On Friday morning Kuniko and I were heading out the door and at the last minute I figured that I should send off my package of wedding announcements to my folks today, since it will be a few days before the post office opens again. Kuniko watched me getting ready, and thought maybe we should wait and put a few choice items in. It was a good idea that we waited – more on that later.
Kuniko and I walked to the train station together, which is unusual becuase she leaves about a half hour earlier than I leave. We stood on the opposite sides of the platform and I made goofy faces at her and told her how sleepy I was. Other passengers sat and watched us with mild curiosity.
Today at school was went without a hitch. The history teacher made a lot of visits. Lately he’s using a new strategy to drive me crazy. He is watching CNN news, and although they are speaking English very fast he catches bits and pieces, formulates a hypothesis based on what he heard, and then comes in to ask me about it.
This leads to strange situations. Like today, he told me he was shocked that the newscaster was using two words, “refugee” and “evacuee” to describe the victims of Hurricane Katrina. He demanded to know which word I use, so that he could settle it in his mind. There’s no easy answer, and I think he knows it. He wants to get me talking to him as much as possible. He’ll decide that all Americans can’t deal with humidity, everyone in America is cool or rich or rude or cheap. Like so many other people, CNN news is one of the few windows he has into American culture. Scary.
Kuniko offered to cook dinner tonight, so when she messaged me on the way home and asked me what I was up for, I told her -> MEAT. She came through with several packages of beef on sale of Ito Yokado, and she created a vegetable and beef stir fry that rocked. It hit the spot. We each ate big, and there’s more left for the weekend.
Kuniko was bushed after dinner, but we managed to stay up to watch part of a Japanese drama show that I enjoy. I don’t understand, but it’s likely that if I did, I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much.
I don’t remember if I’ve explained the plot here before, so I might as well tell you. The plot revolves around six students that are supposed to be college students, or maybe they are high school students. They are dressed how a fashion designer would envision cool students. Their teacher always wears the same clothes, always has the same stern, no nonsense attitude, and spends more time berating the students than actually teaching. This is of course because they are not going to show him actually teaching material – that would make for boring TV.
Strangely, he is assisted by four other teachers that come into his class and do teach short lessons with actual learning material. They run in a montage style, with each of the students thoughtful faces getting a closeup. These part time teachers are dressed like historical figures from both Japan and other parts of the world. There’s a traditional Japanese father figure who wears robes and is always fanning himself. There’s a guy that looks like a Japanese Albert Einstein. Et cetera.
Tonight the students were trying to pass a test to get into a school, and the amount of drama that went into just going and checking the results was amazing. I wasn’t affected by the drama build-up – I don’t have much connection with the characters – but it was an interesting insight into how much pressure goes into passing tests in Japan. It’s a part of life here, even part of mine.
