FYI, if you are wondering why there haven't been any updates in a while, it's cuz we are in-between school years now in Japan, and so there are no classe, i.e. no kiddies to spew stupid shit at me :p
Monday
I took the day off
Tuesday
Back to school after a week off! blergh…. didn’t do much. Of course, there are no classes, but some students are here cuz they have club activities. One cute thing that happened was that when I went down to the toilet, a bunch of kids from the student council were writing some “thank you” message on the common board and Hiroko (who is fast becoming my new Shinobu… i.e. rushing at me for a hug whenever she sees me) jumped up at me and was like “Vanessa, Bye Bye!” and I told her “I’m not leaving yet”. She cocked her head like she didn’t understand but I just repeated my English more slowly and then she said “mada bye bye janai?” and I just laughed and nodded. I thought it was terribly cute. Literally it would mean “it’s not bye bye yet?”
Wednesday
Today is the farewell ceremony for the leaving teachers. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Japanese schools love ceremonies. I showed up to school and found a LOT of omiyage on my desk! There are 5 packages, plus the one I got yesterday, that makes 6. If you don’t know, it’s customary for the teachers who are leaving to give their coworkers small presents. I think it’s a bit lame cuz they should be the ones getting stuff, but hey, I’m not gonna turn down free stuff. lol. I think I recieved more than some other people cuz I know more of the teachers who are leaving. Two are English teachers that I kinda like, one is the hospital teacher who has a crush on me, and there is one that’s unsigned so I dunno who it’s from and one I can’t read the name in kanji. Then there was another one with a personal written note all in Japanese, and so I asked Mami who it was from and she said “it’s from Kouchou-sensei” (the principal). “Eh?! He’s leaving?!”. Apparently so. I’m a bit bummed cuz even though I never ever talk to him, he’s really chill, and I’ve heard horror stories about other people’s kouchou-senseis. I hope the new guy is nice and/or that I don’t have to deal with him at all. Anyhow. Can’t understand the whole note but the gist of it is something like “you are always making fun classes for the children, so thank you”. I thought that was really sweet and touching. I am just a dumb ALT after all so he didn’t need to bother. Anyways, the kiddies are coming back today for the ceremony, even the 3nensei that have already graduated. Should be an interesting day.
Ceremony was rather uneventful, and I noticed – with sadness – that a bunch of the 3rd years weren’t there, including my favorite perv, Kouki. tear. There goes my fanservice. lol. After the ceremony they all trouped out and gathered on the school grounds for one last goodbye. Yoshino gave me some yatsuhashi that she got on a trip to Kyoto, which I thought was really sweet! (and I’m eating as I’m writing this), I took pictures with some of the girls, and at least a million of them squealed out “exte! exte!” pointing at my hair. lol. I had pulled it up in a ponytail to make a little less obvious, but, I guess the secret’s out. Well, none of the teachers have said anything, so :p
At lunch we had a special “ladies’ lunch” which we usually have every year, except that this time instead of going to the restaurant, we had bentos in the meeting room, and that instead of being just ladies, someone invited kouchou-sensei. it was a bit weird at first because all the women teachers were acting all coy and “kawaii”… made me wanna gag, really, since most of em are over 40, but whatever. After a while the atmosphere relaxed a bit and it was quite enjoyable. Could understand about 50% of the conversation, which is more than I can say for what I usually grasp at dinner parties… we have one tonight btw, should be interesting…
I left early in the afternoon (and Kyoto-sensei let me not take nenkyuu, which was sweet!) to go buy a present for Mami. I felt bad since she had to give everybody presents, but she was the one leaving, and she has been there for me for the last 3 years, and however annoying she sometimes can be, she has been helpful and I liked teaching with her. So I got her this cute Minnie cup from KiddyLand cuz she likes Disney characters.
The party itself was ok, but as usual, way overpriced. I mean, who cares that it’s in a fancy hotel?? 7000yen for two hours is too much. Never mind that we will have ANOTHER party to welcome the new teachers next week, and that I had another one last week with the BoE people. *sigh* no wonder I’m broke. Anyways. We randomly picked where we sat (you had to draw a seat number from a little box of origami papers) and I ended up at Kyoto and Kouchou sensei’s table again. Seriously? At least Asuka was sitting next to me (young and she speaks English), though that didn’t last long since, because she’s leaving, everybody wanted a piece of her. Anyways, it was really annoying because all the girls at the table were fighting each other to “serve” everybody (as is the Japanese tradition… girls and younger people have to serve… in fact, you will never see old/important men lift a finger to reserve themselves. if – god forbid – their glass remains empty for whatever reason, they will not fill it up again…) which I thought was well stupid, and I was really annoyed by it cuz I was hungry and wanted to serve myself. but whatever.
It was pretty uneventful. Everybody that was leaving had another teacher make a speech for them, and then made a speech. There was little opportunity to chat, and then the 2 hours were up and I escaped the fuck outta there before nijikai (that you had to pay for in advance cuz it was in the same expensive hotel).
Thursday
Well, I showed up at school on time well and good as usual, and then at 8:15, motoko-sensei (from the BoE) calls me to “scold” me cuz I haven’t done my follow-up health check and it’s Kachou-san’s last day and she needs it before 3pm. fuck. So I trecked it all the way back downtown and headed to the hospital. I thought the hospital would be a better choice than the clinic since it’s just next to the BoE… WRONG!!! first off, I had to go back home to fetch the original health check result paper (fucking めんどうくさい) which made me lose about 30 minutes. Then I go finally go back and sign up and I get a paper that I can’t understand that says I must pay 3,150yen. Wtf, but whatever, I just wanna be out of there. I should mention that I was already in a bad mood and pms. So I go where the lady tells me, and soon enough a nurse calls me and checks my blood pressure. Sweet. That didn’t take long. Then she tells me to “go over there” and wait by door no.6 until they call my number. There is a little screen that intermittently shows the 3 follow up numbers for each room and mine wasn’t listed. Great. I wait and finally another number is called for that room, and so another one appears on the list. Not mine. Fuck. The screen rolls 3 more time and my number still doesn’t show up. At that point I have waited by door number 6 for over an hour and I am not a happy camper. I get up to ask the front desk if I’m coming up soon and she goes yes “mou shouchou matte kudasai” (please just wait a bit more). I’m so frustrated and I go sit back down. If I had gone to the clinic, this would’ve taken 15 minutes tops. I curse my stupidity as I wait some more. 3 more numbers roll. Mine is still not showing up. I am tearing up and ready to bite someone’s head off. I am wasting my precious nenkyuu for this. I go back up to the counter and ask the girl to give me back my files, I don’t have time and I will go somewhere else. of course, I’m so stressed out that I can’t string sentences of Japanese together properly so they seem a bit confused (but then maybe they were just dumb cunts too as they didn’t look all that bright) and they tell me that they can put me up the list but that I still have to wait after people who have appointments. Well fuck you too. I say I have no time, I have to get this done before the afternoon. This they seem to understand. I say that I can’t wait another hour and they promise me that it wouldn’t be that long. Thank god they were right about that. Anyways, I ended up getting passed around 12:20. A few minutes before I was up, Motoko-sensei called that she was coming over to see me cuz it was her lunch break. She arrived just in time to explain the situation to the dumb doctor, who really didn’t get it at all and kept arguing that I should be given medicine for my high blood pressure, while all we were both thinking was “sign the damn paper so we can fuck off!!!”. Then finally he did, and I could leave, and Motoko-sensei explained the yellow paper to me, which said that I had to pay that money cuz I hadn’t been to the hospital in over a year. Well, isn’t that nice! If you’re healthy, you get rewarded by having to pay more money! Well fuck that, I am never going to that place again. I announced her that I was taking the rest of the day off, and she surprised me by telling me that I would only have to take nenkyuu for the afternoon. Sweet. I went home. Binged on chocolate while watching Hairspray, and passed out.
That was my Thursday.
Friday.
Today is April 1st, so today is the day that the new teachers come in. as of yet, I have only briefly seen the new Koucho-sensei as he said “good morning” to me in English in passing, and it was somewhat awkward as I was – very professionally – texting on my phone… but whatever. Now the staffroom is completely empty, as everyone is in a meeting welcoming the new teachers and informing them about “stuff”. I’m quite glad I’m not expected to go as I probably wouldn’t understand anything and would be bored out of my mind, but it’s still a bit weird. I hope some of the new teachers are hot :p
Ok! So it’s now after lunch and all the new teachers have been introduced! There are a few young ones, one of which is REALLY cute, but unfortunately doesn’t teach English… I didn’t catch what he does teach. Don’t think he said it, but the newbie English teacher is this SUPER cute, tiny little j-girl… hopefully she’s nice and we can get along. I had to do an intro speech all in Japanese too… and I was shaking so bad (which is stupid cuz if it was in English it woulda been so easy) but I managed to deliver it pretty flawlessly, and so a bunch of the old teachers “booed” when I said I couldn’t speak Japanese well. lol. I really can’t! anyways, now everyone is just kinda hanging around in the staffroom and I’m not sure what’s going on… we’re gonna shuffle the desks around this afternoon, but I dunno if it’s gonna be in 5 minutes or in two hours. *sigh*
Speaking of which, I didn’t think my desk was gonna move because, in the 3 years I’ve been here, my desk has always been with the “free” teachers in the same line as Kyotou-sensei, and if I moved it was either one desk to the left or one to the right. Also, instead of everybody just taking their crap out of their desks and moving to a new place, they actually move YOUR desk all the way to its new position. I remember I thought that was really weird in my first year. Now I just kinda sit back and do nothing as other people work, like the good little princess that I am :p oh but yeah, so apparently this year, I am moving up with the 3rd year teachers, and I’m gonna be sitting next to the hot gym teacher! yay! He’s short and married, but whatever… also, when Kyouto-sensei told me I was moving, he said “Vanessa always looks cold by the door. It’s warmer over there”. Whether or not that is the reason for my move, I thought that was really sweet! I AM freezing over here everytime the goddamn door opens!!
Ok! So we are live from me new spot… it’s pretty sweet! Ishida-sensei already made TWO attempts at conversation (lol) the hot new teacher is in the same “line”, and almost all the English teachers besides Aoshima-sensei and the new girl are here in the same line too. And I am NOT near the door. downside: since I don’t have my back to the wall anymore, pretty much everyone can see whatever’s on my screen :/ oh well… as a 4th year JET who is leaving next year, I’m past the point of caring if everybody knows that I spend 80% of my time on facebook…
Anyways! Today was fun… now it’s time to go! Next week’s mission… find out hot teacher’s name… lol.
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