I have arrived in Shimane! I'm borrowing Internet access since I won't have my own for a couple weeks. I can't open any accounts anywhere until I get my resident alien card, which just started today and will take a week. Life here is pretty sweet. My rant-liable predecessor turned out to be mildly psycho, nobody liked her, and it's a relief that she's leaving. As such, my living conditions are pretty great - my house is nice, big and comfy, my car is small and AWD, the other teachers in my town are insanely helpful, and my working conditions are great - I don't even have to report to the Board of Education office for the entire summer holiday, so one of the other teachers took me shopping in a nearby town for futons, towels, groceries, etc. My supervisor is *not* a Nazi by any means - he's actually rather easygoing, and my predecessor just thinks the sky's falling. Turns out she's 40 years old and still can't take care of herself. Oh well. Adjusting is turning out to be relatively easy.Also: typhoon today. No reason to panic, as they always hit the southern islands and just kind of dump some rain here once they've died down. It's now 5pm as I write this, and the rain predicted for 3:30 has yet to show itself.