I had a strange day today – nothing particular happened – in fact, I had no classes today. We were supposed to do a sports day, but because it was raining it got cancelled, so we had classes as usual. Tomorrow if it doesn’t rain we will try to do a sports day, but if it does rain I’ll finally have one or two classes to teach.
Today was strange because due to a problem with my PDA I couldn’t study vocabulary, so I just spent the day reading passages in Japanese and translating from a Japanese textbook. It was hard work, and I took frequent breaks to walk around the school and see what was going on elsewhere. It was like my brain was burned out on studying, and trying to get me to do other things. I think I’m going to take the hint, and tomorrow I’ll probably just study a little bit.
I talked with the principal today, and we sorted out what they want me to do. I told him that I have an evening appointment right in the middle of the days they want me to work, and hopefully that will keep me out of any overnight trips. I don’t mind helping out, but I do mind camping out.
Lastly I had a meeting with the other English teachers, and we talked about the students that were failing, and we talked about what we should do. Mr. Yamamoto was running the meeting, and as usual he asked me to give my opinion of each class as we went through. It’s nice to be able to participate in these meetings, even though it’s not happening in English. Of course I give my comments in English, and I think that makes everyone happy.
Tonight for dinner I made a hot ham and cheese sandwich, and I had a side of chirashizushi. For dessert I bought a peach from Ito Yokado – there are a lot of peaches in the store right now, but they are all expensive. I thought it’d be a shame to let the season go by without even trying one, but I was so full from dinner that I’m going to save it for breakfast tomorrow.
It’s really feeling like summer now that the cicadas have started making their distinctive noise. In Japanese commercials on TV when they want to give the impression that it’s a hot summer day they play the sound effects from the cicadas, and it’s amazing how fast you think of summer – it’s an audio lightswitch. I still remember stepping off the bus into Yashiro to meet Mr. Hayashi and Andy for the first time, and the cicadas were making that noise. I turned to Antoine and said “What the hell is that?” and we both knew we weren’t in California anymore.
