I went into work today with a purpose. I had lots of things to take care of, some of which have some long term implications. Since I had no classes, I used my time to do lots of odd jobs. For example, I worked on renewing my passport, which is a little bit trickier than you might think considering I’m living in a foreign country. The passport needs to be renewed so that I can travel this summer. The scariest step is putting your own passport into the mail and hoping that it arrives safely. I’ll be without a passport for the next month or so.

Dealing with all the passport paperwork ended up taking lots of time, and I spent more time than I wanted to at the post office. They were very patient with me and my poor Japanese, and we somehow got through the whole thing.

Next I sent off an application for two certified copies of my Japanese exam results, so that I can flash those to potential employers if necessary. I talked with the vice principal and got his permission to use his name on my resume as a reference. I cleaned up my desk, and got rid of lots of junk that had been cluttering things up.

That left me with time to catch up on my vocabulary, and work on my correspondence Japanese course. By the end of the day I was pretty tired out. However, I stuck around until a little bit later to meet up with some other teachers to go out to dinner.

I joined a group of younger teachers (actually, the youngest teachers), and we went out to eat and drink at a local Takasago restaurant. I’ve hung out with a similar group of teachers, with some of the same members, but this group was all from my school, and apparently they meet regularly. I was happy to get invited, and they were very patient with my slow Japanese.

The restaurant was really good, and two of the employees turned out to be recent graduates from our school. They watched their teachers get loaded and joke around, and I wondered what exactly they were thinking. They were new and so they were very nervous. They took our orders very seriously, and didn’t have a very friendly attitude – just trying to be professional, I guess.

Most of the fun was with Ageshi sensei and Matsumoto sensei. Ageshi sensei takes a lot of heat at school, so it was nice to see that he had an outlet to vent his frustrations. I found out that he is planning on getting married this summer, so that was good to hear. Matsumoto sensei played perfectly to his act, and together they were cracking everyone up.

We didn’t stay too late; I was back by 9:30 or so. Ageshi sensei had too much to drink and so he spent five hours at school sleeping it off, and then drove home at around 3 a.m. to be back at school at 7 a.m. That’s hardcore.

At school today I distributed my omiyage, and everyone was surprised that I had snuck off to Hokkaido over the weekend. Everyone was also excited about the omiyage – it was a big hit. I brought just the right amount to cover everyone.

The last exam of the year happened to be mine, so I was very busy marking after it ended. I got them done pretty quickly, though, and was able to leave by 2 o’clock. Before I left some of the teachers invited me out to dinner tomorrow night, so I’ll go out and give Kuniko a “Bryan Night Off”. Should be fun!

Kuniko also got home early – it was a very unusual. We had a light dinner of okonomiyaki, and then scarfed down some Hokkaido desserts. Everything tastes great, except for one particular souvenir that we bought.

We bought some Hokkaido cheese – some flavored cheeses. There are three flavors – Smoked Salmon, which is OK, Nori (seaweed), which is not so great, and Shrimp, which is flat out awful. It is so awful that we wouldn’t give it away to anyone – we’d feel too bad. Originally we were going to have cheese and crackers tonight for dinner, but since the cheese turned out to be nasty, we settled on okonomiyaki.

Tomorrow we start an abbreviated schedule of classes for about a week and a half. I have only one class during that span, so I have to think up something to keep some students busy on Wednesday. Kuniko suggested a movie – I’ll see if that will fly with Kobayashi sensei.

It was raining cats and dogs today, and when I arrived at work I was a little moist, despite having an umbrella during my commute.

Today a class took one of my exams, and so I marked those quickly and then scooted out the door for a long lunch with Keiko and her friends. I’ve had lunch with Keiko and her friends a couple of times. The group changes slightly each time, but usually it is just a big meal and lots of talking. The idea is for them to practice their English, but lately they are using more and more Japanese since they know that I can understand it. While it makes them more comfortable, it’s not really a good way for them to learn English.

We had a pretty good time at the restaurant. It was filled with people, 99% of them women. They were all stealing glances at our table to see us speaking English (and Japanese) and there was an interesting side discussion as the women at our table gossiped about the others. I work in a small town, and so everyone wants to talk about who is doing what and whose son is doing this and that. If they put a little bit of their gossip energy into studying English they’d have it whipped by now!

After a long lunch I came back to work and putted around for about 20 minutes, and then I gathered up my stuff and left. On my way out I was walking down the hall to the exit, and by chance the vice principal walked out of an office and towards me. He saw me, and then looked at his watch, and then came walking towards me a little faster.

I’ll admit, my heart kind of skipped a beat – I’m leaving early and my boss is coming over to talk to me. We have an agreement about when I can leave during exam period, so I shouldn’t be worried. Sometimes there are miscommunications though; it has happened before.

He came up to me and said, “It is very late. You can leave much earlier!” I was relieved to hear it and promised that I’d leave earlier tomorrow.

Actually on Tuesday we had a little talk and he told me that I can leave in the afternoon through the exam period, and that I should just use my common sense on when to leave. That’s a big breakthrough. Sometimes things are pretty rigid and formal, especially about coming and going from school. He is saying that he trusts me to make the call whether it’s OK or not, and it was nice to hear. I haven’t worked at a company that trusted me to come and go as I please since I worked for Synapta back in 2001.

Tonight’s dinner is yakisoba, prepared by yours truly. Last night’s pasta was a hit and so I’ll try to keep the streak alive. It’s wet and cold outside, so heating up the kitchen with the frying pan is something I’m looking forward to.

Exams have begun, and our first and second year students were sweating away for half the day over a variety of tough subjects. My exams don’t start until the last day, so I’ll be struggling to mark them before the deadline.

I had nothing to do today – just lots of free time to study and read, and chat with some of the other teachers. I got a copy of the yearbook of the graduating class, just like last year. This time there were no sneaky teachers to hook me up with free copies, so I had to pay for it. Still, it was worth it to have a yearbook of my first students.

I was out of work at around one o’clock, and back home I did some chores, read a little bit of my mystery novel, and made a spectacular roast beef sandwich for lunch. Now it’s early evening and I’m planning some pasta for dinner when Kuniko gets back.

Tomorrow I’m going to have lunch with some of the neighbors of the school – a bunch of older ladies who are eager to study English. I’ve dined with them before. They pick up my tab, and I chat with them for an hour or so. It’s a good deal for them – I usually get 3000 yen an hour, they get me for the cost of a lunch plate. They are interesting to talk to – at first they use English, but by the end they are almost all speaking just Japanese. They need to spend time chatting with someone that can only speak English – that’s the best way for them to learn.

Well, back to the kitchen…

Today the third year students had their graduation ceremony. It was much like the last two years’ ceremonies, but I knew a lot more of the students this time around. I think that makes a big difference in the entertainment value. Also I can understand a little more now.

The ceremony ended in just about an hour’s time, and all the teachers ran back to the heaters in the staff room to warm up. It was very, very cold in the gym. I had learned from last time and brought a hot pack that I stuck to the back of my undershirt, so it kept me warm most of the time.

We had a free lunch today – a pretty good bento from a local restaurant. After that I wrapped up my studies and then walked around a little bit to congratulate the students.

Usually we have an ESS party, but this year there were only two ESS students graduating, and neither of them were very interested in ESS. I consulted with Hayashi sensei, and he said to skip the party this year.

So, I had lots of free time. Everywhere I went students wanted me to sign their yearbooks and to take pictures. After a while there was a line of students – I’ve haven’t posed for so many pictures since my wedding. I wrote English phrases in their yearbooks and encouraged them to relax, take vacation now and then, and don’t be afraid of change.

I was signing and being photographed into well into the afternoon, and finally I got some time to head back to the warm staff room. Some of the students would come in to get teachers to sign their books, and so I was still busy.

The students graduating are the first students I ever taught, and they had me around for almost their whole three years of high school. I was really happy to see that they weren’t shy about coming up to me and asking for a message, and asking in English.

A little later the vice principal sent out a message over the intercom. He gathered up all the teachers and told us that we all did a great job, and that if any teachers had any business to take care of they were welcome to get it done. That was code for “Run, run, head for the hills! You can go home early!” I waited a few polite minutes, and then headed for the door. I noticed that only one person left before me, but as I was leaving the school there were cars flying out of the driveway.

Tonight Kuniko is getting home late, so I’m on the hook for dinner tonight. I think we’re going to do okonomiyaki tonight. I bought some kimchee, pork, and we’ve got some fresh cabbage from the Kageyama farm to throw in there. Looking forward to it!

Saturday night I decided to go check out a yakitori that I have been wanting to visit for a while. It’s not the usual place, Denya, but one a little farther away to the north of my place.

I was talking with Kuniko the other day about my plan to go visit it, and she was surprised that I would go alone. Other people have expressed surprise that I went to Denya alone the first time I went there almost three years ago. What’s the big deal?

I walked out to the place, and stepped in the door. My first impression was that they spent a lot of money on the atmosphere. It was fairly dark, and well-decorated. The yakitori grill was behind clear glass surrounded by curtains and sho-chu bottles. I could tell that it would be a little more expensive than a visit to Denya.

A lady came up and asked me how many people, and when I said “one” she asked, “One? Just one?” I took a seat at the counter, and I was the only single in the place.

The menu was fairly simple, and I tried a couple of different items. Overall it was a little healthier than Denya, and the prices were quite a bit higher. The flavor was good, and I was able to eat and drink quite a lot. After four beers I was able to speak Japanese like a native with one of the servers, who was curious where I came from and what I was doing.

Kuniko got back fairly early, around 10:45 p.m., and it sounded like she had a good time with some of her ex-coworkers. I guess some of the people that were hoping to be there couldn’t make it – everyone is busy.

Sunday morning I had to get myself out of bed and leave a warm beautiful woman sleeping in the bed behind me, to go to work. I had no classes today, so it was just a matter of walking to the train station in the rain, walking to the school from the train station in the rain, and then setting up shop at my desk and working on vocabulary and reading.

The more I listen to my surroundings in the staff room, the more I understand. It’s very easy to let the Japanese flow all around you – for me to understand it I need to actively listen. It’s harder than it sounds. The good news is that with more and more practice I am able to catch what’s going on around me.

The teachers in the first year group where I sit have a real camaraderie, they joke and laugh and are much noisier than any of the other teacher groups. They tend to really tease one of the young teachers, a math teacher named Ageshi sensei. He good naturedly takes all the teasing, and I think he does a lot to deserve it. It’s a lot of fun to listen in and see what grief they are giving him. On Friday afternoon he had left early from school, and today everybody was saying “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you last,” etc. etc.

There’s a bit of real bite in what they are saying, though. Taking time off in the Japanese workplace is seen as a burden to your coworkers. The power of peer pressure drives people to stay at work, even if they are finished or don’t need to be there (or need to be somewhere else with their family).

Kuniko picked me up after school and we went over to her parents to hang out and celebrate Kuniko’s birthday. We had a good time over there, and as usual ate way too much and brought home lots of vegetables and sweets from her family. I got a big bottle of sho-chu from her Dad, and some beers, too.

Now we’re back and heading to bed. At least I don’t have to worry about a tough Monday. I did Monday on Sunday.

Almost a week of head-scratching and I think I’ve finally got the website back up and running. It was down longer than I expected, and my e-mail was toasted for a while, but I think it’s back to normal. It wasn’t without some losses, though. I lost all the captions for the pictures in the gallery. At least I still have the pictures.

Not much to report for this week. At work we have mostly wrapped up the regular schedule of classes. We had Miyake sensei over for dinner on Wednesday night. We ate lots of tacos and talked for a long time. She was very happy to visit with us and break from her regular routine – we enjoyed talking to her.

Today was a weird day at school. The had no students, and for the teachers you could either take today off or March 17th off for free, to compensate for this Sunday, when we have to go in to work. I’m not sure why the weird schedule, but I decided to go ahead and go in today. The vice principal left at 10 o’clock in the morning, and told me that I could leave in the afternoon. I took him very literally and left at five minutes past noon.

This afternoon I did laundry and finally got things set up on the website the way I like them. Tonight Kuniko will be getting home late because she has an English teacher’s meeting to find out who will be teaching what classes. Yesterday she found out that she will be teaching high school first year students next year, as opposed to teaching third year junior high students like she is now. There was a chance that she would be teaching first year junior high students, but it didn’t happen. Kuniko was happy about the level of the students she will teach, but that teacher group is entirely men, and about half of them are single. She won’t have a female to hang out with in her group, so she’s thinking it might not be so much fun.

More updates this weekend!

So a while back Kuniko’s boss sent a letter home with Kuniko for me telling me about her secret plan to have me at the party tonight. We put the plan into action, and so I was headed to Kobe about 30 minutes after Kuniko left this afternoon.

I went to the Kitano Club, a really upscale restaurant near the House of Pacific in the Kitano section of Kobe. The staff received me, led me up to the bar where I could hide out. The party sponsors – the Rotary Club of Kobe – picked up my bar tab.

The Rotary Club is sponsoring Haley, an exchange student at Kuniko’s school. Since it was her birthday and Kuniko’s, they had a nice little party. Once they got the party started, the staff brought me downstairs and I appeared with a bouquet of flowers when they were singing to Kuniko. It was a great surprise!

Kuniko was totally shocked, and afterwards we had our picture taken with everyone. We wished Haley a happy birthday, and ate a ton of delicious food. The menu had prosciutto, roast beef, shrimp, all kinds of tasty things that I liked. People were treating us like royalty there, and the head of the Rotary turned out to be the owner of the restaurant. He seemed really happy to have me there to add to the international flavor of the evening.

Finally we hit the road, saying goodbye to everyone. One of the teachers was really curious about my brother’s upcoming visit. I think she wanted to set him up with a girl that she knows.

Now we’re back at home and getting ready to bed. The house is filled with flowers – I think we have four or five vases of flowers right now. Tomorrow it’s back to work, and back to reality!

Saturday slept in a little bit and then did odd jobs around the house. The weather was nice outside – things are warming up gradually, and today we had some sun to dry out our laundry.

Pretty early in the day Kuniko had to leave for a drinking party with her college friends in Osaka, and soon after that I left for a drinking party of my own with Struan and Antoine.

The original idea was just to meet up with Struan, but Antoine got a rare Saturday night free because of a fight with his girlfriend. We met up at the Belgian beer place, and the bartender defended Antoine and Struan’s empty seats until they arrived.

From there we went to Asian Days for all you can eat dim sum, and I will admit that I ate way too much. I don’t know why – we just kept talking and eating. We got a lot of attention from the other patrons, mostly female. I was egging Antoine about the possiblity that he is a single guy now. He was joking around about it, but I could tell he was pretty bummed out.

From there we walked over to Higashimon street, and found an underground bar that we’ve visited a long time ago. It was a pretty upscale place with a really good atmosphere. There we talked and talked, and finally we decided to go to one more place.

As we walked north into Kitano we found ourselves outside a themed bar – The Lockup. It’s a relatively new place, and the idea is that they put you in a room with bars and serve you weird drinks and food, and then every so often all the lights go out and crazy guys in scary costumes run around and try to scare you. We sat and drank glow-in-the-dark sweet barely alcoholic drinks and ate peanuts while all the fun was happening around us. Antoine was on his sixth or seventh sho-chu by that time, so he was starting to feel the effects. We tried to arrange for a photo with the “warden” of the place, a girl dressed in a plastic policewoman suit complete with miniskirt, but apparently she had just left when we asked. We had a couple more drinks, and then headed back to the station.

I think Antoine and Struan were going to stick around, and I think Antoine had missed his last train, so I took off and met Kuniko at home – she went all the way to Osaka and still beat me home. After midnight it was officially Kuniko’s birthday, so we opened presents, and she seemed to like her present, a BabyG watch that I picked out for her.

We went to bed late, so we slept in today early. Kuniko is going to be leaving soon for a party for one of her exchange students. As it happens, her student (Hayley, from Canada) has a birthday on the same day as Kuniko. The school arranged to have a birthday party for her at Kitano club, a really nice place in Kobe. There’s another birthday surprise coming up, though. Stay tuned!

On top of today’s regular post (below), I graded a particularly interesting journal today. So interesting that I had to copy it down and post it here. The topic was, what will your life be like in twenty years. Here’s the journal, posted exactly as it was written:

Hello Bryan! My name is Nishio Takao. I will be crazy after 20 years. I am the crazyest in the world. My age is sixteen. Sixteen + twelve = 36. I do not know it. My expectation, Kim Jon Il is superhero. Kim Jon Il is crazy. Kim Jon Il is great leader. North Korea is crazy. I do not Kim Jon Il language. Kim Jon Il will awake war. Bush is going to die. Crazy Kim Jon Il culture is expand. World people is going to become crazy. World people is going to be decread by war. I may be killed by great leader Kim Jon Il. I am genius! Kim Jon Il is crazy. Good bye Bryan!

I gave him a good score – that’s quality writing!

Today was a weird schedule because we announced the results of the screening test for next year’s first year students. Because of this, the students came in an hour later, and we had lots of free time before class started to have a fun meeting.

As people were getting ready for the meeting, one of our teachers flipped out. He started yelling at another teacher, and suddenly everyone became engrossed in their coffee, tea or newspaper. I’m not sure what he was freaking out about, but I bet it might have something to do with only taking two holiday days a year. That kind of stress has got to add up.

The meeting was good, and bad. The good thing was that instead of handouts, they used a computer and a projector to make a presentation, and everyone watched from their seats instead of wasting a bunch of paper that everyone is going to throw away anyway. This was a first for my school – they are a bit old fashioned. Watching the vice principal try to figure out the laser pointer was priceless.

The bad news was that they were showing an excel spreadsheet, and I think most people couldn’t read the screen. The vice principal did the presentation facing away from us, and without a microphone, so most people couldn’t hear anything either. In a classic Japanese meeting move, at the end of the hour meeting a guy stood up and said that he couldn’t see anything or hear anything, so maybe they could fix that next time. Dude, why didn’t you pipe up before?

My classes went smoothly, with some of my favorite students. I had them write me a farewell speech, and two girls were almost crying as they read it. The reviews of my class keep coming in, and so far it has been 99% positive. Although it’s nice to get positive feedback, negative feedback is much more useful. Still, when the biggest complaint is that the students want more of your classes in their schedule, I guess you are doing something right. I think the big influence is the format of the class. It is loose, relaxed, and freewheeling. You would think that in this format the students would be sleeping more, but on the contrary, I have only had one or two students sleeping in my class in the last three years.

Although I’d say the students speak only marginally better English after my class, I would say that they leave the class with a view that English isn’t such a serious matter, that they can approach it as a communication tool rather than a study subject. Most important, students start to like English more when they take my class. Also I enjoy the format because maybe it will make them think about the formats of the other classes they take – are they as effective?

In the afternoon the same teacher flipped out again, this time with another partner, making him the likely guilty party in both situations. Luckily he ran off to the smoking room to calm his nerves with a cigarette.

Also in the afternoon a small crowd gathered in front of our school. The crowd was made up of junior high school students who had taken the entrance exam for our school, and their parents. They were hoping that their scores were good enough to get in as new high school students next year. At 2 o’clock they put the results on a big board and hung it out the window for everyone to see. The students’ reactions were mixed – most of the ones who passed just smiled and got their paperwork. A couple of boys acted liked they just won the lottery. Seriously, shrieking, jumping up and down, and hugging their friends and family. Our school is no Harvard – it’s a middle to low ability high school, so it’s nothing to freak out about. Surprisingly I saw some tears of some students that didn’t make the cut at our school, which seems to be pretty hard to do. A couple of moms walked away drying the tears of their sons and daughters.

We had one more staff meeting before the end of the day and then I could finally go home. I bought some groceries for dinner and I’m just kicking back tonight watching some TV and drinking some seasonal Japanese beers. Actually, they are seasonal only in the sense that the label has changed. I can detect no flavor difference whatsoever.

Kuniko is partying tonight with some co-workers – it’s the first of in a series of three parties. She’ll be tired out by the end of it, I’m sure.

There was a scheduling change today, and I had both of my classes early in the day. That left me free to fool around in the afternoon, study, run errands, and whatever else I wanted.

The classes were great – the students seemed to get into the lesson, and they left some good comments on their evaluation sheets as they left. The comments are almost uniformly positive, and it sounds like they really have begun to take a greater interest in English. The unique format of my class seems to be effective, too.

Kuniko and I arrived home at the same time tonight, because I had a lesson with Tsuji-san after school. She sent me home with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates – one a congratulations gift for the test result, and the other a Valentine’s gift.

Kuniko cooked up another delicious donburi, this time with beef, mushrooms, tofu and curry powder. It was good, but not as good as the other recipes we tried lately. Still, it’s fun to experiment.

This weekend I may switch this site to another server, so there may be some downtime for a while. Don’t worry – come back in a few days and it should be back up!

It was a bittersweet day today. It was my last lesson for Maeda sensei’s second year students, and Oshita sensei’s second year class. Maeda sensei’s class is by far my favorite. The lesson went well – we practiced giving a farewell speech, and I had them fill out an evaluation in Japanese about how my class was.

The evaluation is a new thing that I came up with – I want to be able to get some new ideas and hear about what things didn’t work this year. Maeda sensei’s class wrote some excellent comments – they were still writing when the bell rang and they didn’t want to stop. I said goodbye at the end and the students all waved goodbye with a big smile – I felt like Robin Williams at the end of “Dead Poet’s Society”. Not really, but it was cool. On our way back to the staffroom some students chased us down and gave us Valentine’s chocolates.

The students had the day off on Valentine’s Day, but that didn’t deter anyone – they were passing out homemade chocolates to their friends and favorite teachers. We were lucky to get some, and by the end of the day I had a pretty good collection. Some students were patrolling the hallways looking for me – it was a nice thing for them to do. You can tell who the popular teachers are by the pile of chocolates on their desk at the end of the day. Since my classes are so easy I got a lot of chocolates.

We had an ESS meeting today – we’ve changed the day to accomodate some students that have a conflict on Thursdays. We watched the second half of “The Incredibles”, and exchanged chocolate there too.

It should be a quiet evening tonight and tomorrow, and then Kuniko has three parties in a row – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Lucky, lucky!

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…