Work was very quiet today, it was just myself and two sales people in. I had thought that I was going to have a pretty easy day, but in the end, the article I had to write ended up being really challenging! It's hard to write about things you don't really know much about which is what was happening today - trying to take like thirty pages of information about Ireland and turn it into an interesting travel article, which for some reason, ended being way harder than it sounds like it should have been! I was having issues finding a good hook or connecting thread I think. In the end, I didn't get it quite finished, so I'm either going to look at it tonight, or more likely, first thing tomorrow morning and email it in to them.

I did find one pretty cool thing to do in Ireland (well and most of the UK actually) which is to stay in a castle. I guess I knew you could do it, but I've never really looked at pictures or anything. I found this great website all about it today though, and spent some time browsing around a bit. I really want to stay at Ashford Castle! (since 1228!) where you can go riding in the 'indoor school', or on the grounds, learn archery, or try your hand at falconry! It's all very lord and lady of the manor, quite cool!

You can also rent smaller castles by the week for just your family, they usually have a modern style kitchen, and then fairly grand old living quarters to stay in, pretty gorgeous and very cool!

Anyway, left work around 4:40, so I had enough time to eat a snack before teaching, and as usual, took my break sitting in the weird kind of open part in the bottom of the Roppongi Hills Metro Hat Building... I'm reading a really odd book right now called Sophie's World. On the back cover blurb it says: "Sophie's World is set to become a unique popular classic: a wonderfully engaging mystery story that also forms a completely accessible and lucid introduction to philosophy and philosophers". It sounds like it should be interesting, and it is, but its got a very weird feeling about it, like the story is getting lost in the philosophy, or that it is just a very very very thinly veiled textbook, whereas I get the impression they actually want it to be a story which happens to have philosophy in it, as opposed to the other way around. I wonder if part of it is that it is translated, but I don't think that could be the whole issue! I'll read a bit more and see what I think, otherwise it would be a great phil 101 textbook!

Anyway, went to teach, which was fine. The little girl loves 'scary things that scare me', so she brought home a book version of Disney's Hercules, and was enjoying the cyclops and Hades and all of that. This book is waaaay too hard for her though! It's 90 pages with quite a bit of text on each page and some pretty challenging words and concepts. It's also written with some slang, so trying to explain a sentence like 'then the boss-man up on high, Zeus did decree', can be pretty challenging! It's exhausting to read because each page requires a translation on my part, and I definitely feel like I don't always make it simple enough in the end. I asked her if she wanted to try another book that was a bit easier, but she's determined to work our way through this one, so I told her to get it back out of the library and we'll work through it a few pages a night.

Got home at about eight and ended up going the most annoying kind of low, which luckily barely ever happens, where I don't feel low, just really, really, really tired, and like my whole body weighs a million pounds and I'm off in some heavy fog somewhere on and off for the whole evening. Very annoying! It also means I didn't get anything (like that article, which is what I'd hoped to do) done, because I couldn't peel myself into any sort of upright position. I've finally emerged from that cloud though, so maybe I'll have a quick look at my article before bed, though I'm really tempted to wait till I have fresh eyes in the morning. Peter should be home soon, (its 11), so I can maybe see what the plan is going to be for tomorrow and then make some kind of decision about the rest of the night...

D