It was a strange weather day today. When Kuniko and I left this morning the wind was blowing hard, knocking down signs and sending debris flying all over the place. The temperature was about 10 degrees warmer than usual – it felt like typhoon weather.
Later, once I got to school things settled into slight rainfall all day long, and slowly the temperature dropped to a normal level.
Although today was Valentine’s Day, there was no sign of it among my teachers and students. No students gave any chocolate to teachers, and no teachers gave any chocolate to their co-workers. That is, nobody gave anything except me.
Kuniko had been hard at work making secret chocolates for me, and she served them to me last night. Today we both brought in the extra chocolates to work, and I passed them out to teachers that I like. They were taken by surprise, because on Valentine’s Day in Japan the boys are supposed to receive, not give. I didn’t mind, though, and made a lot of people very happy.
That wasn’t all that Kuniko had done for me. She also made me a special lunchbox. The lunchbox had a pumpkin salad (with ham and onions), tamagoyaki rolled with cheese, ham and vegetable stir fry, hot dogs, tomatoes, and the main dish, cubes of sirloin steak that she sauteed with onions. She cut the carrots into heart shapes, and even the furikake on the rice was arranged into heart shapes. Wow. She did all that without me knowing.
At the end of the day third year students that had taken exams to enter high school came back to report on how they thought they did. The students that I had been coaching to enter the international school came back in tears. They were bawling and insisting that they didn’t have a chance. It’s a competitive school, and I wasn’t surprised that it was tough for them. I was surprised that they were taking it so hard. They have chances to enter other schools, and just because they didn’t get into this school doesn’t mean that they can’t work hard and be just as successful. But they don’t want to hear that right now. It was a little sad to see all the tears.
Now I’m back home and waiting for Kuniko to get back. It’s going to be a late night for her. I bought some roses and have them ready for when she gets back – she earned them with that super-lunch she made for me.
The end of the week is drawing closer, and I’m going to be going out with Antoine Friday night, and Kuniko on Sunday night. I’ll try to document all the fun and post some pictures later on.
