I woke up this morning with a grease overdose – I had this awful feeling in my stomach that lingered throughout the day. It wasn’t from booze – I only had four beers. It must have been from all the fried things. Ugh.
At school we had a couple of changes in the schedule that had me hopping from class to class. I helped teach an extra lesson for the kids going to Australia, which turned out to be kind of fun. I pretended to be a flight attendant and walked around asking kids what they wanted to eat or drink. Some of them got into it, and some couldn’t believe how cheesy it was. At least I had fun.
I was coming back from lunch and the principal asked me to come into his office. On the way he asked how my Japanese was coming along, since he can speak almost no English. We sat down together in his office, and I admit that I was a bit nervous. The only other time I had been in the office was for a job evaluation, and that had been with Mr. Hayashi.
I concentrated hard to understand what he was saying, but he spoke really fast. I asked him to repeat a couple of things, and I think I finally understood what he wanted.
Every school in the prefecture conducts entrance exams to keep the quality of students high. Part of the entrance exam is a listening test that is created by the prefectural government and sent to all the schools. From what I could tell, the principal wanted me to work with the prefectural government somehow to make the listening part – maybe I’m voice talent, maybe just advisor. Maybe I’m doing a striptease on Monday in the teacher’s office, who knows? Whatever it was, I agreed to it.
Here’s the weird thing – he said that I couldn’t talk to Mr. Hayashi about it. Huh? He said that the vice principal would meet with me on Monday to talk more about it. Luckily, the vice principal has pretty good English skills. The downside was that he had to give my answer to the government today, and so I was really getting into this without knowing exactly what I will do. I told him that I’m flying back to America next month, and he said that there would be no conflict.
A couple of things – some Japanese guy talked at me for five minutes, and I got all this information. Holy cow – that’s great! I really might be improving. Also, why cut out Mr. Hayashi from the conversation? Why is it a secret? My theory is that there might be some kind of conflict of interest thing if an English teacher knows about it, since the English teachers might advise potential students. Strange.
Anyway, after school the ESS club got together to snap a picture for the yearbook. Everyone was in fine form, and some members that rarely visit even came by to get in on the action.
I just ducked out of school, and now I’m getting ready to go over to Yasu’s house for a farewell party for Melanie. I think that Chris and Lisa might also be there, so I’ll get to say goodbye to a lot of people!
