A prodigy of fear and portent

There is a snake in my gutter, in my dreams, and, in my dreams, in my shower. Most concerning. We saw him first on Saturday when he slithered out about thirty centimetres to have a look around, and I thought he was gone until I saw him again yesterday. There have been other strange animal behaviours, all very portentous, like the crows that have taken to congregating outside my house instead of down the road at the butchers, or the VERY large beetle that decided to take up residence in my shoe which I then put on. (Sudden flashback, I was seven and decided to ignore the 'stone' that had found its way into my shoe over night. About half an hour later I extracted a fairly mangled looking weta from the aforementioned shoe and felt terrible about it for days. This time around I reacted speedily, removing the shoe, shaking out the rather large beetle, yelping, and falling into a coat stand - all in one graceful movement that brought teachers running from the staffroom.) Nature seems to have gotten wind of my impending departure and decided... um... they like me here, really they do.
Sorry I have been so remiss in my attentions to this site but time is really moving far to quickly here. Such a short time ago it was months and months till I would be leaving Oki, then it was just months and now it is getting to the lasts - last visit at that primary school, last dinner with that group of people... next week will see my last times at three of my Junior High Schools! Woe is me.
Enough ranting.
What have I been doing for the last month or so?
In late May I went to the recontracting conference in Kobe. It was most bewildering. There were far too many foreign people for my liking and it took a while for me to figure out that that were all conversant in English. When this finally sunk in I took to ranting at people until they began smiling fixedly, nodding, and slowly backing away. Not quite the social triumph we had hoped for. I also met a classmate from Nelson Girls in the toilet queue at a Brazilian beef restaurant.
I have also been to a festival where drunken horses rampaged their way up to a shrine and hosted a 'New Zealand food' dinner.
Lovely.
I hope you are all well in your various ways and situations.
Also, I am playing soccer this Saturday and have been making an exhibition of myself every night for weeks huffing and puffing my way to the docks and back trying to get fit. Wish me luck.