Wednesday was merely a normal day at work for me. Although the typhoon that was heading our direction threatened to send our students home early, we ended up finishing up the day as usual. There was a narrow chance of skipping my afternoon classes, but it didn’t happen – I was doing a rain dance in hopes of bringing the storm, but no luck. At least not right then.
I’ve been simplifying my lunch diet. I try to bring leftovers from home, and failing that, I go to the cafeteria and order up plain rice and soup. It costs 120 yen (about a dollar) and you get a bowl of white rice, a big cup of miso or dashi soup, and all the tea you can drink. To me it’s a sensible midday meal, but to the kitchen staff, it’s a little weird. I guess it’s the equivalent of somebody having two pieces of bread for their lunch. Not very exciting, I guess. The staff today offered to pour curry over the top – I think they think I’m out of money and I’m doing it because I’m poor. I explained that it’s because of a diet. They think I’m just strange.
After school they sent all the students home right away. Usually they linger for hours doing sports clubs and activities, but they had to leave today. I could tell some of the teachers were disappointed, because they wanted the students to be practicing for one event or another.
Since the students were gone, and the storm was approaching, I took the opportunity to skeedaddle a little early. I had my first teaching session with Azusa-chan, a student referred to me by Ms. Miyake.
I met Azusa at Carrefour, and it was starting to rain pretty hard. We walked about ten minutes to her house, and I met her father who had just come home from work. I also met her two dogs, who were very excited to have someone new in the house.
We worked for about an hour on business English, and we also worked out an hourly rate that seemed equitable, about $30 an hour.
By the time we finished the lesson, the rain was coming down in buckets. Her father offered to drive me back. At first I declined, but he insisted. Once I looked outside, I could see why. Just getting into his car I was completely soaked. He dropped me off at Ito Yokado, and I walked home from there. The streets were starting to flood, and I walked in ankle-deep water to my doorstep. Luckily, I’m on the second floor.
I had planned on doing some shopping, but since the weather was so violent, I just went inside and had some emergency rations that I had reserved. Tomorrow I’ll try to go shopping and stock up the freezer with the Japanese equivalent of TV dinners.
