So I went to school and eagerly awaited the result of the purported strike, and it turned out that the school caved in and gave everyone a raise, so there is no strike. Unfortunately the raise doesn’t extend to me, but I’m on my way out anyway, so no problem.
I had a new lesson today – this is my last round of lessons for the first year students – they’ll graduate soon, and so it’s kind of my farewell class. I’ll really miss these guys! During the class I collected surveys from the students to find out how the class was. Of course they wrote in Japanese, but it was fun to read them. I didn’t get much criticism – it was mostly the same friendly, happy stuff. I’m hoping to get some ways to improve for next time.
My last activity is a pretty tough crossword, with the first student to complete it taking home a Choco-Pie. I bought just enough Choco-Pies for each class, but right off the bat we had a problem when the time ran out and I had to award two Choco-Pies to students that had tied. Looks like I’ll need to buy more Choco-Pies.
We had a meeting after school, and it lasted more than two hours. It lasted right through my appointment with Tsuji-san, and way past when I’m supposed to leave the school.
The meeting was the first one I’ve seen that had a genuine argument in it. There is a movement to ban smoking on campus for the teachers, and there are some people really against it. One guy was really freaking out about it, and he was shouting down the principal and vice-principal, which is not a great way to build job security. It was fascinating to watch – I couldn’t understand everything, maybe not even half, but you could tell it was a very unusual situation. Everybody else looked embarrassed, but I was licking my chops. FIGHT, FIGHT!
I got home much later than normal, and Kuniko had gotten home much earlier than normal. She cooked up a great dinner – garlic pasta with ham and fresh greens. I had a Vietnamese beer with dinner that tasted really good, and we ate lots of pasta and then just lounged around in the evening – now I’m off to bed early.
Tomorrow Kuniko has a party with her co-workers, and I’m going to try to meet up with Antoine to shoot some pool. The weekend is almost here!
