another Ten Minutes

Here I am, sitting in my semi-heated apartment, cold but not wanting to leave. In ten minutes I must go out into the wind and snow (which is really quite mild to what it sounds like it's like in Saskatoon these days...we actually got snow that stayed this week) and walk to the church to plan my lessons for today and tomorrow. I hate planning. If I've learned one thing this year is that I'm a horrible planner, and I need a mother with me everywhere to sit me down at the beginning of each month and write out a schedule for myself.
Maybe it's not just that I hate planning, but I hate the fact that I have something to do. This week is my first week off of holidays, and I was just starting to unwind and relax, only to be thrust back into this endless cycle of teaching and learning and frustration.
I am also getting antsy to come back home; it's been almost a year since I've been gone. I'm ready to step back into the life I've called mine since I was a child, instead of constantly being stretched into someone that is so totally foreign to me. I had the first Japanese lesson I've had in almost two months this morning, and my teacher re-checked with me that I was still planning on going home the first week of May. I was like yup! - all happy that it's almost May (despite the fact that it just turned winter here...), and then she threw me off by saying, 'good! Another half year!' and I just about choked. I was just starting to think coming home was close, and then I get blindsided by the thought of being here for another half year. Even though in reality it's only another four months, it was a good reminder to keep my head in Japan while I'm here.
But at least I have things to look forward to in this never-ending coldness of winter in Japan. (It's not that it really gets any colder than freezing, it's just that every room you live in is about that temperature too, so you never completely warm up.) Kaila is coming as a teacher, getting into Japan tomorrow and coming up to Takanosu on Tuesday; it will be nice to have someone my age around again. And by the time I start finding fluency in English again by conversing with Kaila, Heather will be here, for which I am eternally excited (whatever that means...it just sounded good :) )
But alas I have gone three minutes past my ten and I now have to complete the rest of the day in teacher mode, back to teaching real classes because Christmas play practice is behind us. How disappointing.
Another day in a string of days that become weeks and months that I must think about only one at a time.