Sometime in the evening it had rained, since the roads were all a little moist while I walked to school. I decided to leave my manpurse at home, since it makes things easier when I want to leave early if I don’t get up and pack up my bags before going out the door. Unfortunately, my manpurse contains my spare umbrella, so I was working without a net. Fortunately, I wasn’t hit with a single drop of rain today. Lucky.
At school Mr. Hayashi and I sat and chit-chatted for a long time. He asked me to interview a teacher for a spot on the easy money STEP test panel, so I talked for a while with the poor guy. He was really nice, but nervous about speaking with me. Mr. Hayashi made it a surprise for him, so he had no prep time. He passed the test, though, so we should have another interviewer next time.
While chatting Mr. Hayashi said that he had been talking with Andy, my predecessor, in Australia and they had both been impressed with how much I had been studying Japanese. Andy suggested to Mr. Hayashi that it might be because I have a girlfriend, but Mr. Hayashi told Andy that he had seen no evidence of a girlfriend.
That must have got Mr. Hayashi thinking, because he said that he consulted with Mr. Komuri once he got back, and together they came up with the theory that maybe Bryan is gay.
Mr. Hayashi told me this with a nervous laugh and plenty of room for me to say yes or no, and I just laughed. I told him that I wasn’t gay, and he actually seemed a little relieved. He and Mr. Komuri had come up with a list of three women that they figured I had been interested in during the last year, and Mr. Hayashi was kind enough to share that with me. He paid close attention to how I responded to each name, and it was fun to see him sweating to figure out where I stand. It was interesting that Kuniko was last on his short list, but I didn’t give him anything to work with on any of the girls he had named.
In a way it was a relief to know that he doesn’t have a clue about Kuniko and I, but in another sense I do want to put his mind at ease. At the root of all this he just wants to make me happy during my stay in Japan, so it’s important to remember this anytime I feel like my privacy is invaded just a bit.
I was studying kanji a bit later, and one of my students came by and helped me by quizzing me. He would give me words, and then I tried to write them in kanji. I did pretty well, and it was a great way to test my knowledge. I need to find somebody to do that for me regularly.
Mr. Kimura and I joined Mr. Hayashi for lunch. Mr. Hayashi bought us all lunch, and then I was free to go home. I went straight to my apartment – the clouds were threatening, and just as I got home the drops started falling. Now it’s in the evening and it has been raining the whole time.
I talked with Kuniko on the phone and it turned out that she didn’t pass the teacher’s exam for Hyogo prefecture. She said it was probably because she was too busy to study, and she’s probably right. She barely has time to sleep, let alone study for a comprehensive teacher’s entrance exam. Tomorrow she is meeting Tomo-chan in Takatsuki, a town between Osaka and Kyoto. She invited me to come along, and since I’m free I’m going to make the trip out there. I haven’t seen Tomo-chan since she met us in Tokyo. Now she’s living in Kyoto, and getting used to a new job.
Jane came down again to visit with a notepad full of questions. I spent an hour or so with her going through my apartment and hers, looking at all the details and the layout. She’s got big plans for her place, and I tried to give her as many hints as possible about where things could be found, and what has worked for me. She’s a really upbeat, energetic person – she’s going to be a great neighbor.
