Sometime in the middle of last night, the battery in my travel alarm clock that I’ve been using to wake up every morning ran out of juice. Later, I woke up and casually glanced at the blank digital screen where there are usually numbers representing the time.
And then I noticed that it was unusually light outside. And that I was remarkably well rested.
I hauled my butt out of bed and checked the clock in the kitchen, and it was 7:30 in the morning. Usually I am walking up the steps to my high school at this time every day.
To make a long (and painful) story short, I walked into the teacher’s office at 8:05 a.m., fifteen minutes early for the teachers meeting, and not one person even noticed that I was late. I told my master teacher what happened, and he just laughed and said that as long as I made it for the teachers’ meeting, no problem.
Despite the rough start, my day was actually pretty fun. My new lesson for the next two weeks is about Halloween, and so I spent today explaining jack o’ lanterns, pumpkins, and trick or treating to my dumbfounded students. At the end of each lesson, I pass out small squares of orange paper and we make our own jack o’ lanterns in class. It’s always interesting to see how they come out. Some students make an exact copy of the sample that I draw on the board. Some make incredibly artistic comic book versions, others make cute smiley jack o’ lanterns.
After I got home, Melanie asked me out to dinner – I had been to a place a while back that has great katsudon (fried pork cutlet over rice and carmelized onions with a fried egg on top). She just discovered katsudon, and so I showed her where the restaurant was, and we ate big for only a couple of bucks each. The place has the atmosphere of a Denny’s, the music of a bad 1980’s sci-fi, and great, cheap food. As we ate, lots of kids came up to say hello and stare at the foreigners. They were very cute.
This weekend is looking to be a lot of fun, as usual. Friday night I’m meeting Carrie in Himeji for dinner, and then Saturday morning I’m going to talk with my folks – It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had a chance to talk to them. Saturday afternoon I’m hoping to go into Kobe and buy some supplies for my English club at school. I’m hoping we can make cupcakes next week. Sunday is the Futami Matsuri festival, and quite a few of the neighbors will be there, Melanie from upstairs, along with the gang from the yakitori, and maybe even Miss Kageyama. I think I’m still slated to carry any insanely heavy portable shrine around the neighborhood.
