Yesterday I spent the day with Brenda, Yamamoto sensei and Tsutsumi sensei. We ran around running errands in order to get Brenda settled in. It was the second day I spent in the company of my replacement, and it was an interesting day.
We started in the morning with me coming over to meet her at the teacher apartments in Futami so that I could teach her how to use the train to get to school on her own.
She asked me to come in and help with explaining a few things, and it was a great indicator of how much I’ve settled in here – I was shocked to see her walk into her apartment with her shoes still on. I was there for 30 seconds and I took my shoes off at the door without even thinking about it.
She’s in the middle of unpacking, and the place in a little bit of disarray, but she made good progress in just one day – she should be all settled in after a week or so.
I took her to the train station and showed her how to buy tickets and money saver passes, but I had this feeling that she wasn’t really paying attention. That feeling persisted throughout the day. We got on the train, and told her where to get off the train, and what landmarks to watch for. Unfortunately she kept talking through the trip and really didn’t look out the window. When we arrived she said that she had hadn’t really paid attention, but she was pretty sure she could figure it out next time.
She would ask me a questions about the job or the lifestyle in Japan, but she had an odd habit of taking whatever I say and confirming that she already figured that was the case and then moving on to another question. Her questions didn’t seem to be the right ones, either. For example, she would ask questions like, “What is the school’s goal?” or “Can I go to Singapore on the school trip?” or “Where is Kyoto?” I just tried to show her how to get the information, or who the person was to talk to.
I could see that I was reaching my exposure limit for Brenda, so I was looking forward to ending this day and getting back to my life of leisure and unpacking at home.
At school she met the principal, and he said some really nice things about me – he spoke in Japanese, of course, and Yamamoto sensei translated for Brenda. The gist of the conversation was that she should really try to be as good a teacher as I was, and I was quite flattered to hear it.
Back in the teacher’s room Brenda met some more people, and we got her hooked up on the computer. She was a little intimidated because the computer is a Japanese operating system, but she’ll get used to it quickly.
We gathered the troops and headed from the school to the city offices in Akashi – we applied for her foreigner card, and she called her folks from a payphone to say that she had arrived safely and was doing well.
In the afternoon we went to Nitori – one of my favorite household item stores. I thought she would find some good stuff there, and I was right – she bought a ton of stuff. On the way back to her place they dropped me off at Saty in Okubo, so I said a quick goodbye and then walked home to relax in air conditioned comfort.
I had some leftover cheese and crackers for dinner, and then went out to the station and met Kuniko as she arrived home from her co-worker drinking party. We came on back home and crashed right out – it was a long day.
Today I’m home alone all day, so I can get some laundry done, start packing for Europe (pack light!) and run to Akashi to pick up a library book.
