さよなら二島！

Happy daylight savings time! I have to say that not having the time change in Japan is kind of nice. Also, I'm sorry for no update last week! I started a new schedule and I was incredibly busy! The schedule for JET ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) in Kitakyushu gets very hectic during Spring! I have already visited one new school (Minami Kokura) and will visit three more different schools by next Monday. This craziness happens because the private company ALTs stop working during this time. Normally, there are many ALTs working around the city from many private companies as well as JET. A big difference between JET ALTs and private companies ALTs is that private company ALTs can only work 8 months out of the year so that the private companies don't have to offer health insurance. Now is the time of year the private company ALTs stop working, and the JET ALTs have to visit all the schools in the city to fill in the gaps. This means I will spend only a few days at all these different schools and travel all around the city. It's a lot of work!

Last week was also a very sad week for me. Wednesday was my last day in Futajima Junior High School. I had an amazing time with the teachers and students there and I really wish I could stay for next year, but unfortunately it's not my decision. I taught every class between Monday and Wednesday last week to say goodbye to all the students. I had a meeting at the board of education in the afternoon on Wednesday, so I had to leave school early. Before I left, I walked around to all the classes again to say goodbye. I gave a speech in English and Japanese in the teachers room for all the staff. I will really miss that school! One of the English teachers gave me a really nice scarf, the office staff gave me some cookies, and the principal gave me a cake. The most touching thing was given to me by my students. Every class made and decorated a little book. In the book was message cards written by every student in the class. Some are in English and some in Japanese, one book even has the school song written in it! It was really amazing! I also got to go around school and take pictures with students and teachers. I wish I could share those pictures with you, but it is not allowed to post any pictures with students. Even when I left the school for the last time, one of the women who works in the office gave me a ride all the way to Orio (a train station about 20 minutes away). I will see the teachers again for one last enkai this week, but I will not go back to the school again.

The reason Futajima is having an enkai this week is because of 卒業式 (sotsugyoushiki, graduation ceremony). Middle school graduation in Kitakyushu is on Thursday! I will be going to Shinozaki (my other base school) for the ceremony, but I opted to go to Futajima's enkai to be able to see all the teachers one last time. I'm very excited to see a graduation ceremony for the first time in Japan!

Also this week I went to Japanese Costco for the first time! Just like in college, it pays to have a friend with a car! Japanese Costco looks exactly like American Costco. Even the layout is the same. They also have a little restaurant just like the ones back home with those huge hot dogs. They have people giving out samples. I was able to get some imported food (real cheese!) even thought it was a bit expensive. Not super exciting, but kind of interesting!

Even with my hectic schedule, I have a lot I'm looking forward to! Tomorrow I'm having a dinner party with some of my friends to celebrate my new chairs. (An old chair that was broken before I got here had nails sticking up out of it and I was always worried someone would hurt themselves.) Like I said earlier, graduation is coming up this week. Spring vacation starts on the 25th and 花見 (hanami, flower watching - all the sakura trees start to bloom) is also at the end of the month along with another visit from Mike! Although March started off with a sad goodbye, it seems like the rest of the month will be very exciting!

Seoul-ful Wedding!

This weekend I took my first trip outside of Japan since moving here! I left after work on Friday and about an hour plane ride out of Fukuoka airport and I was in Soeul! I traveled with my friend Juha who had been to Korea five times previously, but his last time in Seoul was a few years ago. We flew into Incheon airport, which is about an hour away from Seoul Station by train. We got in late, but found our hotel before midnight and did a little exploring before bed. We stayed in Yeongdeungpo, the same district as the wedding was taking place. Much to my excitement, the hotel we stayed in was called the Lexington!

Juha and I met Patrick and Leah the next morning for breakfast. We ended up going to a 7 Eleven for gum. The 7 Eleven was right outside a subway station and when we came out the street was flooded with people and cameras! They must have been shooting a scene for a movie or TV show because they had a camera and a boom mic set up facing the subway station! I think it was a scene with extras. There were a ton of people standing behind the camera . When the director yelled) what I assume is) the Korean equivalent of "Action!" the people would walk past the station down the street. After a few seconds, everyone started to murmur and huddle together while pointing to something in the distance. I think it might have been some kind of disaster they were supposed to be seeing. We didn't stick around long, but it was really cool to see!

We walked to the wedding hall and were there by 10:45, 15 minutes before the wedding started. We dropped off our gift and talked with Dan's family for a bit before finding out seats. The ceremony was beautiful. It took elements from Korean tradition, Western tradition, and some really cool things I've never seen before! Both mothers started the ceremony by walked down the aisle together and each lighting a candle by the alter and bowing to each other. They were wearing beautiful Korean hanboks in incredibly vibrant colors. Next, Dan walked down the aisle where he was soon joined by Young Lim and her father. Her father gave her hand to Dan before finding his seat. Both sets of parents each had special seats on either side of the aisle. I didn't understand much of what was said because it was all in Korean, but it sounded short and sweet. There were even two assistants dedicated to walking around and fixing Young Lim's dress, spreading out the train and veil just right and adjusting everyone's clothes as needed. Sometimes I think they were a bit over ambitious with fixing the parents' clothes, but it was pretty funny to see these two running around adjusting shirts and skirts.

After the vows were exchanged, Young Lim had some friends come up and sing songs. It was really cool! Two of her friends started by each singing her one song. Then two more friend came up. They sang a little together, but they mostly danced! They sang pop songs and even had outfit changes to mimic the outfits in the music videos for the songs! They ended with Gangnam Style and wore horse heads! They dragged Dan off the aisle and had him dance in the middle as if he were PSY! It was great!

After the ceremony we went upstairs for a buffet lunch. There was all kinds of food, both western and Korean, and it was great! We got to talk to Dan and Young Lim a little as they walked around to thank everyone for coming, but we didn't get to see much of them. We were meeting them for dinner later, so we decided to head off and see some sights while they finished up. We ended up walking to the 63 building. It is a building with 63 floors that houses an art museum, aquarium, IMAX, wax museum, and observatory. We went up to the observatory where the tallest art gallery in the world is held. The exhibition featured was called "Beatles Generation" and included many pictures of the Beatles as well as abstract expressionist works from the 60s. It was really cool to see, especially with a great view of Seoul from the observatory! The only thing that would have made it nicer is if Seoul wasn't so smoggy so we could have seen more.

Outside the 63 building was a tower with what looked like huge speakers at the top. It took us a minute, but we eventually figured out it was an alarm. We had previously noticed that almost all the subway stations had giant glass cases full of gas masks in case North Korea attacks. The tower tower we saw is an alarm in case of the same situation. It's a little jarring to see everywhere, but it makes a lot of sense.

We eventually meet Dan, Young Lim, and some more friends for dinner. Young Lim's parents invited all the foreigners to an amazing Korean BBQ restaurant as a thank you for coming all the way to Korea for the wedding. We had a great time and ate a lot of amazing food! It was also nice to talk more with Dan's brother and sister and all the other guests from around the globe.

After dinner most of us went across the street to karaoke. There were probably about 20 of us and I think the room we were given was bigger than my apartment! There were three TVs and couches along three walls. There were tables to one side full of beer, soju, and snacks. The room was big enough for all of us to dance and we stayed for three hours! It was so much fun! People started to head home after that, but I stayed with Juha, Young Lim, and Dan and his siblings. We ended up in a university district full of clubs and bars. We were a bit tired by then (especially Dan and Young Lim), so we found a quite restaurant on the third floor or a bar overlooking the streets. We had a few more drinks, but mostly snacked and talked. Eventually we all started to feel tired and headed off on our separate ways back to our hotels.

The last day in Seoul was pretty uneventful. We slept in and took our time getting up. We checked out around 11:30 and meet Patrick and Leah. We headed into Myeong-dong for lunch. It was a really nice place with lots of shops! We took a look around before heading back to the airport and ended up back home a little after 9:00 PM. It was a great trip and I hope to go back soon to have more time to spend in Seoul!

誕生日おめでとう！

I had a great birthday weekend! On Friday, my actual birthday, I had school, but I spent most of the time with my 三年生 (sannensei, third year students). Some of the 三年生 are still taking high school entrance exams, so we spend the time playing English games with the students who were in class. My schedule in March becomes more hectic as the private ALTs will be on vacation, so I will be going to five schools instead of just two, so it was nice to spend some time with the students since I will only have three more days at Futajima in March before moving to a new base school.

After school I meet up with my friend Leah, who's birthday was the next day. We went to Lush and had a quick shopping spree before meeting Patrick, Tomoko, and Yukiko. We went to 白木屋 (Shirokiya), an izakaya that was amazing! We had a course dinner with 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, all you can drink). The dinner was served over two hours and consisted of salad, edamame, sashimi, karaage (friend chicken), yakitori (chicken on a stick), okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake kind of stuff with egg and sauce), french fries, and motsunabe (soup heated at the table with tofu and cow intestines). Everything was delicious! We even got small pastries with strawberry and chocolate ice cream inside for dessert! It was a lot of fun, but it was eventually time to leave so Tomoko and Yukiko could catch the last train home. We said goodbye and Patrick, Leah, and I walked home. Leah had packed a bag and stayed the night at my apartment. (She stays over so often she has her own shelf in my bathroom!)

The next day Leah and I slept in. When we did get up, we started working on making some chocolates! Throughout the day we made small chocolates with caramel crunch on top as well as truffles with chocolate ganache in the middle and almond powder or cocoa powder on the outside. It was a lot of fun to make, but we also made a huge mess! In between making chocolates we had a mini, at-home spa day with the stuff we'd gotten from Lush the day before. We had so much fun putting on face masks and getting ready for the night! We even got a shimmy shimmy bar (lotion with lots of glitter in it) and enjoyed getting glitter on everything. (Well, everything except the chocolates, we made sure to keep those clean!) We packaged up the chocolates into 18 gift bags and met Patrick at 6:50 to head over to the restaurant!

As a combined party for both Leah and I we invited a bunch of people to 牛さくら (gyuusakura), a yakiniku place we both really like. We had a great time hanging out with our friends and ended up staying for over two hours! After the restaurant a few people had to go home, but most of us continued out to karaoke. We stayed at karaoke for another two hours and had a great time! A few of us ended up staying out even a little bit later to get a late night snack and eventually Leah and I walked back to my apartment. We'd given out the chocolate as little gift bags and everyone enjoyed them! We had also gotten some great things including wine, chocolates, homemade sweets (chocolate covered strawberries in mochi! Yum!), and sparkly make-up. It was a great night and one of my favorite birthdays so far!

Leah left early for church on Sunday, but I slept in again. I got up in time to meet my friend Fumiko for lunch at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant that was delicious! Fumiko had only been able to stay for dinner the night before because she had come straight from work, so we ended up sitting and talking at the restaurant well after our all-you-can-eat time expired. We eventually ventured out and headed to the fish store for me to get my ふぐ (fugu, pufferfish). I got two green spotted puffer and they are so cute! Fumiko came over and we watched a movie while we waited for the fish to acclimate to the new water before fully releasing them into the tank. When the fish were ready, we let them swim around and explore and they seemed to enjoy their new home!

I had a great weekend and I'm looking forward to heading off to Korea on Friday!

Birthday Weekend!

This Friday is both Valentine's Day and my birthday! I'm very excited to be spending both of these in Japan!

In Japan, girls make chocolates and give them to the boys they like on Valentine's Day. Because of this tradition, all of the 百円 shops (hyaku en, dollar stores) have giant bars of chocolates, mix ins, molds, and cute wrappers. My friend Leah and I went on a shopping spree (as much of a shopping spree as you can have in a dollar store, anyway) and bought a bunch of chocolates. Although I don't have anyone here to make chocolates for, we though it would be fun to make them all the same! We got cute wrappers with hedgehogs on them and are going to try to make both caramel crunch drop chocolates and truffles flavored in almond, cocoa, and strawberry. Hopefully all goes well and I'll have some delicious looking chocolates to show you next week!

Leah's birthday is the day after mine, so we are celebrating together. On my birthday we are going to meet after school and have a nice dinner out. Then head to Lush, do a little shopping, and start making chocolate! On her birthday, Saturday, we'll finish making chocolate and have an at-home spa day with the things we got from Lush the day before. We'll paint each other's nails, put on face masks, and generally lie around the house and have a good time. We also have reservations at a restaurant called 牛さくら (gyusakura). It's one of my favorite restaurants in the city and serves 焼肉 (yakiniku, grilled meat). The tables all have little grills in them, so you pick your meats and vegetables and grill everything at you table. It's a lot of fun and the food is always amazing! We have some of our other ALT friends coming as well as a few new friends. We'll spend the night out and have a good time! We also want to give everyone some of the chocolate we make as little goody bags!

Another thing that will happen on Saturday is that I will get to pick up my new fish! I've been preparing the tank for a while now and will soon have some cute green spotted puffer fish as pets! I'm very excited! They are small, but very cute. Hopefully I will have some pictures of them as well next week. The next weekend I'm off to Korea for a wedding and I'm super excited for these two upcoming weekends!

下関

Hello!

I'm sorry! I know I have not been updating as regularly. I didn't have a very exciting last two weeks, but this month should be better! This coming weekend I have a game day in Fukuoka, the next weekend is my birthday (as well as Leah's) and we have a lot planned, and the third weekend is Korea for my friend's wedding!

Despite my lack of excitement, I did have a great day on Sunday! I met two of my friends, Dave and Fumiko, at the train station and we took the 15 minutes ride to 下関 (Shimonoseki). 下関 is a city located on the southern most tip of Honshu, the biggest island of Japan. 下関 is very famous for ふぐ (fugu, pufferfish) and there is a beautiful warf I had been to only twice before. the weather was perfect, although not at all what I normally experience on the second day in February. It was in in the 50's and the sun was peaking through clouds. We walked along the warf until we came to 唐戸市場 (karato ichiba), the fish market there. We walked around tasting different foods for a while. We eventually settled on a few different plates to split for lunch, including some giant sushi. We brought our food back outside and found a bench to sit and eat on next to the water. There were performers outside and we sat in between a band and a magician.

After having lunch, we grabbed some ice cream and found a nice spot to sit and overlook the water. A lot of people were fishing and we even saw a couple doing a wedding shoot by a small light house! We decided that although we were ready to head home, we didn't want to get back on the train just yet. So we caught a ferry over to 門司港 (Mojiko), the northern most point of Kyushu island where I live. Shimonoseki and Mojiko are very close and the ferry ride only took five minutes, but sitting on top of the small boat on such a nice day was a great way to travel.

We took a train back from Mojiko and did some shopping. We went to Kaldi, an imported food store, and a fish pet store. Dave has a fish tank and wanted some shrimp to put in it. The store was incredible! It had tons of different types of fish and even had a small sting ray! It had turtles and frogs and even a few non-fish pets including a hedgehog! It was really cool to look around and reminded me of being back at Hofstra and going to the fish stores with my friend Reid. We spent over an hour looking at everything in the store and had a lot of fun! We caught a bus back to Dave's apartment when we finished and made some dinner. All in all it was a great day!

Today, February 3rd, is 節分 (Setsubun), a bean throwing festival in Japan that is preparation for Spring. Beans are thrown out the door of your house. Sometimes fathers will dress up like an Oni, Japanese demon, and children will throw beans at him instead. People can also say, 「鬼は外! 福は内!」(Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!, Demons out! Luck in!)while throwing the beans. For school lunch today I had some roasted soy beans and was also given beans by some of my coworkers. Some of the beans were even coated in frosted sugar! The packages all these came in had cartoon Oni on them and some said 「鬼は外! 福は内!」. Traditionally roasted soy beans are used for tossing, but more recently peanuts still in their shell have been used since the beans are sometimes eaten after being thrown. I would rather have a peanut from the floor than a soybean from the floor!

Another thing going on now is the private high school entrance exams. This week my 三年生 (sannensei, third year students) are taking their High School Entrance Exams. In Japan, students don't go to high school by district like we do in America. Instead, they take a test during their last year of middle school and based on that test they are accepted or rejected from different high schools in the area. They are testing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This exam is for private high schools and they will take another test in March for the public high schools. I'm wishing all my students a lot of luck during their exams!

Game Day and Upcoming Plans

My last week and a half have been pretty uneventful. After spending so much time traveling in the beginning of the month I needed a little break. So I've been staying local and hanging out with friends. I've spent a lot of time with Leah, which was really nice because I didn't get a chance to see her much over break. I also had the first game day of 2014. It was a huge success! We had a great turn out and played seven or eight different games, a few were even new to me! Some new people came and I made a new friend who used to live in Jouno, the town next to Shiragane where I live. He now lives in Fukuoka city, but it was fun to talk about all the different things around my apartment and he even had some good restaurant suggestions!

Another reason I've been busy and not gotten out too much is because I've been working on a big project for the Kitakyushu Board of Education. All the Kitakyushu JETs were split into groups of four and were told to make lesson plans for every part of the textbook. I am working on the 一年生 (ichinensei, first year) textbook. I wanted to work with the ichinensei book, but realized later that there are eleven units with three of four parts each in the book. The 二年生 (ninensei, second year) and 三年生 (sannensei, third year) have only six and seven units respectively. As you can imagine, this leaves my group with a lot more work to do. I volunteered to be the leader for our group just before winter vacation, so I've been makings sure everyone knows what they need to get done so we can finish at the same time as the other groups (half way through March). I've spent a lot of time in the past weeks making time tables, formatting lesson plans, and organizing everyone's lessons into a single word document. It's taken a lot of time, but it will be very useful to current and future JETs when we finish! I'm actually really excited to see

everything when we finish it! Another this I'm excited for is February. First, there is another game day the weekend of the 9th. My birthday is the weekend after and Leah's birthday is the day after mine on February, 15th. We're planning a nice weekend for the two of us hopefully including onsen. The weekend after that I'm heading to Korea! A friend of mine, Dan, is getting married in Seoul and I'm going for the wedding. I won't have a lot of time to explore since I'm only going for the weekend (leaving Friday after work and coming back Sunday evening), but I'm really excited! Juha and Kyoko (and maybe Dave, Fumiko, and Patrick) are flying over with me and staying at the same hotel. Juha has been to Korea a few times and says he'll show me around a little if there's time. I'm really excited!

All in all things have been pretty boring and full of work for me, but I should have a lot of fun once February gets here!

A Late Christmas and New Years!

I can't believe it's been three weeks since I've posted something! I've been incredibly busy. The day after my last post I had a great time at my bonenkai. I went out with my coworkers from Shinozaki to a great sushi restaurant where we ate and drank for almost three hours! Everyone brought a 500 yen present to dinner for a Christmas game. I bought a small, reusable grocery bag as my gift. Halfway through the meal we were separated into teams by our tables. Each team was given a bingo card and we played bingo. When a team got bingo, everyone from that team got a random present. The presents were opened in front of everyone and the person who originally brought the gift was always acknowledges. We played until everyone had gotten a present. I got two small cupcakes and they were delicious! I didn't go to the nijikai (second party) because I had to get up at 7:00 AM the next morning to catch the train to Tokyo!

Patrick and I boarded the shinkansen for Tokyo at 7:46 AM Saturday morning and arrived in Shinagawa station around 1:00 PM. Our hotel was only a minute or two walk from the station and we were on the 22nd floor, so we had an amazing view of the city! We had a great time in Tokyo! We went shopping in Shibuya, exploring in Akihabara, sightseeing in Asakusa, walking in Shinjuku, people watching in Harajuku, museum hopping in Ueno, and partying in Roppongi. We meet Aiyaka, a friend of Patrick's from Fukuoka who was also visiting Tokyo, and went out with her and her friends during our second night in Tokyo. I went out a few more times with one of Aiyaka's friends who lives in Tokyo and knew a lot of great places to go! She was really nice and even met Patrick and I for lunch on the day we left. Patrick and I made it up Tokyo Tower and to the Skytree. We did a lot of sightseeing all over the city as well as a lot of shopping. I also did a lot of exploring on my own, mostly in Shinjuku and Ueno. I was really excited to be back in Tokyo after spending a month there with HIJ 2012!

Christmas Eve, although it was my first away from family, was amazing! Patrick and I went out in Shibuya with another friend of ours, Aki. We had a great dinner at a restaurant Aki knew. It wasn't very fancy, but it was good food! It was an izakaya, so it had a lot of different food for us to try. We spent the night going out to various bars, making new friends, singing karaoke, and even getting a few small gifts. It was a great night and I still can't believe I spent Christmas in Tokyo!

As much fun as I had in Tokyo, I was very happy to come back to Kitakyushu. Especially knowing my family would be getting into Fukuoka that same night! Their plane landed around 9:45 PM, so they went straight to their hotel and then to bed. I didn't meet them until the next morning, but it was so great to see them! We spent our first day together looking around Fukuoka city. I ended up running into a friend of mine, Tomoko, on the train from Kokura (near me) to Hakata (where my parents and brother were staying). Whe was also heading into Fukuoka for a concert, so we decided to got dinner together that night with my family after her concert.

The next morning we woke up and took the shinkansen to Kyoto! For Christmas, my brother and I booked a ryokan, Japanese style hotel, in Kyoto for my parents and us to stay in. I wanted them to be able to see the more traditional side of Japan. Since it was the day before New Years, it was very crowded! It's traditional in Japan for people to visit family and go to temples around New Years. Although people often visit temples after New Years, the temples were still very busy! We got to Kyoto pretty late, but we still managed to see the Yasaka shrine. It's not a very big or famous shrine, but it was near our ryokan and it looked really nice at night, especially with all the New Years decorations on it. We started the following day by going to 金閣寺(Kinkakuji, Golden Pavilion). It was great to go back somewhere I had enjoyed visiting before and to show my family one of the most famous places in Kyoto. We also went to the 伏見稲荷大社 (Fushimi Inari Taisha) shrine, the head shrine to Inari (god of rice). I had not been there before and it was amazing! It had thousands of torii gates leading up a mountain. There were so many gates that it felt like a tunnel when walking through!

We were only in Kyoto for one night, so we caught a shinkansen back to Kitakyushu after seeing the temple and shrine. My brother and I met some of my friends, Dave and Andy, that night and had a good welcome back to Kitakyushu. The next day we spent walking around Kitakyushu. We saw Riverwalk, Kokura Castle, and ChaCha Town. I also got to show my parents my apartment. My brother and I went out again with Dave and Andy that night for New Years. We were joined by Leah and Patrick. We spent most of New Years Eve hanging out around my table, but went to Riverwalk next to Kokura Castle before midnight. There were food vendors set up along the river and we had a great night counting down to the new year surrounded by people.

Shops had vendors set up as well and started selling bags at midnight. Slightly similar to our Black Friday, Japan has a lot of sales right after New Years. Although it is not nearly as intense as back home, shops often offer grab bags and huge sales. The grab bags are full of items that together are worth much more than what you paid for the bag, but you don't know what items you got until you open it at home. While still at school, many of my coworkers urged me to get a grab bag at New Years, so I thought it would be fun to get one. I bought a grab bag from a stationary store for about $20 and I go so many things! I'm really happy I got it!

The next day was pretty uneventful, but we did get to the big temple between Riverwalk and Kokura Castle. All the food vendors were still up and the temple was packed with people. We thought about going to ring the bell at the temple, something traditionally done on New Years, but there was a huge crowd of people all waiting to ring the bell and we decided against it. We did get fortunes from the temple before continuing on our way. The next day Mom, Dad, and Dave all went to Hiroshima, but since I didn't have a rail pass I decided not to go. They enjoyed their trip and we had dinner together that night after they came back to Kitakyushu.

The next day we all went down to Kagoshima, the southern most stop on the shinkansen. We had a good time going to the aquarium there and took the ferry to Sakurajima, one of the most active volcanos in Japan! Sakurajima used to be an island, but because of the amount of lava produced from an eruption in 1914 it actually connected to the mainland and became a peninsula. We started on a tour bus, but decided to go to the lava observatory instead. We took a city bus to the park where everything was covered in ash. We were much closer to the volcano and had a great view of the smoking peak. There was not an eruption with lava that day, so we were unable to see any on the volcano. We still had a great time looking around and I was happy to get to see more of Kyushu!

We had one more day trip to go! A coworker of mine offered to take us to Beppu for a day, so that is what we did! She picked us up in the morning and we had a great time! We started by getting lunch at a restaurant that cooked everything in the natural stream from the underground hot springs. It was delicious! We also went to all the Hells (on my previous trip we only made it to six out of eight) and saw people dressed up in goblin costumes at each one! We finished by going to a footbath, which felt amazing in the cold weather! We had a lot of fun and it was really nice to spend time with my coworker outside of work.

I took a tons of trips and got to spend a lot of time with friends and family! I couldn't have asked for a better first holiday season away from home! I got a lot of great gifts and I've had a great vacation. I go back to school on Wednesday and I'm getting together with all the JETs who will hopefully be back by then!