Today I wrapped up a heavy week – all sixteen classes in one week. On top of all the classes, I was sick for most of the week, so it feels good to finish it up.
I had four classes today, including my adult class. The classes went well, and it is fun to watch the students skidding around the classroom trying to solve the puzzle in time. We had a couple of collisions today, and so for my last class I advised the students to “be careful out there”. I don’t think they understood.
Yesterday I mentioned that I have a second year student that is interested in joining ESS, and I was very happy because it seems like she is not after me, but rather she wants to improve her English. Turns out, she’s after me. I ate lunch in the cafeteria today, and she and a friend came to sit next to me. She asked me all kinds of questions, and her English was pretty good – which makes it harder for me to play stupid.
She said that she had gotten a haircut, and asked me if I had noticed. I said yes, which wasn’t the truth, but seemed like the right thing to say. Then she asked me if I liked long hair or short hair. Since she had short hair, I went with long hair. She nodded her head and said that she would start growing her hair long. Yikes!
Later, when correcting English journals, she made some interesting comments. I asked the students what they would do with a million yen. Buy soda? Buy Bryan a present? She wrote a long essay about helping the poor, taking care of her family, and then said that she had a present for me – herself. Yikes! Through all of this, her English is really good, and I can’t help but have an out-of-body experience where I observe that she is doing great. I guess it’s all about the right motivation.
I was definitely dragging by the end of the day today, and when Mr. Hayashi said that there was a staff meeting, I was pretty happy. I got the go-ahead to leave at four o’clock… one hour early. Miss Kageyama was leaving at about the same time, so she gave me a ride home. That was a good opportunity to give her her birthday presents. I got her “Where’s Waldo?” in Japanese, a magazine, a half bottle of champagne, some cheese from Carrefour, some crackers, and a CD. She was pretty happy with the gifts. She drove off with all her loot, and I decided that I’ve earned a dinner at the yakitori.
The yakitori was absolutely hopping – cars were overflowing into the street, and it was tough to find a place to sit. I ordered up some food and since the place was crowded everyone was checking me out. A couple of crazy drunk girls were there, and they promptly started hitting on me. A group of women in the corner were asking the master about me and giving me looks across the room. I ate quickly and got the check – I told the ladies that I was hiking tomorrow at 5 a.m., which was a good enough excuse to get me out of there. I’ve never seen the place crawling with people like that. Since it was so busy I didn’t get to ask the master about the recent murder in Futami.
Speaking of murders, there was another one last night in Kakogawa, a couple of miles from my apartment in Futami. This is the second murder in a week. I asked Mr. Hayashi today and he said that before the last two killings there hadn’t been a murder in three or four years. I don’t know why people are getting violent – but everyone is following all the details around here.
I’m off to bed – I’m not going hiking at five tomorrow morning. Rather, I’m relaxing tomorrow and then doing the test on Sunday.
