For Wednesday we had no classes, just a long involved staff meeting in the morning. Everyone was there, and there were a variety of topics. The most interesting involved the new tobacco policy that they are considering. I guess there is some serious teacher resistance to the idea of a no-smoking campus, and it sounds like they have been exerting pressure in various areas. The principal appealed to the teachers to do their best to quit smoking by the next spring, and asked them to consult with him if there were any problems. Some of these teachers are heavy, heavy smokers – this will be tough for them to deal with.
I hung out the rest of the day studying at my desk, and talking to students here and there. My new resolution is to talk to students more, even if it’s in Japanese. I’ll still be using only English in the classroom, but I want the students to have more chances to interact with a foreigner.
Around 5 p.m. Maeda sensei gathered up a group of about 15 teachers, and we walked across town to an okonomiyaki place. We all sat down, and the menu had been pre-arranged. The beer situation was really unusual: whenever you needed a beer you just went to the fridge and grabbed it. People were constantly getting gigantic cold bottles of Asahi Super Dry and pouring them to their neighbors in the Japanese style. The owner of the restaurant kept our okonomiyaki plates full of food all night, and everyone drank and chatted and chatted and drank.
The owner came by our table and I said “thank you” in Japanese when she gave us our plates, and she commented that “I’m very good at Japanese!” This is pretty common in Japan – you say one word in Japanese and you are talented. It just shows you how low the expectations are for foreigners. That in turn is a great motivator for me to learn.
I sat at the middle table with Maeda sensei, Arauchi sensei, and Yamamoto sensei for the first part of the evening, but later found myself sitting with the school nurse (also named Yamamoto sensei) and Arai sensei, a P.E. teacher. I spoke only Japanese with Yamamoto sensei and half and half with Arai sensei. Everyone kept my glass full, and so it was really hard to tell how much I drank – which is one good way to know if you are drunk or not.
The school nurse and I rarely talk at school, but we have some things in common. We saw each other in Carrefour a long time ago and we were both with our secret “significant other”, so we kept each other’s secret for a long time. We also both get chased around by the history teacher, for quite different reasons.
We talked a little bit about her mystery boyfriend, and it sounds like that relationship is on the rocks. She’s the same age as me, so the clock must be ticking, but she’s pretty relaxed about it and isn’t bowing to any pressure. She was the only woman at the party, and was nice enough to translate drunken old man Japanese into normal Japanese for me.
Drinks were poured, I made new friends, one of the math teachers admitted that his English nickname is “Crazy Monkey”, teachers began calling for crazy orders of more and more food, and we all just kept drinking. The refrigerator was always full of cold beer – and it didn’t seem to matter how many we took – nobody was keeping track.
Around 10 o’clock I made my move out of there and headed to the station, briefly accompanied by the school nurse who probably wanted to make sure I didn’t get lost in Takasago. I assured her I knew the way back, and headed off to the station. I got home just after Kuniko arrived from her dinner date with a friend. I guess the atmosphere of their place was good, but the food wasn’t. Too bad. Kuniko got a new haircut and had gotten lots of bread and cakes for us for the next day. We talked for a while about each other’s day, but I made a poor conversation partner due to inebriation and so I fell asleep sure of the fact that I would have a pretty good hangover tomorrow.
