Today was a pretty relaxing Sunday. I spent some time on the phone with my folks and my brother in the morning, and then I worked on a project for the next lesson at school – it came out looking pretty good.
I got a call from somebody that spoke only Japanese. After a fair amount of slow talking I figured out that it was the STEP test headquarters, inviting me to be an interviewer during the next STEP test. The pay is good – one day’s work pays almost 30,000 yen (around $300). When I worked at Barnes & Noble it took me two weeks of sweating and lifting boxes to earn that kind of money. Here I am qualified simply because I speak flawless English. Miss Kageyama is going to take the interview test for the 1st grade – it’s the top level, and she’s been studying hard to try and pass it. She failed last time, so she really wants to get through it. She’s testing at another school, so there will be no chance of anyone from Takasago Minami cheating her through.
I spent the afternoon pleasure reading, and then around 5 o’clock Miss Kageyama dropped by for dinner. I had been hoping to have a pizza delivered at some point, and the master of the yakitori had given me a nice big ad full of different pizzas. I had translated a couple that looked good, so Miss Kageyama called it in for me, and twenty minutes later the guy was knocking on my door. Unfortunately he didn’t have change for the big bills I tried to give him, but Miss Kageyama came through with some small bills.
The pizza was pretty good. It had a lot of toppings on it, and although it was just a little bland, it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a splash of Crystal ‘extra hot’ hot sauce. Miss Kageyama even took a shot at the Crystal and she liked it. Definitely an atypical Japanese reaction. Maybe next time she’ll be ready to try the Yucateco habanero sauce.
After dinner I walked her back to the train station. She had ridden her bike to the Takasago station and then taken the train over. The difference in cost is about 400 yen – so she saved about eight bucks by riding the bike. Good call.
