So in news completely unrelated to Japan, I saw on AOL today that pirates still exist. How awesome is that? I'm seriously contemplating dropping out of school and leading out the rest of my life as a pirate now. Anyway, so things have been okay here. I have finals/papers due this week. I just finished the first half of my Japanese final and part of it was harder than I expected, but I think I did alright. Tomorrow is the grammar portion of the test, so I need to study hardcore tonight. This weekend, it snowed for the first time. I was really excited when I woke up and saw the snow. I went out and took pictures of my neighborhood and neighborhood temple/cemetary in the snow. I posted them on my picture page...very pretty. I also went out for sushi with my host parents and their son-in-law, Makoto. It was fun. Although whenever I go out with them, they always buy me too many drinks and then I can't study afterward. I don't know if I said anything about this on my blog yet, but Minako(their daughter and Makoto's wife) is pregnant and I found out on Saturday night that she's having twins. Apparently in Japan, there's this tradition that when women get pregnant (for the first time at least) they return to the house of their parents and their mother takes care of them before and after the birth. So Minako is coming to live with us today or tomorrow and will continue to live at our house until a couple of months after the birth. I think they probably do that because the men work so much here that they can't really be there to take care of their wives when they're pregnant, so it's better for them to have their mother taking care of them. The babies are coming in May or June, so I'm pretty excited. I've never been around for a pregnancy/birth before. Other than that, I'm planning a trip to Hokkaido. They have a big snow festival in Sapporo in February with lots of ice sculptures and activities centering around snow. It should be pretty fun if we can still find a hotel. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. Also, I have another job now, besides the kindergarten one. I'm writing practice questions to help people prefer for an English exam (basically their version of the TOEFL), I get paid about $30 for each one I write, and they're pretty fun/easy to do. So that's good. Well, I hope everyone is well in America. Peace.