Gorgeous day, so decided to ride the bike to work today - I will certainly keep doing that, but it always seems like a huge hassle when coming back home again, - I'm all excited to read or whatever, and then it's like 'crap, I gotta bike for an hour to get back!'. Anyway, its if not good exercise at least some exercise, and God knows I need that right now!

Anyway, rolled up to work at about ten and got put straight to work writing a 550 word (on the dot I'll have you know), piece about meeting people in sports clubs and the such (more about the clubs themselves than the meeting people). I wrote about gyms, ski/snowboarding trips with the Tokyo Gaijins, the TG's upcoming summer trips (some of them look SO great!), futsal, yoga, basketball, scuba, and the power squadron. How random is it that there is a power squadron here where you need to be able to speak English to get in (and they have their socials at 'The Maple Leaf' which sounds suspiciously Canadian). Also put in a quick mention about the Super Bowl (which is at 8am here, head down to the pub for an all you can eat American Breakfast Buffet!).

Then I typed in Partyline captions and made sure that we had all of the photos to correspond with the captions, and made a spreadsheet so we'd know where everything was. Quick break for a snack and then I spent about two hours re organizing all of the back issues of Weekender which are stacked on a big shelf, and were a bit disorganized to say the least before today! I had to shuffle everything to make it more densely packed so I would have room for it all, and then also sort out the random singles that were floating around back into their main piles - I basically took over the little kitchenette area and a hallway between the two offices, but there was no where to go and it kept growing into a bigger and bigger job. Easy and satisfying to get done though.

I actually left at about four today for the first time, partly because I figured once in awhile I might as well leave on time, and also because I was starving, and had just finished the magazine moving, so it made sense to leave before starting a whole new project.

Stopped at Subway (where you can get big, yummy steak fries of all things!) for a late lunch and then read for a bit at Roppongi Hills before going to tutor. I've just started David Sedaris' book 'Naked' which is another memoir/story collection. Not my typical book, but I enjoyed 'Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim', and so far I'm enjoying this one as well, it is a bit more off the wall all around!

Headed off to tutor, which was fine as usual. I was talking about flags which had symmetry with the little boy, and I was pretty impressed with how many flags he knew about, especially in the middle east, which of course makes total sense. It was funny though, because I said something like 'how about Mexico'? and he goes 'wait, I thought Mexico was with America?' This kid has a pretty good grasp of Geography, but I can kind of see how you might think that, especially in the border areas. It was a pretty funny comment though! In the meantime, he taught me what the flags of Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and a couple of others looked like, it was fun :)

Biked home, which took forever, because my little cut through road was closed while they filmed something, and the guy just kind of vaguely told me to go back to the main road and turn left (cue random arm waving). Since I kind of knew where I was, I did so, and ended up going basically to the Canadian Embassy, then all the way along Aoyama Dori before finally getting back to Omotesando - what a looooooooong 'block' to go around! In the middle of that, my ipod died as well, so that was kind of lame! Anyway, got home at about 8:15 and started a massive cookie baking operation.

I've been wanting to bake cookies for a few days now, so I looked up a recipe on allrecipes.com and made chocolate chip cookies (except they also have chopped up Macadamia nuts and Hershey's candy coated kisses in them). I gotta say, I miss my cook books! Especially since I know that the cookies in my Better Homes and Gardens tome are soooo amazing!!! These ones actually taste pretty good, but they are super super thin (the crepe of cookies) and kind of a big crispy, whereas I prefer thick and chewy. Actually, it's probably good if I don't like them too much! I made a ton, so a bunch are going to my office, and I'll send a bunch to Orbitune tomorrow, the leftovers are more than enough for us!

While I was baking, I was watching a DVD Jordon lent me which is a documentary/behind the scenes two disc DVD about the Coachella Music Festival. It looks absolutely amazing and I'm putting it on my 'things to do before I die' list - any one coming with me?

Heading back downstairs now to watch some more and wait for Peter to get back.. work tomorrow but done nice and early b/c I don't teach, yay!

D