Mr. Urakami has been my nemesis at school – stalking me throughout the day and looking for a chance to speak English with me. I’m not sure why I don’t enjoy the experience more, but for some reason talking with him can be a real chore. Maybe it’s just the sheer volume of time I spend talking with him, or the fact that he doesn’t mind interrupting me when I’m doing something to talk about the weather or the true meaning of the movie “A Few Good Men”.
Recently I’ve found that if I talk about girls it makes him uncomfortable and nervous, and he tends to leave quicker. If I bring up this subject he’ll leave within fifteen minutes or so. A normal visit can last up to an hour.
Unfortunately I’ve used this trick once too often, because today he said that he’d rather change the subject and talk about politics or world history. Ugh. I’ll have to think of something else to chat about. Today he stopped by four times and talked with me for about 90 minutes all together. If I had something better to do I could tell him that I was busy, but sadly, I’m just studying Japanese.
Mr. Hayashi has been amused at the attention I’m getting from Mr. Urakami, but lately even he’s been a little creeped out. Another habit Mr. Urakami has is to sit down behind me when I’m talking with someone to “practice his listening”. This usually freaks out whoever I’m talking to, in addition to me. Mr. Hayashi is usually the one that leaves when this happens. Leaving me alone. With him.
It’s not that bad really – when Kuniko was working at the school one of the part-time biology teachers would look over her shoulder while she was working and offer English study tips. I guess it could be worse.
This morning Mr. Hayashi was typing up the translation that I had helped with, and he’s not a very fast typer. There were seven pages and it took him about half an hour to type just a few sentences. I offered to help and finished the whole thing in just a few minutes. Evidently there is some money floating around on this deal, and some may end up in my pocket.
Just one class today, a solo class with third year students. They were surprised to have no Japanese teacher to rely on for questions, so a lot of them were very confused. I think it will be better as they get used to it – sometimes you make sure to do everything right when there is no safety net below.
I made a plateful of gyoza and some rice for dinner, and I had some cafe au lait flavored frozen yogurt that I made the night before and stuck in the freezer. It turned out pretty good – I surprised myself.
