Week of September 19th to 23rd

Monday

This week is a little bit retarded. Monday’s a public holiday, and so is Friday. So we only have a 3-day work week.

Tuesday

So I came into work after the long weekend, completely dreading the 5-classes day that was waiting for me, only to look at the schedule board and find out that there are only 2 periods of classes today! and it’s the first 2 in the morning, turned into period 5 and 6, so it means I only have ONE class! I’m so happy, I would do a little happy dance of joy! if I had any energy.

Ok, I am really not at my best today. Class with 3-1 was so-so and part of it was my fault cuz I had no energy. Even though Minami was REALLY into it, kids kept dicking about, the whole listening-to-the-story part went waaaay over their heads, and Seiya was doing his science homework and then getting out of his seat to dance or act up when I wasn’t looking and then looking not-so-guilty every time I caught him doing it. Kouki randomly blurted out “Vanessa’s eyes are so blue!” at one point while we were teaching new words, which lead to a 2 minute OT discussion about my eyes (she is wearing contacts… no she isn’t…) by their little posse. Then at one point I was trying to explain that there was a bit of French in the song, and Shigeki-sensei butted-in that he could speak a little French (yeah right…), and all the kids went “sugoii sensei!” and he’s prattling on about how he studied French in university, and that “J’ai” means “I”, which a) it doesn’t, it means “I have” and b) the French that was on the paper was wrong, cuz I printed it off some lyrics website without checking and just noticed for the first time. So I go “Oh, Shigeki-sensei, you can speak French? I speak French!” and then he goes, to the students “that’s right, Canada people can speak French too”, which was followed by more OT prattling about how it’s my first language, and then of course the kiddies were like “speak French!” but everybody was kinda talking at the same time, and I was a little annoyed, so I just launched into lots and lots of French until everybody stopped talking and was staring at me with big eyes. Then one of the kids went “was that English or French?” and before I can answer, Shigeki-sensei is like “Eigo datta” (it was English) and I just turned around with this “really?! dude, really?!!” look on my face and blurted out in Japanese “furansugo datta!!” (It was French!) and he laughed and was like “oooh, I made a mistake!” but seriously dude, if you’re gonna pretend you speak a language, shouldn’t you at least be able to tell when someone is speaking it? *sigh* I guess that gives you pretty much an idea of how good an English teacher he is……. :/  Yeah. Anyhow, we continued the class with Minami trying to coax me into singing but I wasn’t really feeling it. Then we finished like a minute early so Nichika made me put “GaraGara Go” (Big Bang song) on and then was like “they’re singing in Japanese. I want the Korean one” and I’m like “really, kid? really?!!”

Can I go back to bed now?

Wednesday

Um yeah, so there’s a typhoon? Classes are cancelled. No one told me this might happen although I guess I shoulda known. What I’m pissed about is that apparently everyone was told to bring a bento in case this would happen, and I wasn’t so I have no lunch and I’m stuck here. Might just fuck off at lunch time…

Aah, well, I didn’t. I actually couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to cuz the trains STOPPED. Now I’ve been in Japan for a while and usually they are always going “wah! wah! typhoon! wah! wah!” around this time of the year and all that happens is a bit of heavier-than-usual rain and no one’s the worst off for it. But this time it was actually pretty scary. I’m kinda glad I was at school because it’s a big giant concrete building so it was probably the safest place to be. The wind was blowing crazy hard, and the rain didn’t abate til late in the afternoon. I went out for lunch with some of the other teachers, and when we left it was just raining, but when we came back, the 5 seconds it took for us to get in and out of the car basically left us drenched! 5 seconds! and it only got crazier after that!

Since the trains had stopped, Yuka offered to drive me home after school, and it was kinda lucky for her cuz she got to leave early too. (says she usually leaves at 8pm or so…) It had stopped raining by the time I got home, but the wind was still blowing pretty strong all the way through the night.

Thursday

Well, today was sports day after all! (They had been debating wether or not it would happen all week, since it kept raining and there was the typhoon and all). There was no rain, and even a little bit of sun, but mostly crazy wind and it was really COOL. and by that I’m referring to the weather. Like the typhoon had blown away all the summer heat/humidity. You didn’t see me complain there.

Sports day itself was kind of a bore. After 3 years, this was the 4^th time, and I really don’t care anymore; it’s always the same thing. I spent most of the morning wandering the “cheering area” where the kids who weren’t competing were, snapping pictures and cheering for whatever team. I was wearing a school polo shirt, but it was white and so everyone was like “Vanessa, are you cheering for the white team? no, no! cheer for (insert whatever color here) team!!” there was also the traditional passing around of my sunglasses and snapping pics of the kiddies trying to look cool wearing them, and mostly, nothing that memorable comes to mind.

Oh, Kazuma did disappear at one point, which made me laugh, cuz seriously, that boy… It’s like he’s doing it on purpose just to put the teachers all in a huff. He would also walk over to go cheer for his friends who were in other teams, and got kinda scolded for that. Some of the kids who graduated last year and two years ago also showed up…. mostly yanki boys with bleached hair :p I saw Akito! XD a bit later I saw a few of them chilling with Kazuma… why am I not surprised?

The “cheering” competition started right away in the afternoon, and I was expecting dicking around with the setting up (so I stayed in the staffroom a bit longer after lunch), but there wasn’t any so I missed the first half of the yellow team’s performance, and I was kinda sad because that was Minami’s group and I know they put so much effort into it… from what I saw, they were the best because every other group sucked really bad, except maybe the purple team. Honestly, it’s like they weren’t trying at all. Last year’s performances were all REALLY good, so this year’s were a bit of a disappointment honestly.

I don’t know who won in the end cuz I sneaked off before the end. I didn’t care, and didn’t wanna get cornered about not going to the enkai. Actually, there was a fuck up and no one invited me. Then Mizushima-sensei asked me about it earlier and I told him and he was like “omg, really?!” and I had a feeling that he was gonna try and ask around so I could come (I’m sure nobody would mind), but I was actually pretty happy to not have to go, since I was REALLY tired at the end of the day, and it was an extra 40$ in my wallet. What I think happened is that Asai-sensei (he is the hot teacher who never talks to me) was in charge of asking me if I was coming. He asked me if I wanted the bento for the day, I said no, and he must’ve asked me about the enkai at the same time and I didn’t hear or understand, but he thought I meant no for the enkai as well. I mean, something was obviously lost in translation here, but I’m pretty sure the mistake was on his end cuz he was so fucking nervous about talking to me and getting it over with. meh. Whatever.

If you’re interested in pictures of the kiddies, let me know. also if we are friends on facebook, they weill be up there in an undetermined future.