an island life for me

short blog, 'cause i'm tired.
internet has been out for a few days and before that i was too busy relaxing on the island to bother with posting.
started working with two students on the speech contest. "th" sound and "v" sound seem to give them the most trouble, so if anyone has any ideas of how to teach that, aside from showing how the lips, tongue and teeth move while making sounds, please let me know..
the past weekend was a really good one, although it has been hot, it's been fun.
saturday went to check out waterfalls in the north and went swimming there. beautiful spot, lots of people, and a few marines in the bunch. was kind of weird seeing other "gaijin" (foreigners) checking out the spot where so many japanese feel that we're invading their territory.
saturday went to the Ogimi matsuri (festival) which was nice but nothing special. that evening went to Okuma navy resort, which Gabrielle and I, as residents of nearby Ogimi are allowed to enter. the resort is for all branches of the American military.. it is basically a vacation spot for the the forces on the island. there's golf, restaurant, nice beaches, water sports, activities for kids, a small store, etc.
we had mongolian barbeque there, which was very good and then watched a few drunken marines make fool of themselves by dancing in front of a live band..
a bit strange, once again, to have the ability to "enter" so to speak American territory and see young american kids everywhere..
i don't know if i exactly like having it so close, but at the same, it really makes the Okinawa experience that much more unique. One the one hand, Sunday night i enjoyed watching very traditional Okinawa drum dancing and ate Okinawan food..and the night before that i listened to an American band play "Sweet Home Alabama" while drunken boys swayed to the rhythm.

tomorrow night i'm setting off for the south. We have a conference for the new Okinawa JETs and then we're off to an island called Tokashiki or better known as "paradise" for Saturday and Sunday.

tonight we went to see the film "Island" at Camp Schwab. 4$ will get one into a newly redone movie theater...it was an interesting experience in finding settle advertisement hints.. oh wait.. they weren't subtle..were they? no... quite blatant, in fact.. the film was entertaining and the acting was decent. I especially liked Boromir as an evil scientist.

the air is cool outside my window. it rained tonight and brought the temperature way down. last night it was hard falling asleep in the heat, even with two fans going at top speed. tonight will be nicer.

cheers