Today was the big day for the next typhoon. In Japan they give them names and numbers, and this one was number 18. It was billed as bigger than the last one, which rearranged everything on my patio. Not surprisingly, students didn’t have to come to school today. Unfortunately, the teachers did.
Everybody was happy about the typhoon, because that meant that we didn’t have to teach classes. The students are happy, the teachers are happy, and because it’s a “natural phenomenon” we don’t have to make up the day later on. Excellent!
The bad news was the the dirt from our baseball and soccer field (fields are sand, not grass) was kicking up in the heavy winds, and a neighbor complained. The principal announced that we would take steps to try to reduce the dirt flying around. His plan:
We were to go out on the field carrying a firehose and try to wet the thing down in typhoon force winds. Yeah, good idea. One teacher even objected out loud during the announcement, something that is very non-Japanese. The other teachers looked at him like he had snapped.
We went out there and did our best, drenching each other in the process and I’ve still got sand in my hair, ears, and eyes. Yuck. We walked around with a couple of hoses for about fifteen minutes, hopefully appeasing the neighbor. Then we all went inside and had a staff meeting to talk about October’s events.
Mr. Hayashi suggested that we go over to the local coffee shop for lunch and kill some time over there. By the time we got back, everyone was leaving, and the winds were getting even stronger. They said that Sanyo train line had stopped running, so Mr. Hayashi drove me home. What a nice guy!
I arranged some things out on my patio to prepare – I lashed down my wooden plant rack with an extension cord to keep it from leaving the balcony area. I called my folks and chatted with them for a while. It had been a while since I talked to them and it was good to catch up.
During the afternoon I studied transitive and intransitive verbs, watched a movie I had downloaded from the internet (Liar, Liar), and talked with Kuniko on the phone. Throughout the evening the wind was howling outside, and a couple of times it got louder than I thought it could ever be. Not much rain, just heavy, heavy wind. I went out on the patio twice to recover some things, but most of what was going to blow away went during the last typhoon.
I’m headed to bed – it’s extremely humid right now so I’ve got the bedroom chilling and drying – can’t wait to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will no doubt be a cleanup day at school.
