During my walk to work I have a few people that I say “hello” to. They are also going to work or school, and so I’ve probably got 10-12 people that I greet everyday. The nice thing about seeing people on my route is that I don’t need a watch – I can tell what time it is by the location I meet them.
There’s one lady that is coming up the steps to the platform in Takasago as I am going down. A long time ago she kind of looked at me, and then looked away really quickly when she saw that I saw her. It’s been kind of my project in the morning to get a “good morning” out of her. It’s hard because there are lots of people and it seems like she’s really shy. Lately though we exchange smiles and nods, which is huge progress.
The history teacher always makes a comment when he’s walking with me about saying hello to everyone. It seems strange to him, but to me it’s just part of my job – besides, it feels good to be nice to people. You don’t have to be handing out information to be nice to strangers.
Today was a fairly light day for classes, just two for the first years and one tutoring session for Ms. Miyake. Normally she takes classes with Mr. Hayashi, but apparently he’s too busy to do classes for her these days. I know how she feels – Mr. Hayashi and I haven’t really been talking much lately. I think it’s a function of stress and his tough schedule.
I had lunch in the cafeteria with the students, and a bunch of first year students sat at my table surrounding me, chatting in Japanese and English, and treating me like I eat lunch with them everyday. This is a big contrast from the second and third year students, who seem to think that I want to eat alone, and content themselves with visiting my table and not sitting there.
Walking around school in the afternoon it really hit me how much I enjoy my students. Now I’ve taught all of the students in the school, and everyone is familiar with me. As I walk down the halls students walk with me and chat, call my name from down corridor, and are generally very comfortable chatting with me in English.
I left today at five o’clock, stopped into Ito Yokado for some lettuce, and made a sandwich and salad for dinner. This evening I relaxed, started putting away some winter clothes, and did budgeting for the next few months.
Tomorrow is my biggest day of the week. I’ve got a pretty complicated lesson plan for my second year students – I hope it works out!
