I was in to work at the usual time, but everyone else came in late. I had lots of time alone in the staffroom studying and drinking hot tea. Finally a couple of teachers started to trickle in. Most of the other teachers didn’t come in today – they were working late the night before marking exams.

That left me with nothing really to do. I spent time chatting with Ageshi sensei hassling him about his junk food diet, and I did a little desktop publishing for the history teacher, who was having trouble with a document that he was trying to print.

I was out the door around 2 o’clock, a nice early day. The weather was blowing hard – heavy wind and rain. It wasn’t quite a typhoon, but definitely stronger than anything else this year.

When I got home I straightened up a little bit and then soon afterwards my students came over for an English conversation lesson. There was a new student there for a one time visit. Her name is Kumiko, just one letter away from my wife’s name. Easy to remember. Her English is good and she spoke with confidence. I could tell that some of the other students were not so thrilled that she was around. It really shook up the balance of the group.

Once they left I cooked up some teriyaki chicken donburi (with an extra helping of garlic) and when Kuniko arrived she said that she could smell it from outside our door.

Friday I have a day off, but Kuniko has to go in for her graduation ceremony. I’d expect that she’ll be home early, so we might have some free time together Friday afternoon!

Last night my mom called and told me that my grandfather, Spike Daniel, had passed away in his sleep. His health had been failing over the last few weeks, and last week I was lucky enough to get in one last phone call with him.

The last time I saw him was during my last visit to America with Kuniko. We had told everyone that we were going to get married, and I wanted to bring her by to meet my grandparents. Spike welcomed her into the family, and asked her all kinds of questions. After we left he said how much he liked her, and how much he supported me going off to live in a distant country.

Growing up I lived in Northern California with my folks and my grandparents all lived in Southern California, in San Diego. We visited when we could, but because of the distance I didn’t really get to know my grandparents that well until I moved down to San Diego in 2001. I lived in an apartment not too far away, and I would go and visit almost every week. My grandma would fill my stomach with food and we would sit around their table and talk about everything. I remember at first being a little uncomfortable because I didn’t know what to talk about, but they always made me feel welcome.

Later my friend Brian Haven moved in with me, and soon we were both going over to visit. Spike dubbed us the “Dudes of Leisure”, since we both only worked part time and spent every minutes of our spare time hiking all over the area.

One of the entertaining things about hanging out with Spike was that he was from a different era, and he would suddenly come up with these strange English expressions that somehow survived lingual extinction by residing in some corner of his brain. We dubbed them “Spike-isms”, and we recorded quite a few. He would say something funny, and we’d go scrambling for a pencil to write it down. You really felt like you were channeling into his past – fifty, sixty, seventy years ago people were saying these things! Some made sense, and the ones that didn’t were somehow even funnier.

Eventually Brian Haven moved to Pittsburgh to go to grad school at Carnegie Mellon, and I got into the JET Program and prepared to move to Japan. It was tough to say goodbye to my grandparents – they had become accustomed to my visits, and they didn’t have a lot of friends to take care of them.

Although we lived far apart, in a very real way I felt like he was here with me. He was a daily reader of this journal, often sending me e-mails to correct errors in my spelling or grammar. If I fell behind a couple of days in my entries, he’d send me a message to make sure things were going OK. He loved hearing about my students here and how they reacted to a big American guy as their teacher.

Spike lived a long time. He was always laughing about something, and he had a good philosophy on how life treats you, and how you should treat life. I’m glad that I had a chance to really get to know him during my time in San Diego. I will miss him.

It was one of those weird days at work. They were doing a special exam for the new first year students, part of a central exam that is taken throughout Hyogo prefecture. All of the teachers at my school were involved in some way, but my role was limited to standing by in case the listening test somehow broke – then I was to step in and do the listening test over the loudspeakers by myself. Luckily, no breakages occurred and I was sitting at my desk all day.

Anytime the teachers are really busy and they want to keep them from going somewhere for lunch, they bring in a free bento lunch. Today’s bento lunch was delicious as usual, and it made for a nice study break.

Most of the time the teachers were tied up in the classroom watching over the students, and then marking specific sections of the exam once the students finished them. In the staffroom the place was empty, with only an occasional teacher walking by. The vice principal told me that although most of the teachers would be staying late into the night marking, I had every right to leave at the regular time. I exercised that right and got out of there – later I found that all the other teachers had stayed at school until almost midnight marking exams.

I got home and cleaned up the house just a little bit. My second year students came over around six o’clock, and we had a good time talking about movies and Universal Studios Japan and plans for their third year of high school. They had some good questions for me about White day in America (there is none!) and my high school days.

After they left I got a phone call from Kuniko saying she was stuck at work late, so I went ahead and ate dinner. I attempted to make chili cheese dogs, but the hot dogs in Japan are too small. I found a new product called, of all things, Homo Sausage. The Homo Sausage is wrapped in plastic that you have to cut off, and inside it looks like a sausage without skin – but the form remains remarkably firm. I have a feeling I had bought hot dog flavored fish cake formed in the shape of a hot dog. But the size of the Homo Sausage was just right for the buns, and when you put chili and cheese all over it you could kind of believe that it was a regular hot dog.

Kuniko got home really late, and I helped her copy some DVDs of a choral competition at her school while she ate her chili cheese Homo Sausage. Her reaction was much the same as mine. I’m going to have to do something much better for Thursday night.

On Tuesday Kuniko called my school for me and let them know that I was sick. I was playing a little hooky, and it was nice to sleep in for a change.

Rather than do a lot of fun stuff I stayed indoors mainly, working on my Japanese vocabulary, doing the laundry and sorting out the house a little bit since we’ll be having students coming in two nights in a row.

A while back I was looking everywhere for a simple kid’s picture dictionary in Japanese, so I could find out the names of lots of simple daily things that slip through the cracks of my vocab study. I gave up my search after not finding anything comprehensive, and getting a lot of blank looks from employees and friends. Today I was looking at a Japanese language study site on the internet and found a review of a book that was interesting.

I walked over to the bookstore at Ito Yokado, and found the book there. I looked through it, and it was amazing. It had everything I needed, and more. Everything was illustrated and it was written in Japanese hiragana script so I can read it even if I don’t happen to know a kanji. The book is huge – it will take a long, long time to read it all.

Next to that book were two others by the same author, and they were just as impressive. One was a language usage guide for kids, showing with pictures what expressions fit what situations. It was huge as well. The other book was a smaller book that was filled with names for things based on various categories – things at home, foods, things at the store, things at an airport, etc. While the dictionary is organized alphabetically, this one was organized by situation.

I wish I had all these books after my first year of studying Japanese. For years I’ve been avoiding some fundamental words or expressions that I didn’t know – using language crutches to get around them. I bought all three books. They were big and expensive, but I think they will be invaluable from here on. A little embarrassing to be seen reading them, but who am I trying to impress?

In the evening I headed into Osaka, with my spare ticket to the concert because Kuniko was tied up at work. I showed up and met Yasu, and surprisingly got a message from Kuniko saying that she was unexpectedly free and could come to the show. We waited for her, and despite a slight train delay we had time to go meet Antoine and get to the show.

The show was really good – Cake sounded great and it was a really fine-tuned performance. There were a lot of foreigners like me at the event, which caused various reactions among our group of four. Antoine was completely at home, Yasu was pleasantly surprised, I was felt slightly uncomfortable, and Kuniko was also not too thrilled.

Kuniko and I don’t try to avoid foreigners, but we don’t go out of our way to hang out with them. In general they are noisy, they tend to ignore (or not know) the social rules of the Japanese, and there is this air of superiority that they carry – it is hard to describe. It’s interesting to see how my view of foreigners has changed over the time that I’ve been in Japan.

Cake played all their favorite songs, and some surprising country tunes, made a few references to Bakersfield, and then did three encores and left. We left soon afterwards, and began the long trek back. We’ll all be tired tomorrow morning!

By reading this journal you not only get to share in my successes and accomplishments, you also get to see the other side of the equation.

I went into work today a little tired, but feeling OK considering the late night last night. I was surprised to see that Inoguchi sensei called in sick. He had an easy schedule like me, though, so why not?

I had a simple day studying – no classes, just one long staff meeting in the afternoon. I sat through the meeting, and there was only one scary moment when it sounded like they may argue about smoking at school again. The last argument lasted almost an hour, and I wanted to get out of there to go catch a concert in Osaka. Luckily, the guy rolled over, and we were out of there. I had previously asked to leave early, so I grabbed my bag and went into the bathroom to change into suitable concert clothes.

I was out the door and I bought a ticket to Akashi, and then stored away my stuff in a locker there. From there it was about a half hour to Osaka. I was actually there early, so I walked around a little bit and browsed through the big bookstore in the Hankyu building.

Finally it was around six o’clock – about the time to meet Yasu, Antoine and Kuniko. Kuniko arrived first, and then Antoine, and I sent a message to Yasu to see where he was. He called me back a moment later, laughing. He told me to look at the concert ticket, and sure enough, plain as day it said March 14th on it.

I laughed and laughed, and then hung up with Yasu and then told Antoine and Kuniko that they had come all the way out to Osaka for nothing. I had given them the wrong date.

There was all kinds of good ways to look at the situation, but the end result was that it was pretty embarrassing and I felt bad that they had made time in their schedules for this. What was worse – Kuniko couldn’t go on the correct date, so we’ve got an extra ticket to try to get rid of.

The evening wasn’t a total loss, however. We went out to a Korean restaurant and had a really good dinner and a couple rounds of beer. We laughed and laughed and really had one of those warm dinners with good friends that you remember for a long time. Antoine was in rare form, and together we talked about his family coming to visit, my brother coming at around the same time, and how important it is to actually look at the tickets that you buy.

We got out of there early, since Antoine and I will be back the next day for the concert. Kuniko and I took the long train ride back, but we were both in really good moods, and we even remembered to get my luggage in Akashi on the way home.

On the way back we were talking about Inoguchi sensei taking a day off, since he didn’t really have any responsibility that day. I realized that I didn’t really have anything going on Tuesday, so we decided that I’d call in sick. Inoguchi sensei must be a bad influence on me…

Saturday Kuniko had to go all the way to the Kansai Airport in Osaka to see off one of her students, and I had to stick around and do my “community clean up” duty. I teamed up with Yasu’s mom to mark out a little bit of territory in the back of the apartments, and we chatted and raked up leaves. Actually, we mostly chatted.

The rest of the day was not so exciting. I did some shopping for White Day, as well as cleaning up the house for next week. It will be a busy week, so I’ve got to clean while I can.

Kuniko got back late in the afternoon. When she arrived at the airport she met up one of her coworkers, but together they were unable to track down their student. I guess she caught the flight OK, but it was a bit of a wasted trip.

We went over to Kuniko’s folks’ place for dinner and had lots of sushi, fried shrimp, and some excellent miso soup. It was fun to play with the cats and chat about our respective trips to Hokkaido. We’ve been getting rice from the family field now for a while, and that means that we are officially on the hook to plant rice when the season comes, in a couple of months. Kuniko is trying to get out of it by pleading that she is afraid of frogs, but I’m going to go out there and plant. It sounds like hard work, but I think it would be a fun experience.

Sunday we lounged around the house in the morning and then after lunch we met up with Inoguchi sensei and his wife to go to Nara. They picked us up in their car and we drove the long way to Nara, trying to avoid all the traffic through Kobe and Osaka.

The reason we were going to Nara is because of a special ceremony that is pretty famous around Japan, called Omizutori. It happens once a year at a famous temple in Nara, and so we thought we’d go check it out.

Once we arrived in Nara we had lots of time to kill. We walked through a museum looking some statues of Buddha and his servants that turned out to be national treasures. We had an early dinner at a tea house that was really good. We sat inside a little room on tatami and pillows, and they brought the food to us to eat. Strangely, I was the only one in the group who received a little table to make it easier to eat. They asked me if I was OK with chopsticks – I got the feeling that they kept some forks around just in case.

The food was traditional and quite good. There were lots of things – tofu, tea and rice (mixed together), mackerel sushi, beans, soup, eel and shrimp. It was delicious. Unfortunately Kuniko and I couldn’t finish – we still had food in our stomachs from lunch.

We went to one more museum to stay warm, do a little shopping, and drink some coffee in the café/restaurant. These were good chances to practice my Japanese, and it was nice of everyone to be patient with me. My language skills are still very choppy – I’ve got a long way to go to get speaking smoothly.

Finally it was dark so we went to the temple to see the ceremony. There were lots of people – thousands, I’d say, that came out despite the light rain. We found a spot in a parking lot far, far away, but we had a pretty good vantage point. As more people came, they were all carrying umbrellas and it made it very hard to see. Luckily, just before the beginning of the ceremony the rain stopped and everyone put their umbrellas down.

The ceremony itself is always vividly captured on film in books and newspapers – it involves big flames and sparks falling on the spectators below. Supposedly if you are hit by a spark it will help cleanse your soul. We were barely able to see the sparks, so it wasn’t likely we’d be hit by one. When they brought out the fire, they just kind of held it up there, and then walked around a little, then rotated out for somebody else. It was the single most anticlimactic thing I think I’ve ever seen.

I did my best to keep a brave face on, since Inoguchi sensei and his wife went through a lot of trouble and organization to plan the day, but inside I was thinking they need a little something more to this ceremony. The pictures are always really exciting, but now I realize that it is because they have their cameras set to extremely long exposure times to catch every spark’s trail.

After watching for about 10 minutes we headed back to the warmth of the car, and then made the 90 minute drive back home. Despite the less-than-exciting ceremony the rest of the trip was fun, and we enjoyed spending time with Inoguchi sensei and his wife. Kuniko and I had a late night snack and then hit the sack.

I posted some pictures from the day trip to Nara over in the photo gallery – go check them out!

With no pesky classes to get in the way I was one productive assistant teacher at work today. Most of the day I studied, but I still had time to walk around and chat with students and teachers.

In the late afternoon I had a really good conversation with the vice principal. We found ourselves almost alone in the staffroom since everyone else was stuck in meetings, so we tried to solve the world’s problems. It was fun taking to him – he’s got a pretty good outlook on how the world is going these days.

After talking for about 15 minutes I could tell he was getting tired. He thanked me for the conversation, and then gave me the secret signal that means I can leave early. I followed his instructions and got out of there about an hour early. Nice.

Tonight Kuniko and I are going out to catch a late movie, and then I’ve got to be up early for community clean up tomorrow. Kuniko has to work, but we should have some fun on Sunday and Monday to write about…

I had lots of free time today at school, and the situation looks to continue until at least the end of the month and beginning of next. I enjoy the free time because it gives me a chance to study, and also to walk around and chat with the students while they are doing club activities in the afternoon.

Today there were a lot of students in the staff room, so I chatted with anybody that was loitering around my desk. The students are completely comfortable with me now, and they seem to get a lot of satisfaction out of successfully completing a conversation with me.

I was working in my classroom late in the afternoon, and two floors above me I could here the brass band practicing a new piece of music. It was a very dramatic orchestra piece, it sounded like something out of a movie. I walked upstairs, and through the open teachers door and around quietly around to the front of the music room. Everybody saw me except for the music teacher who was waving his little wand like crazy. The students played on, but they had little smiles on their faces and some even snuck in a wave to me between notes.

They sounded great. It was cool to be in the same room and get the full effect. You listen to music so often in your life but it is easy to forget that all those tapes, albums, CDs and MP3s are really just a way to recreate the sound of a live performance. There’s nothing quite like the real thing.

The music teacher must have noticed that everyone was looking over his shoulder now and then so he stole a look back at me and seemed pretty surprised. I smiled at him, and he turned around and kept on waving the magic wand. I figured it was time to get out of there – I didn’t want to distract the students, so I gave them a big smile and a quick bow and got out of there.

After school I went across the street to Tsuji-san’s place to chat with her for a while. She is in the middle of preparations for a wedding this June, and her family and her fiance’s family are doing a lot of the Japanese traditional pre-wedding rituals. Tsuji-san was really frustrated with it, but it seems like she is accepting it as something that she cannot change.

Recently her future family-in-law came over to her parent’s house to deliver a huge sum of money and lots of expensive items, to compensate Tsuji-san’s family for taking away her daughter. Tsuji-san’s family will then have to pay for all the furnishings of the house, and that sum is traditionally more than what they received at this stage. There is lots of money flying around, and it seems like such a weird ritual to somebody like me. Tsuji-san is marrying a very traditional guy, though, and with that comes consequences. He is having her quit her job, and she’ll become a full-time housewife, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, and taking care of the household while he works long, long hours. That’s a common marriage model around here, and one I’m glad that I’m not a part of.

When I got home Kuniko was cooking away – and she served up a delicious curry dinner. It was nice to come home to a nice hot meal. Maybe I’m changing my mind about some traditions. <- That was a joke. We walked over to the local convenience store to pay a bill and did some shopping at Ito Yokado. It’s getting close to the weekend, and we’ll be kind of busy, I think. Next week will be even busier – we’re going to see a concert, we’ve got White Day on the 14th, and then I’ve got students over two nights in a row. Kuniko’s friend might come over, too. Luckily I have next Friday off.

I haven’t phoned in a lesson in a long time. Maybe the last time was during my first year of teaching, I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.

These days we are having lessons, but only four lessons a day, and they don’t count for anything, and the students know it. Why they even show up is beyond me. Anyway, today I had only one class, and dream up some activities, I just showed “The Incredibles” on DVD for the 50 minute period. I felt somehow guilty for not putting more effort into the class. I think if this situation comes up again, I’ll try to do something more interesting.

I spent one period with Miyake sensei helping her with her transcription, and we talked about all kinds of stuff in an informal way to help her with her vocabulary and listening comprehension. Then after school I had an ESS meeting, where we just hung out and chatted about each other’s vacations. We played three lively games of Jenga, and then everybody took off to get home early.

We had an English teacher’s meeting in the afternoon to discuss students that were on the brink of failure, but as it worked out there were only two that people were concerned about. After each student year gave their comments, the chairperson asked me to give my comments in English. It was nice to be able to contribute to the meeting in some way.

They are planning a new curriculum in our school starting the school year after next, called “International Understanding”, which will be managed by the English department. Our current principal is really into the idea of making our school more like an “international” school – focusing on a broader view of Japan in the world, not just Takasago in Japan. He’s been working behind the scenes to get things like this implemented, and we’ve had various international events recently, so it sounds like it is becoming a reality. I wish I could be around to play a bigger part in it, but it will be my successor’s chance to enjoy the new curriculum.

Kuniko got home a little earlier than usual, and she cooked up a great dinner of hamburg with a cabbage salad and carrots for dinner. It was really delicious. She made our bento lunches today as well, and they deserve a mention – she put in fried rice instead of white rice, and italian style pork strips that were awesome.

We’ll be hitting the sack early tonight – Kuniko is exhausted from a long day at work, and I’m going crosseyed from studying all day. We’re closing in on the weekend – can’t wait!

I went into work today with a purpose. I had lots of things to take care of, some of which have some long term implications. Since I had no classes, I used my time to do lots of odd jobs. For example, I worked on renewing my passport, which is a little bit trickier than you might think considering I’m living in a foreign country. The passport needs to be renewed so that I can travel this summer. The scariest step is putting your own passport into the mail and hoping that it arrives safely. I’ll be without a passport for the next month or so.

Dealing with all the passport paperwork ended up taking lots of time, and I spent more time than I wanted to at the post office. They were very patient with me and my poor Japanese, and we somehow got through the whole thing.

Next I sent off an application for two certified copies of my Japanese exam results, so that I can flash those to potential employers if necessary. I talked with the vice principal and got his permission to use his name on my resume as a reference. I cleaned up my desk, and got rid of lots of junk that had been cluttering things up.

That left me with time to catch up on my vocabulary, and work on my correspondence Japanese course. By the end of the day I was pretty tired out. However, I stuck around until a little bit later to meet up with some other teachers to go out to dinner.

I joined a group of younger teachers (actually, the youngest teachers), and we went out to eat and drink at a local Takasago restaurant. I’ve hung out with a similar group of teachers, with some of the same members, but this group was all from my school, and apparently they meet regularly. I was happy to get invited, and they were very patient with my slow Japanese.

The restaurant was really good, and two of the employees turned out to be recent graduates from our school. They watched their teachers get loaded and joke around, and I wondered what exactly they were thinking. They were new and so they were very nervous. They took our orders very seriously, and didn’t have a very friendly attitude – just trying to be professional, I guess.

Most of the fun was with Ageshi sensei and Matsumoto sensei. Ageshi sensei takes a lot of heat at school, so it was nice to see that he had an outlet to vent his frustrations. I found out that he is planning on getting married this summer, so that was good to hear. Matsumoto sensei played perfectly to his act, and together they were cracking everyone up.

We didn’t stay too late; I was back by 9:30 or so. Ageshi sensei had too much to drink and so he spent five hours at school sleeping it off, and then drove home at around 3 a.m. to be back at school at 7 a.m. That’s hardcore.

At school today I distributed my omiyage, and everyone was surprised that I had snuck off to Hokkaido over the weekend. Everyone was also excited about the omiyage – it was a big hit. I brought just the right amount to cover everyone.

The last exam of the year happened to be mine, so I was very busy marking after it ended. I got them done pretty quickly, though, and was able to leave by 2 o’clock. Before I left some of the teachers invited me out to dinner tomorrow night, so I’ll go out and give Kuniko a “Bryan Night Off”. Should be fun!

Kuniko also got home early – it was a very unusual. We had a light dinner of okonomiyaki, and then scarfed down some Hokkaido desserts. Everything tastes great, except for one particular souvenir that we bought.

We bought some Hokkaido cheese – some flavored cheeses. There are three flavors – Smoked Salmon, which is OK, Nori (seaweed), which is not so great, and Shrimp, which is flat out awful. It is so awful that we wouldn’t give it away to anyone – we’d feel too bad. Originally we were going to have cheese and crackers tonight for dinner, but since the cheese turned out to be nasty, we settled on okonomiyaki.

Tomorrow we start an abbreviated schedule of classes for about a week and a half. I have only one class during that span, so I have to think up something to keep some students busy on Wednesday. Kuniko suggested a movie – I’ll see if that will fly with Kobayashi sensei.

It was raining cats and dogs today, and when I arrived at work I was a little moist, despite having an umbrella during my commute.

Today a class took one of my exams, and so I marked those quickly and then scooted out the door for a long lunch with Keiko and her friends. I’ve had lunch with Keiko and her friends a couple of times. The group changes slightly each time, but usually it is just a big meal and lots of talking. The idea is for them to practice their English, but lately they are using more and more Japanese since they know that I can understand it. While it makes them more comfortable, it’s not really a good way for them to learn English.

We had a pretty good time at the restaurant. It was filled with people, 99% of them women. They were all stealing glances at our table to see us speaking English (and Japanese) and there was an interesting side discussion as the women at our table gossiped about the others. I work in a small town, and so everyone wants to talk about who is doing what and whose son is doing this and that. If they put a little bit of their gossip energy into studying English they’d have it whipped by now!

After a long lunch I came back to work and putted around for about 20 minutes, and then I gathered up my stuff and left. On my way out I was walking down the hall to the exit, and by chance the vice principal walked out of an office and towards me. He saw me, and then looked at his watch, and then came walking towards me a little faster.

I’ll admit, my heart kind of skipped a beat – I’m leaving early and my boss is coming over to talk to me. We have an agreement about when I can leave during exam period, so I shouldn’t be worried. Sometimes there are miscommunications though; it has happened before.

He came up to me and said, “It is very late. You can leave much earlier!” I was relieved to hear it and promised that I’d leave earlier tomorrow.

Actually on Tuesday we had a little talk and he told me that I can leave in the afternoon through the exam period, and that I should just use my common sense on when to leave. That’s a big breakthrough. Sometimes things are pretty rigid and formal, especially about coming and going from school. He is saying that he trusts me to make the call whether it’s OK or not, and it was nice to hear. I haven’t worked at a company that trusted me to come and go as I please since I worked for Synapta back in 2001.

Tonight’s dinner is yakisoba, prepared by yours truly. Last night’s pasta was a hit and so I’ll try to keep the streak alive. It’s wet and cold outside, so heating up the kitchen with the frying pan is something I’m looking forward to.

Exams have begun, and our first and second year students were sweating away for half the day over a variety of tough subjects. My exams don’t start until the last day, so I’ll be struggling to mark them before the deadline.

I had nothing to do today – just lots of free time to study and read, and chat with some of the other teachers. I got a copy of the yearbook of the graduating class, just like last year. This time there were no sneaky teachers to hook me up with free copies, so I had to pay for it. Still, it was worth it to have a yearbook of my first students.

I was out of work at around one o’clock, and back home I did some chores, read a little bit of my mystery novel, and made a spectacular roast beef sandwich for lunch. Now it’s early evening and I’m planning some pasta for dinner when Kuniko gets back.

Tomorrow I’m going to have lunch with some of the neighbors of the school – a bunch of older ladies who are eager to study English. I’ve dined with them before. They pick up my tab, and I chat with them for an hour or so. It’s a good deal for them – I usually get 3000 yen an hour, they get me for the cost of a lunch plate. They are interesting to talk to – at first they use English, but by the end they are almost all speaking just Japanese. They need to spend time chatting with someone that can only speak English – that’s the best way for them to learn.

Well, back to the kitchen…

Today the third year students had their graduation ceremony. It was much like the last two years’ ceremonies, but I knew a lot more of the students this time around. I think that makes a big difference in the entertainment value. Also I can understand a little more now.

The ceremony ended in just about an hour’s time, and all the teachers ran back to the heaters in the staff room to warm up. It was very, very cold in the gym. I had learned from last time and brought a hot pack that I stuck to the back of my undershirt, so it kept me warm most of the time.

We had a free lunch today – a pretty good bento from a local restaurant. After that I wrapped up my studies and then walked around a little bit to congratulate the students.

Usually we have an ESS party, but this year there were only two ESS students graduating, and neither of them were very interested in ESS. I consulted with Hayashi sensei, and he said to skip the party this year.

So, I had lots of free time. Everywhere I went students wanted me to sign their yearbooks and to take pictures. After a while there was a line of students – I’ve haven’t posed for so many pictures since my wedding. I wrote English phrases in their yearbooks and encouraged them to relax, take vacation now and then, and don’t be afraid of change.

I was signing and being photographed into well into the afternoon, and finally I got some time to head back to the warm staff room. Some of the students would come in to get teachers to sign their books, and so I was still busy.

The students graduating are the first students I ever taught, and they had me around for almost their whole three years of high school. I was really happy to see that they weren’t shy about coming up to me and asking for a message, and asking in English.

A little later the vice principal sent out a message over the intercom. He gathered up all the teachers and told us that we all did a great job, and that if any teachers had any business to take care of they were welcome to get it done. That was code for “Run, run, head for the hills! You can go home early!” I waited a few polite minutes, and then headed for the door. I noticed that only one person left before me, but as I was leaving the school there were cars flying out of the driveway.

Tonight Kuniko is getting home late, so I’m on the hook for dinner tonight. I think we’re going to do okonomiyaki tonight. I bought some kimchee, pork, and we’ve got some fresh cabbage from the Kageyama farm to throw in there. Looking forward to it!