Today everyone else but me went in to work early. I slept in and arrived after everyone else, but I still was on time. Confused? So was I. No worries, though – everything worked out fine.
I had a good day at school studying and I even got a free bento lunch. Everybody else was fairly busy – I was one of the only teachers without any responsibilities for the day. While all the junior school students were sweating the exam and the interviews, I was downstairs alone in the staffroom memorizing vocabulary.
Today is Valentine’s Day in Japan, which means that the women are on the hot seat to give chocolates to the men. I got some obligation chocolates from the first year female teachers, and a little homemade chocolate from one of my students yesterday. Kuniko came home tonight with some chocolates for me (including a fig pig – a fig baked into a sweet bread pig), and a gift – the book “Deep River” in Japanese. I’ve read the English translation, now it’s time to buckle down and read it in Japanese. It’ll take a long time, I’m sure.
For dinner we had cheese, crackers, roast beef, salad, prosciutto, and a bottle of champagne. We got a little drunk on the wine and all the cheese was delicious. We also got a box from my folks full of shirts, candies, and Valentine stuff – it was fun to look through that.
Now we’re headed to bed – it wasn’t a productive night but it was a lot of fun. It might be a little tough to get up tomorrow morning…
