Much delayed post from February

So I've decided after a LONG delay to post a bit more. I expect this motivation will dies out again in a couple of weeks, but we'll see. First I'll post something that I started writing in late February but never finished. Tonight or tomorrow I'll try to summarize/ fill in the gaps since then.

18/2/2011 aprox
"So today I finally got my alien registration card, so very soon I will be getting a cell phone. Today while picking up the card from the city office, the woman working the desk had a long conversation with me, mostly in Japanese. It was probably about 25 minutes (good thing I wasn't in a rush). I found this extremly exciting to know that I could communicate on so many subjects, although I'm sure I sounded like a retarted yoda; messing up order and misusing particles. But the point was I was mostly understood. I was constantly using key words from my smart.fm/iknow.jp lessons so I've decided I'm going to stick with it and pay for the service once the free period is over. I'll briefly go over the converstation and try to bold words that I used from the smart.fm lists.

First I asked her if I could have a space put in my name on my health insurance card to separate my middle and last name and explained to her that a coworker said I needed it. (currently it has my middle and last name together in katakana). She explained to me how Japanese only have two names in so the software wouldn't allow for the space. She then asked what school I taught English at. I was able to explain to her that I had 4 schools: one in north Ashikaga足利, one in the south and two in Tatabayashi館林. She asked how I traveled to all of them and I answered by walking and train (for some reason I forgot what "train" was in japanese was and took a while to remember it. I actually was saying it correctly in my head but I started thinking "no that's not right..." and doubting myself). We then talked about the weather in Canada compared to Ashikaga, eating salmon in Canada and the proximity of various cities to the ocean, and how much nature and wilderness I see in the two locations. Next we talked about the sizes of the cities Burlington, Toronto, Ashikaga and Tokyo in terms of distance, population. She asked me if I had ever seen the northern lights. I told her that you can only see it in certain places but I wanted to see it, although I keep trying to use hoshi (欲しい) for "want" instead of the -tai(~たい) verb conjugation. That's a bad habit I'll have to break out of. (PS I often get asked about the northern lights by the japanese, so apparently it's something we're famous for. However they always call it the "aurora" which is next to impossible for japanese to pronounce like an Engish speaker due to the placement and combination of the R's and A's.)

Then after that I was walking to work and an older man started speaking to me in English. He was the best English speaker out of all the Japanese I have met so far. And he explained that he could teach me. I might take him up but I don't know if he's quite my vibe. We'll see..."

22/2/2011 aprox
"I'm confused about when to use hiragana vs kanji. for words is it like the englsih "3" and "three"?"