Last week I taught my favorite private student some language to use when talking about accidents and injuries, just for fun really. Stuff like, "I totaled my car," and "I sprained my ankle" and "I had to wear a cast for six weeks." The next day he got into a motorcycle accident on one of the main thoroughfares in Tokyo, spraining and cutting his ankle (seven stitches worth) and arms and damaging his bike. So now he's limping everywhere and his bike has to undergo $2,500 of repairs. Yikes!

This week I taught him the phrase "lactose intolerance," amongst other things, and am a little nervous about turning up for next week's lesson. Fortunately, Starbucks (where we meet) has soy lattes. This is Japan, after all -- soy to the left, soy to the right.

The moral of this story? I can't even speculate. But I feel dangerous.

Please take a moment to tour the online stylings of what is indubidably the best television comedy I've seen in a long time. Surpassed only by Seinfeld. And Joe Millionaire, though I don't think that was intentionally a comedy, exactly.

If you haven't heard about the train crash near Osaka (though it appears ot be well-publicised international news), it's pretty tragic. But, a testament to Japan's efficient system that nothing quite so bad has happened within the past forty years.

The marathon was much more Chicago than Pinckney -- very urban, less the 7 miles of frustratingly windblown rice fields. The 42 kilometers were peppered with the marathon's geriatric fan base, many of whom were waving 7-11 or NHK flags and shouting gambate (good luck) or some derivation thereof. And, the finish was in an Olympic Stadium -- a squishy baseball field, in fact, though for Nagano it was probably the curling venue. Surreal as the Japanese Marathon Experience was in some ways, I was grounded by the normalcy of it all. Por ejemplo the smells (including those wafting from the doorless urinals) were the same -- Prerace: BenGay, bandages, sneakers, grass and clean DryFit, Postrace: sweat, salt, sweat, feet, sun, sweat and asphalt.

A final thought: for those of you considering a 2006 running of the 8th Nagano Marathon, take note: POCARI SWEAT is the official sports beverage. In fact, getting dominated by those miles is worth it for the Pocari Sweat alone. Would I lie?

If 10 days a season make, then it's cherry blossom (sakura) season in Japan. Parks and sidewalks I've given only cursory glances over the past five months have morphed into breathtaking gardens boasting gigantic cherry trees adorned with lovely mildly-colored and mildly-scented blossoms. Many older folks seem to feel truly passionate about Hanami (the celebration associated with sakura), a passion I've gleaned from listening to students cite metaphor upon metaphor for sakura as symbolic of Japanese culture/history/society. For your grainy enjoyment, a photo of one of the cherry trees in Kunitachi that annually inspires such Japanese cultural verve.

Finished? Ok. So, after viewing the trees, the true version of Hanami begins. This non-metaphorical celebration involves intense inebriation within some sort of undesignated radius of the sakura. This experience is best encapsulated in photos from a real camera, but for now, this will have to do. Where are the lovely sakura, you ask? Somewhere . . . behind us? Above us? In the dark? Behind that guy over there running around with no pants? Next to that young lass vomiting in the bushes? Across from the urinating elderly gentleman? Behind the huge piles of trash? Towering above the students playing drinking games and/or partaking in karaoke? Who cares?! Where's my box of wine?

It may seem improbable, but some things can make a girl miss the Crossroads of America. Alas, a Ballooning In Indiana postcard isn't one of them. Thanks anyway, Miguel!

p.s. CNN on my mobile telly just informed me that Saul Bellow recently passed, and though I can't claim to have been an avid reader up to this point, I can claim that Lana Crandall gave me Sieze the Day for my 15th birthday, and I always liked it, despite it being kinda melancholy.

Fuchu-Hommachi, one stop away from my new apartment, is home to a full-on horse racing track. More important than the existence of the track is what Jerry Seinfeld would say about it, I think. Anyway, maybe when the Kentucky Derby rolls around I'll be celebrating Japan style -- which may or may not have anything to do with mint juleps. I'll let you know. The new apt. itself is great: clean and pleasantly aromatic, centrally located, well-organized and spacious. So far, I love it -- nothing but good to say.

My UNICEF fundraising effort is going well. I am just over halfway to the $1,000 goal what with both online pledges and check-in-the-mail pledges, so thanks for that! Due to problems caused by the most recent quake (not turned tsunami, thankfully) near Sumatra, UNICEF is most assuredly still using funds and directing them to the appropriate areas of relief. The marathon is in 2.1546 weeks.

I bought Ultimate Manilow and Guero at HMV a couple days ago with an emotional combination of excitement, embarrassment, guilt and thrill. The experience was well worth expending the emotions involved, though, because playing Mandy in the staff room created a language-transcendent bond between the French, German and English teachers that totally surpassed any bond experienced before or since. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

Wao! Also, is anyone else's bracket totally whack? My final 4 are long gone.