Kuniko and I celebrated our first anniversary Monday night by meeting up after school and having dinner together. I had a really easy day at school – no classes – and it was nice to take my time coming back and wandering around Kobe a little bit before Kuniko showed up.

We had originally wanted to go to Graciani, one of our favorite Kobe restaurants, but it was apparently out of business. Instead we went to Tapas, another one of our favorites. We ordered lots of food from the menu and a bottle of Spanish wine to go with it.

While eating we spent the time talking about the last year and how things had gone. It sounds like we’re both really happy with things, and year one went just as well as you could expect. We spent lots of time telling stories and laughing about memories from when we first met, from sneaking around together on dates, and about our wedding and party.

The dinner and dessert were excellent. They have a very unusual menu, and you can try all kinds of weird things. It isn’t really an authentic Spanish restaurant, more of a Spanish-style restaurant. It was delicious.

We walked back to the station from the restaurant, buzzing just a little bit from the wine, and then caught a train home. On the way back we stopped at Nishi Akashi to try to find a new bento box for Kuniko – her old one finally broke. We struck out there, but later found one at Saty closer to home.

We got home kind of late, and squeezed in a hot bath together before going to bed. It was a fun evening together. We’re both kind of concerned about how much we’ve been eating lately, though. Maybe it’s the weather – I don’t know. We officially are going on a diet together starting tomorrow.

Not much to report this weekend – it was pretty slow for me, but Kuniko was plenty busy. On Saturday she had to go in to school. She got to sleep in a little bit, and luckily I got to sleep in a lot.

In the afternoon on Saturday I went into Himeji to take some pictures of the leaves starting to change color around Himeji castle. It turned out I was a little early – the leaves had just begun to change. Also, the weather wasn’t so good – it was cloudy and threatening rain. The only reason I went out there was because there is rain in the forecast the rest of the week, and it seemed like my last chance.

While walking around Himeji I suddenly started to feel itchy all over my body. It came on quite quickly, and soon I was covered with what looked like mosquito or flea bites. They were all over, though, and I think they were actually hives. I cancelled the rest of my trip and headed home, with lumps all over the place. The was a nice big lump on my forehead, but everything else was under my clothes. By the time I got back home they were disappearing, so whatever it was it was temporary. I must have walked through something. Weird.

Sunday was really mellow. Kuniko went into Kyoto to meet up with some of her old college friends, and I stayed home and cleaned and did laundry. I watched a little TV and pretty much just lounged around the house all day. Rain came and went, so it was a good day to be inside.

Kuniko got home late, but she brought back lots of omiyage from Kyoto. We went to bed soon after she got home to get some rest for the week ahead.

The big event for me Friday was the observation of one of my classes by a person that works for the staffing company that I use. I wasn’t really sweating it, because the person that was coming was just hired a month or so ago, and she doesn’t have much experience. I had heard from other people that she had just watched the classes and then left, without sharing any advice or anything.

And that’s just about what happened today. Before the class I sat with her as she asked the vice principal and three of the English teachers if I was a good worker. Of course they said yes – he’s a great guy, the student loves him, and did you know he can walk on water? Of course they said this, because I was sitting right there. Note to staffing person – ask them when I’m not around if you want a real answer.

But later I realized that she probably doesn’t want a real answer. I think she wrote down the comments, and then someday when it comes time for the staffing company to renew a contract or bid on a new one, lots of positive reviews of their employees will only help. It was pretty embarrassing to hear the teachers say how wonderful a job I was doing though. After each comment the staffing lady would say “Oh, that’s great. Thank you!” As if she was the one doing all the nice things. Maybe just a culture issue.

The lesson itself went really smoothly. It was the perfect lesson to be observed – I created the lesson plan myself, and it was an easygoing lesson for the students right before exams. It was with Kuroda sensei, and I think I probably teach the best with her out of all my teachers. Everyone enjoyed it, and there weren’t any problems. Afterwards, the staffing lady said good job and went running for the door, so I didn’t get any more feedback than that. Weird.

Due to a quirky schedule, the students didn’t get out of school until 4:00 – exactly at the same time I left. That meant as I left the gate there were lots of students milling around, and every single one of them wanted to say goodbye to me. As I walked down the street surrounded by students, students leaving the classrooms upstairs opened up the windows and called out goodbye. Imagine kind of a Pied Piper situation, with schoolkids instead of rats. By the time I made it to the station I still had about eight kids walking with me. Unfortunately all the chatting made me miss my train, so I had to wait around and I got home a little later than normal.

Kuniko was stuck at work late again, so I hung out at home and watched Survivor. I made up some dinner, a simple pot of nabe, and then around 10 p.m. went out to meet Kuniko at the station. We came home and had a super-late dinner. She was still full of energy and stayed up watching TV, but I was tired and hit the sack. I’m so ready for the weekend.

Lots to write about today. Kuniko and I slept in a little bit this morning, and as a result we almost missed our usual train in the morning. Luckily we made it without having to sprint to the station – I hate doing that.

At school I had the first period free. It was nice to have the time to review vocabulary and get psyched up for classes. I talked to a few of the teachers that were also free, and checked with them about upcoming classes and lesson plans.

My first class was during second period. It was a third year class, and I taught it with Takagi sensei. She has a completely different style compared to her counterpart, Harada sensei. Takagi sensei has a thick accent to her English, and she talks super fast. Her idea is that the faster you speak, the faster they will learn. She really flies through the lesson. But surprisingly (and the students know this very well) if a student brings up a humorous story or unrelated topic, she’ll go right off the rails of her lesson and joke around with the students, still at breakneck speed.

Since next week is exams, the teachers are working hard to get all the material covered in time. That means there is not a whole lot for me to do in some classes. Whenever that happens I walk around and help the students individually, and practice listening to the spoken Japanese in the classroom to make sure I can understand most of what is going on.

After class ended, as usual I waited for Takagi sensei to gather up all her paperwork, and get her stuff so we could go to the next class and teach that one together. I helped by erasing the board and pulling down the magnetized flashcards that she had used to teach vocabulary.

And that’s when I noticed that some girls in the back of the classroom were taking off their clothes.

At my school students change into their gym outfits in the classroom. Boys go to one classroom and girls to another. They close the curtains and change, and then run out to the field for physical education. The boys are pretty lax about shutting the doors and curtains, but the girls are always very careful that everything is shut tight before they change. For some reason, today some of them didn’t notice that I was still in the room.

For that matter, Takagi sensei was oblivious too. When I figured out what was going on, I made a beeline for the door, but I had to open the curtains to get out, and that might have been just as bad as being in there in the first place. In the background I could hear some of the girls telling the ones that were disrobing that Bryan was still in the room, and a couple more started calling out my name to get me to look. That was when I ducked under the curtain and got safely outside.

Takagi sensei came out a minute later, and she seemed to have not noticed anything at all. I decided not to mention it, and together we went to the next class. That’s my second “Could have been busted wrongly for being a pervert” moment this week.

Our second class went much smoother, and my third class was with Harada sensei. When I arrived there, Harada sensei was talking with another student who seemed really concerned about something.

A while back we started a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr., and during the introduction to that lesson Harada sensei had asked me in front of the students if I had experienced discrimination in Japan. I said yes, I had experienced it, anticipating that Harada sensei would have me tell the class about it. But instead, she moved on in the lesson and my story was left untold.

The student today was really depressed that something like that could happen in Japan, and she came to class early to ask Harada sensei and me about it. I was happy to be able to explain that I often see positive discrimination here in Japan. Many times I find myself being treated differently just because of the color of my skin. I listed a few examples, free sushi and yakitori, smiles and flirtation from total strangers, extra friendly service at supermarkets. Harada sensei was able to confirm this – she had spent time with a foreign boyfriend from America and noticed that he was treated like semi-royalty. But when she was hanging out with friends from China or Korea they were treated a step down from Japanese.

I was really impressed that the student cared enough to follow up and ask more questions, and I told her so. She is going to enter the speech contest soon. She wrote a really good speech about “Using the Sixth Sense to Save the World”.

During fifth period I taught with Matsunaga sensei. She is getting more and more confident teaching with me, and we’re enjoying the classes. Today’s class finished up early, so we had the students study on their own. That gave me a chance to walk around and chat with students. The first year students have an extremely limited English vocabulary so I am limited in what I can talk about. I mix in a little Japanese though, and that helps a lot.

Finally at the end of the day I helped out two other students who will be competing in the speech contest. That kept me at work late, so I missed my regular train and caught the one that came eight minutes later.

Surprisingly, the train was much more crowded that the one I usually take. A look around at the passengers and I could tell why. Most of the people on board were college students. There must be a girl’s college nearby, because the train was packed with girls coming back from a day at school. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the experience quite a bit, but not enough to make that my regular train.

I’m back home now, and I made some pasta sauce from scratch, and I’ve got some tortellini that we brought back from Italy ready to cook. I’ve also got a bottle of French red wine that we bought from Carrefour, and I’m working slowly on that until Kuniko gets home. Hopefully there’ll be some wine left for her.

Speaking of Carrefour, Kuniko heard from someone that it will be closing soon. About a year ago it was bought from the French company and a Japanese company started running it, with the same name and mostly the same merchandise. Apparently they are making the cut, so they are closing for good sometime soon. Kuniko and I went to visit recently to see if they were giving away stuff cheaply, but sadly most sale items were 10% off at the most. As we walked through the mostly empty aisles, I couldn’t help but remember coming to the store on the day it opened in 2004. I wrote about it here.

With Carrefour gone, we’ll take a big hit in the foreign food availability department. Where will it hurt? The big wall of imported beers is what I’ll miss most. I love picking up a couple of bottles of unusual beers and trying them out. Also that wonderful wine section will be gone – bummer. Good cheeses will become that much harder to find. Other than that, most of my needs are covered by other stores. None of them are as convenient as a short drive over to Carrefour, but I can at least find things. It could be worse – I could be living out in the countryside far away from everything.

At school today I had four classes in a row in the morning, but the afternoon was free. There was lots of gossip around the office today, but about nothing in particular. Harada sensei had been arguing with some other teachers, and there were some parents coming in to conference with some teachers about their kids.

Luckily, there wasn’t any fallout today from my unzipped incident yesterday. I was worried that the students would be talking and the stories would have spread all over the school.

Our school has a lot of disabled and otherwise challenged students. They take a huge amount of effort from their already-busy homeroom teachers, and not only do they not get the attention that they need, they often distract the other students.

One of these students at my school has been getting into a lot of trouble lately. He makes it his mission to try to get into the staff room, even though right now students are not allowed. He’ll come and ask at the door if he can come in, and he’ll ask every single teacher that he sees hoping for someone to say yes. He is teased by other students in the hallway, and sometimes he just spits on the floor or in his own pencil case.

Most of the parents of these students want them to be in a regular class with regular students, and I can understand why. But it is tough on the teachers and I see them getting stressed out about it every day. I don’t know what the best solution is, but it seems to be the big topic at our school day to day.

Today I lived one of the episodes that will be sure to make it into every “teaching highlights” story that I tell from now until I expire. I had a busy schedule today with four classes – and we had lots of guests today walking around the school because it was an “open school day”, where parents could drop by and visit the classes to see what their students were up to.

During my third class with the first year students, I noticed that there was a little more giggling than usual. A couple of students at the side of the class were laughing, and I saw one of them stealing a glance at my crotch while I was teaching. Oh, no – my teaching nightmare! Could I be teaching with my fly open?

Teaching with your fly open is one of those stories you tell all your friends at school – can you believe that Mr. So-and-so is so old and unaware that he didn’t notice his zipper was open in class? Was this my fate too? Had I been teaching that long that I was insensitive to the status of my zipper?

Thank god they have podiums in front of the classroom. I did a quick sidestep behind the podium, and waited a little while before casting a quick glance down at my textbook, and then continued my glance down to my pants, and sure enough – the zipper was O-PEN!

My next move was good. I waited until Mr. Harada stepped to the back of the class to ask a kid some tough questions, and then I casually reached down past my textbook and zipped that thing up.

Final damage report: minimal. The way my slacks were designed, even if they are unzipped the front flap overlaps the back in such a way as to provide a lot of coverage. The students probably only saw the plastic strip of the zipper at the top. Also, only one or two students noticed, other students were asking later what happened, but since nobody saw me zip up the general consensus was that the students that saw it were just making it up. Still, it was a scary moment, especially with all the pervert problems that Japan has.

More good news was that the incident happened before any classes that had parents attending, so that was a relief. Later in the day I did have a class with Harada sensei, and a pretty good crowd of student mothers showed up. I double-checked the zipper before I started that class.

Other than that, my day went pretty well. I had a light lunch today, and I think we’ll probably be having a light lunch when Kuniko gets home. Hopefully she’ll be home in time to watch one of our favorite TV shows, “London Hearts”.

Today at work I had only two classes. Both classes were with physically disabled students. They are fun classes. The level of English is quite low, but the students’ interest is quite high. Today with the deaf students my teacher told them that I had been studying Japanese for about the same amount of time as they had been studying English. They demanded a writing sample, and so I wrote a little bit in Japanese on the board. Then they tried to write it in English. They had mixed results, and I think they were really feeling like they needed to study a little harder.

I didn’t mention that I could limit my studies to just Japanese – they have to study a ton of stuff. Also, I’m living in Japan, and they aren’t living in an English-speaking country. Still, they really wanted to do better.

Other than my two classes I didn’t really have a lot to do. I did some studying, and I planned a lesson that I’ll do with Kuroda sensei starting on Wednesday. Matsunaga sensei had made a trip to Costco over the weekend, and she bought me a big package of bagels and a refill of cheese.

I was supposed to meet Antoine after work today, but due to a strange illness, I had to cancel. By pure chance I met Kuniko on the same train home, and together we did a tiny bit of shopping in Sannomiya before coming home. Kuniko cooked up a bunch of leftovers into a really good soup, and we ate that while watching TV and staying warm in the kotatsu.

School tomorrow will get much busier it looks like. At least we’ll get to start our morning with some bagels tomorrow, though.

The tail end of the week was much less busy than the first three days. I only had five classes the last two days of this week, compared with fifteen classes during the first three.

Thursday was a pretty mellow night, but Friday night Yasu and his mom came over for dinner after work. They arrived by train, which meant that there was no problem drinking a lot and having a good time.

We had fun catching up around a big bowl of nabe. They are really nice people to hang out with. I noticed that Yasu was speaking almost exclusively Japanese now – I think it has been a long time since he’s used English. We shared pictures – they had pictures of Yasu’s brother’s new baby, and we had pictures to show them of Europe. We watched a little bit of a movie to test out the big screen TV, too. Back when we left the teacher apartments, Yasu had given me a sake/sho-chu dispenser as a gift. Last week we brought it out for Antoine to use, and we also used it tonight. Yasu’s mom enjoyed the self-serve, drink all you want format.

They headed back around 11:30 or so, and Kuniko and I stayed up late to watch the rest of the movie. We finally went to bed late. Kuniko has to work both days this weekend – but I’m going to convert the house into cold weather mode. Bring out the kotatsu!

The weather was mildly warmer today, and it was a lot easier to get to work without freezing. When I arrived at school I went into the teacher’s locker room to change my shoes and jacket, and while I was in there I heard the door open. I looked up to see a first year student coming around the corner, with his hands clasped together into the shape of a gun. He turned the corner and covered the room with his imaginary weapon, and then was very surprised to find me there. He turned and ran out with an embarrassed smile on his face.

The teachers at this school all stand together at the morning meeting, and say good morning all in unison, then they all sit down. It’s very important to be at the meeting and show that you’re part of the group. I’ve noticed that it really does give you a sense of being part of the group, even though I’m the obvious outsider. We all stand together for that brief moment in the beginning and it feels good. There’s something about working with a group of people – you build that sense of camraderie and it makes everything go smoother later on.

Kuroda sensei told me that the guy that she met the other day who seemed like a wonderful guy turned out to be “sick in the head” as she described it. She said that he was “terrible”, and it sounded like something went really wrong with them. I advised a little bit longer period of single life, but maybe she’s not interested in that.

I had five classes in a row starting from the first period. That made the day fly by, and I was happy to wrap things up and head home right on time.

Back home I made up some stew for dinner, and when Kuniko got home we chowed down. We’re hanging out tonight and maybe we’ll take a bath before hitting the rack tonight. The next two days for me are going to be a little bit easier. I’m getting tired out from all these classes.

We woke up this morning to some seriously howling winds and rain outside. The weird thing was that all of the weather reports and TV shows said that it should be sunny and warm today. Strangely, it was the coldest day of the season so far.

Maybe it was because of the weather but we got a late start, and made it just in time to the train station. Luckily the weather settled down to just cold wind, and the the rain ended before we walked to the station.

At school today I had another five-class-day. I was pretty tired at the end of the day. Three of the classes were the same lesson plan, and I find that when I have the same lesson multiple times in one day, I really start to get bored. The students at the end of the day were getting really tired, and so for my classes they didn’t have a lot of energy.

I didn’t have much time to study or even mark papers, but the good news is that on Thursday and Friday I have a little more free time. I did get a chance to chat with some students in the hallways, and that was really fun. They’re always ready to chat about something, and so I try to take the opportunity when it comes.

I cooked up a simple udon soup for dinner, since it was so cold and I wanted to eat a little bit healthier. Kuniko got home at a decent hour, so we ate hot soup and rice, and enjoyed the relatively warm temperatures in the house.

I’ve got one last tough day tomorrow, and then things start to settle down. I’m looking forward to it.

We were up at the crack of dawn to make lunches and get ready for work. Thanks to all the extra sleep I got over the weekend it didn’t really bug me.

I took this picture with my cellphone on the way to work. It was inside a Starbucks in the Hanshin Nishinomiya station. Somehow, I couldn’t resist.

It had been a while since I had been at school, and I had a pile of paperwork and a really aggressive new schedule sitting on my desk when I got there. I also had lots of teachers coming over to tell me what they wanted to do in today’s classes. I was booked with classes from 2nd period until the end of the day, so there wasn’t much time to study or to do marking and paperwork.

I had a lot of fun joking around with the students. They were fairly charged up, and we had some pretty lively classes. I had two classes with Kuroda sensei and those students are always pretty active. Kuroda sensei was pretty lively herself. She had spent the three day weekend in Okinawa.

The nice thing about being booked like that is that the time flies by. I was heading home and it seemed like I had just walked in the door. I’m back home now, and I’ve got a Mexican dip in the oven ready to go when Kuniko arrives.

Sunday we had all day to relax. This is a fairly unusual event around our house, so we slept in until about 10:30 in the morning, and then took a long shower and took our time getting up and around. It was a very nice contrast to our usual 4:45 a.m. wakeup time.

I had this strange urge to go to the park and do something mildly athletic, so I talked Kuniko into joining me and we went to Akashi to visit Toys R Us. We bought a couple of cheap badminton rackets, and then we went out to the park near the station and spent about an hour playing badminton, without a net. Kuniko used to be a member of the badminton back when she was in school. I haven’t played in many years, so we were both pretty rusty. It was fun to play, though, and lots of people walking by watched us out of curiousity.

We had a snack at the station and then headed home. For dinner we made homemade gyoza and nikuman, and they turned out really good. It was worth the garlic breath the rest of the night. It’s been a little while since we’ve made either of the dishes, but the were looking pretty professional. We had some leftover nikuman, so we brought them over to Kuniko’s folks place later in the evening as omiyage.

They were doing really well, and we sat and hung out with them for a while. We couldn’t stay long, though – everyone was really tired from the long weekend. On our way home we made an almost traditional stop at Ito Yokado to do some Christmas shopping and to see Yasu. Yasu and his mother are going to come over on Friday, so we talked a little about the details, and Kuniko and I spoke in hushed tones to avoid blowing garlic breath all over the place.

We capped off the evening with a hot bath, and then hit the sack. We’ve both got tough schedules ahead. Kuniko has to work for almost three weeks straight without a holiday, and I’ve got some heavy class schedules coming up.

Thursday I had the second and last day of training for the staffing company that I work for. I showed up a bit early kind of an accident, and bumped into Corey, one of the guys that I get along with pretty well. We headed over to the meeting place, but we had some time to kill. We were looking at shops around the station and I found a place with a pretty good selection of upscale beers for sale. I bought a bottle of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout that they had, and took it home as a souvenir.

The training itself was a little strange. The moderator couldn’t make it because he was sick, so Corey and I split the duties and ran the meeting. While running the meeting we got to see some of the more unusual personalities of the ALTs, especially the two women that work for the company. They both are super-shy, and I think they don’t have much association with people outside of their school. One woman described herself as “not interesting at all” and the other talked so quietly that nobody knew quite what she was going on about.

I had the second leg of the meeting, and so I kept it moving at a brisk pace, and we were able to finish right on time. Afterwards, everyone gathered outside to say goodbye. Corey was going out to ramen in Osaka with a couple of the other guys, but I didn’t feel like going out and bar hopping with them, so I begged off. They made up a story to avoid taking on a couple of the rookie guys that wanted to tag along, and it was all a big logistical feat to get them to the station with only the people they wanted in their group.

Friday was a national holiday, but Kuniko still had to go in to work and teach a couple of classes. She got home relatively early, though, and we went out shopping for our “plasma party” with Antoine and Miwako. I had told Antoine that we’d get started between five and six p.m., so we had everything ready and on standby just before five. I heard from Antoine about then, saying he just finished up his project and he was waiting for Miwako. An hour later we heard that they were on the road and coming by car, and they expected to be here by seven. I called and gave them the address for their in-car navigation system, and finally they showed up around eight o’clock. We were glad they made it safely, and we could get started eating, but it was kind of a drag sitting around the house for three hours with everything ready just waiting for them.

We had a good time, though. Antoine drank sho-chu from the special dispenser that Yasu had bought for me as a present. We ate kimchee soymilk nabe (which tastes better than it sounds) and watched one of the movies they brought to test out the plasma TV. The movie we voted on was “When Harry Met Sally”, which was a first time for three of the four people. It was my first time seeing it, and it was pretty funny.

It was about 11:30 or so by the time they headed back, so we cleaned up as best we could and then headed to bed. Kuniko had to work early on Saturday, so we wanted to get her to bed ASAP.

Saturday I got to sleep in a little while. Kuniko was off early – driving to work to help administer a mock exam for her students. I slept in and then finished cleaning up after the party. Kuniko got off work a little earlier than she expected, so I ran into Kobe and met her at Sannomiya station. We had lunch together at a restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try – a gumbo/oyster restaurant. We sat at a table and both ordered up gumbo. The flavors were really good – it tasted as close to authentic as I’ve found in Japan. There were a lot of seafood varieties that might not be considered traditional, and I was happy to hear that Kuniko preferred my version of gumbo better. Still, for about 1200 yen it was a great opportunity to try something new. In the same area there is also a Spanish restaurant, a high-class buffet restaurant, and a Vietnamese restaurant. So many places to try – just not enough time to do it.

After eating lunch we did some shopping around Sannomiya, and then came home and made leftover nabe for dinner. We drank some cocktails and had some snacks, and watched some TV. It’s been a relaxed evening at home, and tomorrow we both have the whole day off. We’ll be sleeping in as long as we can, and then who knows what we’ll do the rest of the day.

Today was really the bulk of my workload for the whole week. I had five classes out of six today, and during the sixth period I had to do some planning with Kuroda sensei. The classes themselves were great. The students started out really tired and not into the lessons. Yesterday they were running around Koshien stadium at a sports day, so naturally today they were exhausted.

By the second period the blood was starting to flow, and we had a pretty good time with the students. I had a couple of classes with Matsunaga sensei. Her English sometimes gets a little weird when she’s nervous or in a hurry in front of the class, and today instead of asking me to “stand with her” near the desk, she asked me to “dance with her”. She wasn’t immediately aware she made the mistake, and so I wasn’t immediately aware either. I was busy trying to figure out why she wanted to dance in the middle of an English lesson while she was trying to figure out why I wasn’t coming over to stand next to her. Strange moment.

I double-checked with the vice principal to let him know that I’d be out on Thursday for training, and then I headed home. Back at home I created a leftover skillet with potatoes, cheese, onions, sausage and peppers. Kuniko got home a little earlier today, so we got to enjoy dinner at a more reasonable hour than usual.

After dinner we did a little bit of shopping – but it was actually an excuse to walk around and get a little of exercise. Kuniko is starting a diet, so I’m going to try to help out where I can. We’ll see how it works out over the next couple of weeks.

Today I had a training seminar to go to around 10 a.m., and no classes. The training was near the Hankyu Nishinomiya station – just a few minutes walk north. I got there with a few minutes to spare, and talked a little bit with some of the other ALTs that were early like me.

The training was pretty simple. I think the meeting was really just to check in and make sure everyone’s sanity was intact. Some of the ALTs have no experience, so we exchanged ideas and war stories, and they had a moderator hired by the company to move things along. It took about two hours to complete, and we were out the door.

Afterwards, some of us went out to lunch at an Indian restaurant, and it was quite an interesting conversation. There were three veterans of the ALT biz (myself included), and three rookies. One guy with very little experience lectured us, one guy asked all kinds of questions, and the other guy ate his lunch and barely said a word. It was a weird lunch. Maybe it’s a sign of me getting too used to living in Japan, but I was very conscious of the noise that some of the guys were making at our table, and I noticed how everyone was watching us from other tables.

The conversation was fun, though. The veteran guys would tease one of the rookies a little bit, and he was taking everything so literally he wasn’t getting the jokes. I was smiling at some of the things they were joking about the whole trip back home. The one consistent theme among the veterans was that they didn’t want to do this job the rest of their lives, and the theme among the rookies was what they could do with all the free time they find themselves with.

We have another training day on Thursday, so it’ll be the same group for another two hour session. I’m interested to see how that one goes.

On the way home I picked up some tonkatsu for our dinner tonight, and looked at some books at the bookstore, but didn’t buy anything. Since I was home early I’ve been studying and enjoying some extra free time at home. Tomorrow I’ve got a full slate of classes, and the students will be tired from the city-wide sports event that they participated in today. It might be a little tough to rouse them long enough to study English.