning, even after my green drink. I should have chucked another banana in my smoothie, though there were already two. The more “high raw” you go, the more you have to eat, and I guess lately I’ve really been trying to cut back on the fats (which do the job as far as satiation goes), but not replacing the fat with more fruit and veggies.

Today I had:

green(ish) smoothie with lots of bananas
raisins
payayas
cherries
green salad with apple cider vinegar and sesame oil
Asian salad
bananas

I stayed up way too late last night working on class review activities, and as a result, slept in today. (It’s a good job I don’t work on Thursdays!) I spent the afternoon working at my laptop until a private student came, then after he left, I headed out the door for a monthly FEW (Foreign Executive Women) meeting. It’s quite a trek for me to get out to the Tokyo City Club and back (about 3.5 hours commuting time!), but it’s usually worth it. This evening’s presenters were a panel from the writing world - a publisher, a fiction writer, and a freelance writer. They enthusiastically dished out truckloads of advice on how to get your work published, and I was grateful for it, as I have a few ideas rumbling in my head that have actually made it in part to my keyboard.

At the end of the evening it is customary for FEW members to introduce themselves, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear a friend of mine announce to the group that she was on a raw food diet and feeling fantastic. She very much looked it too! I hadn’t intended to make such a statement about my own food journey when the MIC came around to me, but of course I was so excited after she told us that I had to proclaim that I myself was on day 93.  It was a great night for chatting with friends new and old and I wish there had been more time. I didn’t get home until midnight and now I have a stack of student papers to correct, however.

Today I had:

about a gallon of green smoothie, both with powdered wheat grass (ran out of leaves)
giant green mixed salad with pumpkin seeds, olive oil, and apple cider vinegar
carrot, celery, and daikon sticks
glass red wine
frozen raisins

My editing project arrived last night so this week will see a lot of time in front of the computer. I almost forgot- I will be doing the interview testing for the first level of the oral component of the Japanese STEP test this weekend too. The STEP test, or eiken, is Japan’s English language proficiency exam. It will be my first time doing it, so I am rather looking forward to it. It’s actually a little tricky to judge. Sometimes test-takers with seemingly wonderful fluency and pronunciation will have little in the way of vocabulary knowledge or content analyis or thought structure. (They are asked rather thought-provoking questions such as their views on cloning or the death sentence.) Others will be very obviously quite verbose, coming across as very educated and proficient in the subject matter, but lacking in simple grammatical English structures and clear expression in English. As I am used to Japanese English, I think I tend to grade such students as higher than they really are. In any case, I don’t anticipate it will be that easy to judge! On the other hand, I will be evaluating the top level, which I think is much easier than intermediate levels.

Good news! Angie & Andi Wolfgang are opening a raw food cafe in Shibuya called Manna. Angi is celebrating a birthday (a young one- lucky girl!) on the weekend too, so it should be a good opening party. Unfortunately, I have a private class in the evening, so I may not make it. It is a bit of a haul to get out to the city, and there is so much work I have to do now, so we’ll see.

I have had soba twice (three times?) now this week. Not raw, but there must be some sort of reason for this craving. I enjoyed every bit of it on each occasion, but have noticed that I don’t exactly feel bursting with energy afterward. I ate one time out, too, so I imagine there was some table salt in there somewhere.

I’m still on my papaya kick and very much enjoying them! The only problem is that it would seem a lot of other people are too. Twice I have dipped into the grocery store at my station on the way home from work, and they’ve been sold out. The prices are pretty good. Sometimes I can get one for less than 200 yen. They tend to go for as much as 500 yen elsewhere. (These are Japanese market papayas; not the big guys- they are about the size of a medium mango.)

Today I had:

green smoothie
papaya
cherries
pumpkin seeds
soba noodles and wakame
avocado and cacao pudding
banana ice cream with almonds
black olives
red wine
raisins