It was really dead at school today. The vice principal wasn’t there, just a couple of teachers and the principal. I think the principal was keeping an eye on things to make sure we didn’t break into anarchy and steal all the staplers or something. Luckily, we remained under control.
Since there were so few teachers, the principal saw it as a great opportunity to get to know me better. We spoke for almost fifteen minutes in Japanese, and it was a real mental workout for me. Afterwards, I needed a rest – that’s how intense it was. It’s great practice, though, and I wish I could find more situations were I could have a conversation like that without it being my boss.
Arauchi sensei brought in his elementary school daughter today, and so I chatted a little bit with her. We tried to get her to use English, but she wasn’t up for it. She and a student from the school cooked up some soup for us, so it was nice to have some nice hot soup in the morning.
I decided that since the vice principal wasn’t there to check in with, I would just go home at the same time as yesterday. I packed up my stuff, and leaving just two teachers behind I walked out the door and towards the station. About 100 steps from the front door of the school I heard a car horn honk, and the vice principal went zooming by towards the school. I gave him a wave but kept walking. I hoped that he didn’t come to school just to bail me out…
Back at home Kuniko was entertaining an ex-student of hers from Kakogawa, Risa-chan. They were eating pizza and hanging out, so I sat in with them and chatted for a while. She seemed like a nice kid, and it was another good chance to practice my Japanese.
After walking her back to the station we did a little shopping for the evening’s party, and then came home and relaxed and got ready. That evening Chu-chu, Chiemi-chan and Ai-chan dropped by for dinner.
Tonight we ate nabe around the kotatsu and looked at wedding pictures. Chiemi-chan and I each had a shot of tequila, and then split a bottle of Thornton wine that my aunt and uncle left for me. It’s nice to be able to open up a bottle and know it’s going to be good – since I’m often stuck buying wines I know almost nothing about, it can be kind of a crapshoot.
We had fun talking and goofing around. Ai-chan showed us that she could fit her fist in her mouth – that was a nice trick. We ate three bowls of nabe, rolled chocolate cake, cream puffs, hi-chu, cheese sticks, kit-kats, you name it. We partied right up until around 10 o’clock and then everyone rushed to the train station to be able to get back in time.
We really had a good time with them. It turns out that they read this site fairly often, so they knew all about what our daily lives are like. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I’m writing from now on… we’re being watched!
