Oni's Pants and Bean-Throwing

鬼のパンツはいいパンツ

つよいぞ　　つよいぞ

(The oni's pants are great pants

They're very strong   They're very strong)

I've had this song stuck in my head since yesterday.  Tomorrow is Setsubun, so yesterday at both the daycare and the Other Job we had a visit from oni (Japanese demon? Ogre?).

At the daycare we sang the above song with the kids while a couple of the teachers snuck out to get demon-ified.  Granted since the kids are so young the masks they wore weren't the traditional, super-horrifying ones.  They were actually just paper bags decorated with colored paper to make the face.  Quite cute actually.  Each of the kids were given a bag filled with balled-up newspaper- in lieu of the traditional roasted soybeans- to throw at the "demons".  

Very little throwing happened, but there was plenty of wailing and tears!  One of the oldest boys tried his best to stand his ground and threw all the paper balls in his bag with tears running down his face.  The others, though, took refuge with me and the other teacher not acting as a demon, while M-sensei ran around with the camera taking pictures of the kids cowering and fleeing.  There was a great one she got of Yama-kun and Miwa-chan on my lap clinging to me, mouths open with red, tear-stained faces and me with a huge grin.

Oh, the crazy traditions here.  I love it.  Traumatizing for the kids, but great fun for the adults!

Today has been an absolute lazy day.  I've hardly left my bed except to go pee or to fetch food.  No shower.  No usual weekend cleaning.  I haven't been completely unproductive though.  I did do my laundry, got a voice recording done for K and his friend who are working on a song in English, and wrote up a letter for former coworker at the Other Job who is going to court against the company.  Yeah.  Part of the reason I haven't been blogging much the past month.  Just so much BS with that place and I feel like that's all I would really have to write about.  Nothing much else exciting going on.  

Silly internet things have been quite therapeutic, helping ease the work frustrations.  I've always been a fan of Youtube videos (as S and J can attest to!), but .GIFs are awesome too.

Beautiful girls gone... MRRGHFFL!

How I feel sometimes after work

And that's all for now.  Got cornbread in the toaster oven that needs sampling to see if it's suitable for the chili I plan on making tomorrow.  Should probably do a bit of straightening up and studying before bed too.