When last we left our heroine

When last we left our heroine she was just beginning her new adventure in the land of the hogeisen (or rising sun, if you prefer not to use the word “whaling vessel” which I think just sounds cool). The following day (Thursday) she went to Seijo Elementary School. Where she has her own classroom, but doesn’t always use if for reasons unknown to her (she’s planning on asking this next week if she can just have all the classes come to the English room). So, on getting to school, she messed up the schedule, but apparently the schedule was messed up anyway and no one bothered to tell her. All good. During the 3rd year’s lesson, a pigeon decided to, in the way of the land of the rising sun, kamikaze itself into her window. Thankfully if failed, was stunned, and then flew off. Poor thing.

In Seijo, lunch was again in a lunch room, and was startlingly quiet. And when she ate the whole grape, she got stared at and was told that you can’t eat the whole thing. Ah well, she said, I’ve already eaten it. And it was tasty.

The day was rather busy until lunchtime, as her classes started right away and were back to back. But the afternoon lounged out before her like a beautiful sunset, because she didn’t have any classes in the afternoon (and according to the schedule, never will, which is a bit of a pain to have everything ready so early, but you know, it’s how these things go). She was invited, by the Kacho, or the Kyoto (I get them confused, it means Principal and Vice Principal, but I don’t know the people very well yet) to go to the Undokai (sports day), where she was told she had to be there on Sunday at 9:30 am. She would need to bring her own bentou (boxed lunch), and after the long day of supporting the children, she would go with all of the teachers to the “we worked hard” party (otsukare no paatii), where she would drink like a fish and call a daiko to go home (a daiko is the GREAT service they have here. You drive somewhere, you get drunk, you call a daiko, who, like a taxi, comes to pick you up. Here’s the kicker. They come with 2 people in their car, and one of them drives your car home with you. It’s an awesome Idea). She felt so special to be invited. So far she’d been told she had to go to the Undokais, but didn’t get told about the after parties. It’s a good sign. And the day after the Undokai is a holiday, so it’s okay to be out late :D

The next day she was back at Heiichi, the school she went to the first day, but that day was her first day of classes. She taught 4-1 (4th year, class 1) which was nice, followed by all 3 6th years. Except that wasn’t the plan. The plan was, because of Undokai practice, that she would only teach 6-1 and 6-2, that 6-3 would be moved to Monday, where she would teach 5 classes (because it was a trade off, she was okay with this). However, the schedule changed sometime during the day, and she was never told until about 5 minutes in to the lesson she didn’t know she was suppose to be teaching. Fun. So that class didn’t quite finish. Whatever. They have a game they can play next time.

After class, she sat in the 3,4’s teacher’s room (the school is large enough to have to split up the teachers into 3 different teacher rooms, a whoping 500 students), and put together a people bingo game for the next week. Afterwards she got talking with the teachers (the 3rd and 4th year teachers, although I think one if them is defiantly a 5 year teacher, but I’m not sure, I think she might just be friends with the younger grade teachers) and one of the teachers who usually only comes on Monday stopped by with some really REALLY good cake. It was horrendously evil and so tasty (it had chestnuts in the middle!) and it was so much fun just hanging out and talking that she stayed about an extra hour after she could leave, just talking. It was good. (Because, on the JET Program, the first few months, your job is not to teach children. Your job is to make relationships with the teachers. I’ve actually been told this.)

However, tragedy soon struck. As she was leaving, she noticed her car was covered in ants. She then had the wonderful experience of going into the office and trying to ask for bug spray, although she knew not the word for “bug” nor “spray,” but it worked out. Serves her right for being lazy and not walking like she knew she should have. It’s only a 10-15 minute walk, and it IS the only school she can walk to, so there’s really no excuse. Even if it was raining. It’s not like her car doesn’t leak, on both the passenger’s side and the driver’s side (the last one is a new accordance. I need to find some epoxy. Maybe that’ll fix it. I really don’t care how it looks, so long as it doesn’t leak. Anything will look better than the rusty holes). So really, no excuse.

When she finally got home, she started a new book (Terry Brooks’ Genesis of Shannara was started on Monday, and finished on Friday. Very good. The sequel will be in my next Amazon order), the third in the Ember series, Prophet of Yonwood. She went to “pizza” for dinner, and finished the book when she got home. She didn’t even stay up past midnight.

Saturday, it rained. Which sounded to her like a great reason to just stay at home and do nothing. So she watched a metric ton of tv, cleaned up the kitchen, and generally lazed about until around 7, when she went over to Jonathan’s place for dinner. There, she, Amy, and Jonathan (the 3 just elementary JETs) ate dinner for about 3 hours. It was fantabulous.

Sunday she pulled herself out of bed and did a triathlon. No, not all of it, cuz she is both lazy and out of shape, but she cheered on the swimmers, said ganbatte to the bikers, and walked the 5.5k instead of running. It took her 55 minutes. It was along this scary, empty road, across the bridge and back. On her way back, she saw her first wild sea turtle swimming off the bridge. This was followed by her first wild manta. The sea turtle was about a foot long, maybe a little bigger. The manta was at least three feet, wing to wing. It was groovy.

(there and back)


Oh, did I mention she saw a dragon? Because what do you call a long snake that flies through the air and had wings around it’s head? I mean, you could possibly call it a bird with a snake in it’s mouth, and she DID only see it for a few seconds. But according to Makiko-sensei (not mine, but Scott’s wife who works at a junior high) the priests say that there are a lot of dragons in Miyako this year, and those who are spiritually inclined can see them. And maybe it was a bird, but it looked like a snake that was flying.

When she got home on Sunday she finished but a book she’s started on Saturday (11 pages in) called Howl’s Moving Castle, which was made into a very famous anime by Miyuzaki, a very famous director who I think is dead and his son is doing the movies now, and his son is not as good, but that’s all good. The book, by Diane Wynne Jones (I think), came first, and is MUCH better than the movie. (The book was so good, that I borrowed it from Chris to first read it, and I bought it so that I could read it again. (nods) Well worth the money. Drunken rugby Howl. And that’s all I have to say about that.)

Now, it’s Monday and she’s taught 3 of her four classes, 5-1, 5-2, 3-2. 3-1 is in a little bit. 3-2 was a little noisy, but only because the teacher wasn't there for the first 5 minutes, or they’re just a little loud anyway, but they really responded to the saying the new vocabulary in a rather funny way. And they really liked the dice “game” (they sit in a circle, roll the dice, count that many children, then that child has to recite a vocabulary word that matches the picture I point to. And they call it a game. Snicker, I win). It was fun. The 5th graders were nice and calmed down when she gave them the writing practice. And it’s all good.

Although, she did just remember that her first “new” classes are tomorrow and she has to plan what she’s going to do with the 4th, 5th, and 3rd years that she’s seeing for the second time tomorrow. She’s not quite sure yet. I think she needs to find herself a laminator and play janken (rock, paper, sissors) with cards (“janken!” winner asks looser “who is it” looser looks at his card “it’s my mother” if it's the same they team up and try to find the other 2 with the same card. And this is a game too. Snicker. This is what I do and call it work. Snicker).

After work, she plans to go to the travel agent and get her Niigata plans in order. She plans to tell her school that she’s taking the last weekend in October to go to Niigata on Wednesday (it’ll be her 3rd day at the school, but still, it’s more warning and not so bad as asking on the first day). She also plans to ask them what the ferry schedule is like to go to Ishigaki (the next island over) because she wants to know if she can work out going and visiting Veronica anytime soon. She hopes so, but she’s heard horrible rumors that you have to go on like Tuesday through Thursday, which is rather ridiculous, but she might do it anyway. It’s her days off. She has 20 of them. It’s in her contract.

(break for class)

After class (which was too many kids for the game she tried to play, but didn’t have anything else that she could think of on the top of her head, and was too loud, but whatever. It seemed like they had fun) she learned how to use the laminator (which is really different. Back home, you have a large machine with lamination rolls, right? Here there is this small machine you have to take out and you put what you want to laminate between the single sheet (folded down in the middle) of plastic. It’s a whole lot more solid when it comes out the other side. Did I mention that you have to plug it in, wait for it to heat up (about 20 min) then after you are done, you have to wait for it to cool down before you can put it away. Silliness.

So after getting home and taking a shower (she’ll probably take several more later, did I mention that they don’t believe in central A/C here? Or that it’s so expensive to run her A/C that she just opens the windows and makes do with a fan?) she goes off to the travel agent and finds out that it’ll cost more than 50000 to take her round trip to Murakami to see Chris (who’d better appreciate it!) and that’s just the air fare, not counting the bullet train, or the hotel. Jebz. But she’s going to do it. Because she needs to. When she pays on Wednesday, she’ll have to (remember to ask about the ferry!!) and ask when is the best time to travel cheaply, so that she can plan better when she goes to see Marnie.

And finally when she gets home (after eating chili cheese fries at the A&W, because there is one here. One.) she finds out the reason that people here have 6 garbage days and you take out raw garbage every other day. Because she hadn’t taken it out since last Wednesday, and oh, my, God, the maggots. So that’s sitting out on the front stoop, waiting for Wednesday so that she can take that out to the street and be happy. She vows to never ever ever wait that long again. And, dang, it was just 5 days. The can has been hosed down and is waiting on the back stoop to dry. She’s hoping she wont dream about it.

Okay. She’s tired, and has to continue to disinfect the bathroom (because my shower drains into the place right in front of the toilet, so no, I don’t have a tub, and yes, now I have to clean my whole bathroom to make me feel comfortable about stepping in there to use the toilet) so she will sign off, and let you know more of her adventures next time.

Keep it real, yo.