There was some good news today for me – the English teachers met up and consulted each other and came out with the verdict that they could live without me for two weeks. I was thinking a little bit about this process and thinking that I was spending quite a bit of “political capital” with this, but then how often do you get married, anyhow? It’s not like I can stay at the school past next year anyway. I might as well use up all my capital before I go.

The next stage is taking it to the vice principal. It might be a tough sell, but at least I have the entire English staff confirming that it’s OK with them. The timing turns out to be just right. I’ll be gone during the “last review” lesson, and then I’ll be back just in time for interview tests. Perfect!

One of the teachers in my section always makes coffee in the mornings, and offers it to anybody that wants some. I also say thanks, but no thanks – I’m not a big fan of coffee unless it is combined with so much cream and sugar that it’s no longer classified as coffee. Anyway, I found out the other day that he’s been making coffee and putting it in the refrigerator, and it’s free for anybody to take. Today I made a tall iced coffee with lots of cream and sugar and ice. All I had to do was put my feet up on my desk to complete the picture of total relaxation. The air conditioner was pumping, and when my sweaty students came in for a conference or something they saw me enjoying a tall cold glass and probably wanted to kill me and drink it themselves.

I did two classes today, and both of them were full of energetic kids, despite the heat. They listened carefully, and guessed at things they didn’t quite know. They also seemed to take more chances and so I upped the difficulty level just a bit.

Mr. Hayashi left early from school, so I was the sole clean-up commander at the end of the day. The students came down and gave me their clipboard, and I supervised the cleaning of the bathrooms and one classroom. They did a fairly good job, and were endlessly amused by finding dead bugs, overflowing toilets, or saying “urine” over and over in Japanese. It’s not high comedy, but I have learned to make do.

They stood and stared at one urinal that was stopped up and wondered what to do. I came by and told them they didn’t have to clean it – just do the rest of the room. Their celebration was truly epic.

Through the afternoon I studied at my desk and chatted with the other teachers. Tanaka sensei urged me to go home – he said I looked tired. I decided to stick through to the end – I need all the teachers to see me working hard in anticipation of my vacation in a few months.

Finally, on the way home I shared a train with one of the third year students. She is pretty good at English and she is studying it very hard. She went to Australia last year and had a great time. She’s a little shy, but I was very surprised when she came up and sat right down next to me on the train. We talked at first just in English, but I switched to Japanese to keep things flowing. She was really impressed that I spoke Japanese – she asked me lots of questions about how long I have been studying. I hope it inspired her to keep studying English.

Back home I cooked up shougayaki (ginger pork) for dinner with some cabbage salad and tofu on the side. It was a seriously healthy meal, but there was fat hanging on the edges of the pork, so it wasn’t health-freak-healthy. Kuniko came home around 7:30 exhausted from her day. We ate, did the dishes together, and right now she’s asleep in the next room.

Before Kuniko arrived we got a last minute invitation from the Denya master to join them all for some kimchee nabe at a local restaurant. Unfortunately our timing wasn’t right and I had to pass. Still, it was nice to be invited!

Tomorrow I’m going to meet up with Yasu and head over to Denya. It’ll be good to talk to Yasu – it’s been a long time! I’ve got a hectic day at school – four classes in a row from morning to 12:30 in the afternoon.

Matsubara sensei, that is. I was talking to her earlier today and trying to lay the foundation for my time off during November. She casually mentioned that she is pregnant, and is looking forward to the birth of her second child in February. I was happy to hear it, and also I felt like I have some kind of supernatural ability to detect pregnancy.

Elsewhere in the gossip department, yesterday I bumped into Yamamoto sensei and the school nurse standing together in Ito Yokado and looking very nervous that I had caught them. Yamamoto sensei recently got a cellphone after years of not owning one, and that’s a symptom that he’s seeing someone for sure.

Today I bumped into them both separately, and he didn’t seem to mind, but the school nurse looked really embarrassed and found something else to do quickly. Their secret is safe with me – they’ve covered for me in the past, so it’s the least I can do. I just hope none of my teachers read this site!

Like I said before, I’m starting the very complicated process of getting time off for my wedding. I’m planning on taking the week before the wedding and the week after to show around my family while they are here. It’s interesting to see how people view vacations in Japan.

I have plenty of vacation time, so that’s not an issue. In fact, I have five free days off just because I’m getting married. Since the time I want to take off is during classes, it becomes a big deal. Unlike other teachers I cannot be substituted, so I need to make sure that my classes are covered with other activities, and I have to talk with everyone involved. I’m doing this process in the Japanese style, getting tacit permission from everyone before I actually request the time off.

In Japan long vacations are pretty rare. Most vacations last a week at the most. People hurry back to work because they don’t want to leave their co-workers hanging. Oshima sensei just got married at my school and he was gone for about three days. He came back today with a homemade lunch from his wife and acted like nothing had changed. Even some teachers that had gone to Europe or the United States only stayed for three or four days – they spent more time traveling on the plane than at their destination!

My philosophy on vacations is much different from what is normal here, and we’ll just leave it at that.

For dinner tonight we had some Okinawan soup that we found at Ito Yokado. It was my first taste of Okinawan food and it was pretty good. Kuniko says that the food there is great, so we’ll definitely have to make it a vacation destination someday. Two or three days there wouldn’t be so bad.

A while back Struan had told me about a wine tasting event that goes on periodically in Kobe. It’s at the Sheraton on Port Island, and it’s a bit pricey (5000 yen a person!) He was planning to attend the next one because one of his teachers had invited him, and so he in turn invited Kuniko and me.

I met Struan on the Akashi platform, and we caught the shinkaisoku train towards Kobe. The plan was to meet up with Kuniko in Sannomiya, since she was already there because of work. Tanaka sensei was to meet us in the same area, as well.

We sat on the bench seats of the train, and there was a really beautiful girl standing across from us. Struan mentioned casually that she was the woman of his dreams. I settled back to watch Struan try to figure out a way to say hello without seeming like a sexual offender. I came up with a few novel ways to say hello, but in the end he didn’t have the courage. She looked at us a couple of times, and looked away quickly. When we got to the station she happened to be going the opposite way, so we watched her go, and Struan hung on to the faint hope that she used the same station we did, so maybe he’d see her again.

We met Kuniko near the bus stop, and soon after that Tanaka sensei showed up. She is a middle aged home economics teacher at Struan’s school, and we were all surprised how well she spoke English. She was always smiling and she looked serious about tasting wine today. They were hoping to get some “tips from a pro”, so I told them I’d do my best. We caught the bus to the hotel, and walked into the lobby.

It was a pretty nice hotel, and there were Americans here and there among the mostly Japanese staff. The place looked expensive, and it’s in a pretty remote location. The idea I guess was to get traffic coming this direction from the Osaka airport. It’s about a 40 minute bus ride from the hotel to the airport, so it’s not exactly convenient.

We went inside the sports bar, where the event was being held. We duly paid our 5000 yen each, and went inside. The bar was quite nice, and the array of bottles was pretty impressive. There were four distributors, and you could taste from their selection as much as you liked. They had some upscale wines that they were charging for a taste – and it seemed like they were getting some action.

We were some of the first people there, and we got started right away. There was a huge lineup of empty glasses, and so we each grabbed one, I picked a wine to try, we all got a healthy pour and then we sat down to taste it. There weren’t dump buckets, and they poured about a third of a glass of wine. Also, there wasn’t much room to stand in front of the bottles because of the foot traffic, so it was better to go back to our seats. We sat at a dinner table set with silverware, and there was a full meal that came along with it.

We tried lots of wines, starting with whites, then moving to Pinot Noirs and finally into the heavier reds. There were some winners and some losers, but it was a great variety. I tried to explain what I thought of each wine, why I felt that way, what I tasted in each glass, and I think that might have been interesting to Struan and Tanaka sensei. They had both seen the movie “Sideways” and that had fueled some of their interest.

Since we wanted to compare wines we left the first glass, grabbed some more empties, and filled up again. Soon our table was full of glasses. The staff were a little alarmed with that kind of behavior but made no move to stop it. I created little dump buckets out of the first few glasses, and left those on the table. Struan had no dump buckets – he just drank. Tanaka sensei was also hitting it pretty hard – she was funny to watch because she was trying to stay organized and remember all the wines, to rate them on the sheet, and still drink to her heart’s content. I was surprised they poured as much as they did.

The staff was patient with us – other tables were quietly sipping their wines and we were racing through wines and creating a huge collection of glassware. They brought us some delicious food – an appetizer plate for each of us with some salmon sashimi, prociutto, sweet figs, and some kind of shellfish all buttered and garlic ked. They also had all the bread and garlic bread you wanted. There was a main course of a wine marinated chicken with cheesy risotto, and there was a cheese platter with two kinds of cheese (goat and a brie-like cheese) to enjoy afterwards.

I’m not sure when we all arrived at the drunken stage – but it seemed to come at different times. Kuniko was getting sleepy at the table, Struan was rambling on about this and that, Tanaka sensei was giggling uncontrollably and kept saying how embarrassed she was (but in perfect English!) and I was using dump bucket glasses but still feeling a really nice buzz.

We had a time limit of two and a half hours, and we used up every minute. They were selling the wines there, so if you liked one you could buy it at a discount. Struan and I both bought a bottle of Trebbiano from Italy that was really good. Struan also bought a pinot noir that he liked.

From there we headed back to Sannomiya, and then went our separate ways. Kuniko and I went shopping for wedding rings and found a set that we liked at the Sogo department store downtown.

You might wonder if it is a good idea to buy something you will be wearing every day for the rest of your life after consuming so much wine. All I can say is that we really liked the rings last night, and as I type this I hope that when they are finished engraving them and they arrive that we will like them just as much.

We ate a few snacks in Chinatown, got some drinks at Starbucks for a dessert, and then finally caught the train back home. We were both bushed, and crashed out soon after we arrived. I can’t believe we have to work tomorrow!

Saturday morning Kuniko and I could sleep in a little longer than usual. I still had to get up and go do community chores with everybody at eight o’clock. Kuniko offered to join me, but we thought it would be more useful for her to stay in, relax, maybe do some chores.

I put on some scrubby clothes and went downstairs to get to work. I met up with Jane, and we paired off and found a neglected, weedy corner of the facility to work on. We used the hour to catch up with each other. I found out that Jane has a boyfriend – and although she says he’s always over visiting, I’ve yet to see him. We chatted about her plans for the future – it sounds like she’s leaning towards heading home after this year is up. The more I heard from her stories, the more it sounded miserable for her – at least the teaching part.

We wrapped things up and I went back upstairs. Kuniko had to go into work for a little while, so I spent the morning and part of the afternoon doing chores around the house, and doing just a touch of studying. I got to talk to my folks on the phone, and we chatted about their upcoming trip for our wedding. It’s starting to get real, and it’s fun to talk about it and start planning things.

Kuniko got back at a reasonable hour, and we worked on different things. Kuniko was writing the names and addresses of the people she is inviting on her invitation envelopes. She wrote them in beautiful kanji, but kept saying they looked terrible. Maybe they look bad to Japanese eyes – to me they were better than I could ever dream of writing.

For dinner tonight we cooked up tempura for the first time. Lately we’ve had lots of vegetables stacked up around here, and that’s a good way to use them up. We fried up some yams, pumpkin, basil leaves, shrimp, lotus root, some green peppers from my pepper tree, and even some tiny tomatoes that I popped in as an experiment. The first few pieces were a little firm as I wasn’t sure how long to cook them, but then we seemed to find our rhythm and got some great results. We ate the lot of them with some tempura sauce that Kuniko cooked up. Wow! Fried food is just so good.

Strangely today I had the most classes all week – three. They went without a hitch, and so by lunchtime I was enjoying my bento box and looking forward to the weekend.

I chatted with some students after lunch, studied, bought something cold to drink at the local convenience store, and really just wasted away the afternoon. I made good progress on “Holes” – I’m within a few chapters of the end. It’s taken a long time, though. The next book? I don’t know yet.

On the way home I started feeling a little funky, so when I got home I pretty much did some chores and then crashed out on the bed. I got up and made a quick udon dinner for Kuniko when she got home, and then went to bed again soon after that. I’m tired out – but I don’t work so hard… why is that? Is it the mental observance of Friday? I’m going to enjoy this weekend for sure.

I spent lots of time today taking practice tests for the big exam in December. I’ve been planning on failing it and focusing my efforts on passing it next year. It’s only offered once a year. Realistically, I will probably be ready to pass it next summer, but I’ll have to wait until the end of next year.

The practice tests went pretty much as I expected. I was getting around 40-50%. I need 60% to pass, and it’s close enough that it gives me a chance of passing this year. I’m going to have to really focus my efforts over the next few months, and if I do pass it will be by the skin of my teeth. It’s a lot of pressure, though, and I’d prefer just assuming that I will focus and continue working at my own pace. I might as well give it a go, but I know it’ll be heartbreak if I miss it by just a few points.

My classes went really well today, and I had one of my favorite classes in the afternoon. They are really active students and they don’t mind speaking English in class. It’s always a pleasure to teach them. They were full of energy today and they did great.

After school I went across the street to Tsuji-san’s place and chatted with her for about an hour. She finally got her fiancee and her father together in the same room and it sounded like a really fun time. The father sat and talked for four hours, and the fiancee just nodded and said “Hai”, “Hai”, “Hai”. I don’t know if anybody learned anything from the experience, but at least the father feels better.

At 6 o’clock the ALT that replaced Daniel came in for her lesson. She is fresh from Pittsburgh, PA, and she doesn’t speak any Japanese. Tsuji-san is going to help her out. She seemed like a nice enough person, and she’s been adopted by a group of ALTs in the Himeji area, so she should be just fine.

Kuniko beat me home and she cooked up an awesome dinner. It was a dish called “Mabonasu”. It was meat, eggplant, and peppers combined with a spicy sauce and served up with some miso soup on the side. I was raving as I scarfed it up – I even licked the plate clean it was so good. There are some leftovers so I get to take to work with me in my bento lunch box. Oh yeah.

Tomorrow is Friday and there’s nothing special planned in the Fredricks household. Kuniko is stuck working this weekend in preparation for the school festival, and so I’ll have a weekend pretty much to myself. I have to do community cleanup on Saturday morning, but other than that I have no obligations. Maybe I should hit the books and go for that passing grade…

Today was a pretty slow day for classes – I only had two. They went well enough – I told Matsubara’s class that they will be working on a project for the next few weeks. They’ll be doing an English skit in front of the class. This will be the first time that I’ve done a long term project with the class and I hope it goes OK.

I took a practice test for the December Japanese Proficiency Test. It didn’t go great – it was really difficult. I squeezed out a 60% score on one part of the listening test. I’ll need to do better than that, though.

For dinner I cooked up spaghetti with a garlic, olive oil and black pepper sauce and it turned out merely OK. Something was missing, but Kuniko and I couldn’t figure it out. That’s the fun of cooking, if you fail at least you can try again the next night.

We went to Ito Yokado after dinner to get some lunch supplies and we found some roast beef for 50% off – I got two packages full. It’s roast beef sandwiches for lunch tomorrow!

Finally we put the finishing touches on some wedding invitations that need to go out soon. The wedding is getting closer and closer!

For a typhoon that still hasn’t shown up, typhoon 14 has been all anybody has been talking about today. It is supposed to be the same strength as the hurricane that went through New Orleans recently, but I think that Japan is a little more used to weathering big storms. Everybody at school was expecting to get a typhoon warning – once that happens everyone can head home.

All the students wanted to go home. All the teachers wanted to go home. Yet, we stayed. The warning never came, although the typhoon was still bearing down on us. It was moving slowly, and just before I left school they said that it was turning north towards the Asian continent and away from central and northern Japan. That means that we’ll just catch the edge of it sometime in the middle of the night, and we should be OK to go to school tomorrow. Staff and students were highly disappointed in the news.

I had two classes today – one with Miyake sensei and one with Tsutsumi sensei. This was the first day back for Miyake sensei and it was good to catch up with her. I heard stories about her vacation and it sounded like she took an English study break, which she deserves. Our class went really well together, and I could tell she was happy to be back in front of the students like I was.

After school we all left early just in case the typhoon was speeding up, and so I got home around 5 p.m. Kuniko sent me a message saying that she would handle dinner, so I did a few chores and secured some things on the back porch just in case.

Kuniko cooked up buri teriyaki and tofu for dinner. The buri (yellowtail tuna) was in filets and she sauteed them in a pan with some teriyaki sauce, and then combined with the tofu we had a very healthy dinner. I was impressed with the buri – it had really good flavor and was very tender. It was also really inexpensive – that’s the nice thing about buying fish in Japan. It’s always reasonably priced and always fresh.

For dessert we had some Haagen Dazs ice cream (classic chocolate and mango/vanilla). Outside the wind is starting to blow a little harder, but it’s still dry out there. We’ll see how things go tomorrow!

Today I gingerly got out of bed to make a lunch for Kuniko and myself. Kuniko left before me and I bustled out the door with my arms full of garbage for garbage day, my lunch, my new textbooks, an umbrella, and my manpurse. Luckily I was able to manage everything to the train station.

Smoking is a really big problem here in Japan, and thankfully almost every train is non-smoking. In addition, most stations have a smoking corner, but everywhere else it is posted as non-smoking. Unfortunately, the station postings are more of a suggestion, and it’s not so rare to see people smoking right under a no-smoking sign. For a long time that has been bothering me, so I decided to ask the next person I see doing that to go to the smoking corner (in polite Japanese, of course).

Today a guy sat next to me on the bench and started puffing away. But today was not the day to have a little international conversation. This guy looked normal enough except for the juge bruise spreading from his eye across the whole left side of his face. He looked like he got it last night, and there was still some swelling on other parts of his face. The last thing I want to do is be the straw that breaks this camel’s back – my stupid comment might be enough to push him over the edge.

I settled for looking conspicuously at the no smoking sign, and then turning my body on the bench and just staring at him. I could tell it bothered him, but he was determined to have his cigarette. I just watched him for about a minute before my train came, and then left. Maybe next time.

I distributed my omiyage from the trip to Kyoto, and spent most of the day lesson planning and studying. I’m down to about 2-3 hours of study a day, and so I feel like I’m lazy or something. I know that it’s a limitation of my job, and I’m lucky to be able to study for 2-3 hours. Still, with the big test looming in December I’d really like to study more. However, maybe it’s time to just admit that I won’t make the cut this time and try to study a little more long term and a little less short-term-cram.

Kuniko asked me to run into Akashi and pick up some paperwork at a hospital there right after work since she couldn’t get there before it closed. I headed there, found the place easily enough, and got the paperwork without a problem. From there I came straight back home and made up a pot of tortilla soup and let it cook while I did chores and stuff. Kuniko came in around 8 o’clock, and we had some hot soup. Lately it’s been cooling off due to rain and an incoming typhoon, so the soup hit the spot.

We’re settling into the grind of the week, but before you know it it’ll be the weekend again. Time seems to be flying for me – it’s probably because it’s the last year of my cushy job and I’ll have to face the real world soon enough.

Saturday Kuniko took the day off from her club activity leader role, and we caught a train to Kyoto. I’m always amazed how quick and easy it is to get to Kyoto. We sat and chatted, looked out the window, checked out other passengers, and before you could say “space out” we were there.

The reason for the visit was for Kuniko to exchange a charm that she had purchased at one of her favorite temples. She made a wish on the old charm, and once that came true, she needs to bring it back and exchange it for a new one. I bought one, too, and together we performed the necessary rituals to get it charged up with a new wish. We’ll see if it works.

When we first arrived there was a really long line of people waiting to get a tour/sermon/lecture by a priest, and since we were definitely not interested in that, we walked by all the people and completed our business there.

On our way back to the station we stopped in and visited another temple, this one preparing for a matsuri event that evening. I took a few pictures there, and we watched a group of people surrounding a portable shrine resting in the shade to avoid the heat.

From there, we went to Arashiyama. The day was really hot, so we caught the train instead of walking three kilometers in the sun. It was totally worth it. We got to the side of the river and then crossed into town to have lunch and look at some of the touristy things. We had a simple traditional hot-weather soba lunch, and for dessert we had green tea ice cream.

On the way back we stopped by a pond with some pretty remarkable lily pads. They were growing a big stem that looked like a fake plastic attachment.

Next we caught the train into downtown Kyoto, and I was able to do some shopping at a huge bookstore there. I got two Japanese grammar reference books that I’ve been dreaming of for a while. As it happens, one of Kuniko’s friends, Tomo-chan, was in the area, so we met up outside the station and said hello. She’s getting married this month, and she looked very excited.

We paid a visit to one of Kuniko’s favorite dessert shops. She knows Kyoto inside and out – she went to college there and she went out a lot, so she knows all the good spots. The tiny restaurant was dedicated to French cakes, pies, and pastries. I took a few pictures inside – everything looked good, and there was a huge line for tables. We picked up some dessert to go, and the wait wasn’t too bad.

The last stop for us was to buy omiyage from the trip so we have something to give everyone on Monday. From there we took the train all the way back home, and had a fairly unhealthy mix of leftovers and gyoza for dinner. The cakes for dessert were spectacular.

The next day I was up early to go to a volleyball tournament. The master of the yakitori had cleverly talked me into helping out the Denya team. I met up with one of the regulars outside my apartment, and he drove me to the Akashi city gymnasium.

It was quite a place. Everything was in beautiful condition, it was clean and well-staffed, and it sat on a hill overlooking the city. We sat outside and waited for the rest of the team to wake up and come over.

Finally they started trickling in. I got a lot of attention from the other players, as I was the only team member that was foreign. Lots of people looking away quickly when I moved my head around.

We had the opening ceremony, and I noticed that our team was one of only two that didn’t have their own uniforms. The master had assured me that we were playing in the easiest league – the C league, but the other C league teams were hardcore. They set up spiking drills, they all had kneepads and it looked they had been practicing every day to get ready for the big event.

Some of the regular Denya guys have wives and girlfriends on a girls team called “BEST”. They were there playing and they did a really good job. They won last year, and the last I saw them they were facing off against a girl team called “CLOVER” who wore pink shorts and neopolitan tops.

We played two games and were elimated from both easily. The judges were strict and not many people were smiling. The Denya team really stood out from everyone else because I think our members were the first ones out of the door to take a smoke break after the games, some of our members were trash-talking the other team, and everybody on our team just laughed and had a good time. The other teams looked at us like we a bug that they found necessary to step on.

The good news about early elimination was that we could leave early, so we all bugged out and left the girls team to fend for themselves. We found the nearest watering hole and had the Japanese equivalent of a Denny’s lunch – soba, tempura, sashimi, rice, and little bits of pickles. We each had a couple of beers and lamented our losses. I guess last year they had won a game, and then lost the rest, so this was a step backwards. I even heard some people saying they might practice next year.

I came home and crashed. I’m coming down with a sore throat – so Kuniko let me sleep the rest of the afternoon away before we headed out to visit her folks.

The last stage of the weekend was a feast and a bath. Kuniko’s mom cooked up lots of food for us to eat for dinner, and then while Kuniko fiddled with the family computer to try to get it to print on envelopes I tried out their new bath.

It’s a little strange to be invited over to someone’s house for a bath. Of course it was Japanese style, so I used the water, and then the next person used the same water, and the next, etc. You don’t actually use soap in the bath – you do all that with a shower setup just outside the bath. Then you get in clean and you get out relaxed. They have this cool setup that keeps the temperature constant while you are in there, and it lets you know in another room when the temperature is where you want it. I was raving about that bath the rest of the night.

Finally we wrapped things up, and so we headed back with armloads of fresh vegetables from the farm, and a sizable bag of Kageyama rice. I’m bushed, and tomorrow is Monday – ugh.

I’ll make a note of it here – I think Matsubara sensei is pregnant. She already has a one year old daughter and she’s always talking about her. After the summer vacation I’ve noticed the slightest bulge under her dress and her wardrobe has slightly changed. However, as a comedian once said, you never ask a woman if she is pregnant, not unless you can actually see the baby coming out. So I’ll keep it quiet and silently observe her midsection. That sounded creepy.

Due to a quirky schedule I got to teach one of my first year classes today. My class was their first class after four periods of exams, so it was the first chance they could have a normal class after a month and a half of vacation. I had various strategies to take care of some of the energies that might be running loose, but as it turned out I was teaching with Yamamoto sensei, who is really strict with them.

My new lesson is about directions, and it went really well. Most of the students have had a lesson on directions in junior high school. They did pretty good, and everyone had a good time, I think. I really enjoyed being in front of students again. I was feeling nervous after almost two months without teaching, and I was worried how things would go. Of course they went fine, it’s just I’m a little rusty getting back into the saddle.

Mr. Yamamoto spent two minutes telling the students in Japanese that I was in the staff room every day during summer studying Japanese. He told them that if they spent the effort that I have been putting in they would know English completely by now. It was a little embarrassing, and my cover was completely blown. I’m still going to stick to English in the classroom, though.

I came back to the staffroom and enjoyed a great bento that Kuniko made up for me this morning. As usual people stopped by to admire my lunch, and ask me lots of questions about my diet.

I studied the rest of the day and now I’m back home rocking out and waiting for Kuniko to get back. I’m thinking of cooking up some kimchee fried rice tonight – not healthy, but cheap! Today while buying the groceries for dinner the clerk asked me all about it. She really likes asking me tons of questions when I’m checking out, and I’m sure the other patrons behind me hate me for taking up lots of time.

Last night Kuniko and I made up some Hawaiian Poke. Susan and Dave in Hawaii sent the seasoning packet to me a while back, and so I bought some raw tuna and some fried tofu and Kuniko and I mixed it up. It was really good – salty and spicy!

Oh, and one last thing – I’m blogging at school now. It’s just once every couple of weeks, and here’s the link. One of the English teachers, Yamamoto sensei, really is getting started with designing web pages and you can see what I mean. My eyes! My eyes! Still, I thought it was best to let him go for it and have fun.

Today was an interesting day on a lot of different levels. I woke up still a bit drunk from the night before, and no amount of toothbrushing would get that taste out of my mouth. I also put on an entire kilogram of weight according to my scale, so all this partying has got to stop! Or, at least slow down.

We had our school opening ceremony today, and that was really the only reason the students even showed up. We did a cleaning session in the morning, so I hung out with the students assigned to clean my area, and we talked mostly in Japanese with a little bit of English. We didn’t clean much but we did have some fun.

The school gymnasium is the only place big enough to have an assembly, and today it was super-humid inside. It gets even hotter after you pack it with a thousand students. The staff told the students to hang in there, and they did their best. There wasn’t much else to do but sit through the speeches and remember to breathe. Four students had collapsed because of the heat before the principal’s speech even started, and then about six more collapsed during the speech. One kid fell and hit his head, and so they had to keep him laying there for a while. Maybe it’s just me, but when so many people are collapsing because of heat exhaustion, you are doing something wrong. Other teachers aren’t alarmed by this, probably just because that’s the way it has been done for so many years. Change comes slowly in Japan.

After the assembly I walked over to the post office and sent off my application to take the Japanese Proficiency Test in December. You have a one week window to apply in September for an exam in December. If you miss the deadline, you can pay just 3000 yen more, and then there is no problem. Last year that happened to me, and I’m convinced this is just a way for the test company to make some more money. What’s the deal with a one week window for a test that comes only once a year? Oh well… I’m going to fail the exam, I’m just curious to see the margin of failure.

Around 11 o’clock I went over to Tsuji-san’s place to chat. She had one of her students there who wanted to meet me. Her name is Haruka. She is about 22 years old, and has a hearing problem so she wears hearing aids in both ears and she reads lips. If you’ve never had your lips read it’s quite strange to talk to somebody while they are staring intently at your mouth. It makes you wonder if you brushed your teeth thoroughly that morning. Haruka’s English was surprisingly good. Because of her hearing problem her pronunciation of all words (English and Japanese) is difficult to understand. Still, I could follow what she was saying and for the most part that side of the conversation went well. She had trouble understanding what I was saying, though – partly because she is a beginner and partly because reading the lips of a foreign language speaker is much more difficult. We talked for about an hour, and it was pretty inspiring to see her working hard and against adversity to learn English. She wants to be a teacher someday, so she’s been studying hard to get there.

After the lesson Tsuji-san and I went over to a tofu restaurant and had a nice lunch. Tsuji-san insisted on paying – she felt like she was getting more out of our lessons than I was. During lunch we talked about the upcoming meeting between her parents and her fiancée. It sounds like there is a lot of pressure about to be applied on her fiancée, Mikitoshi. I sense that Tsuji-san is not really happy with how things have been going lately, and she’s really thinking about the fact that she’ll be living with this guy for the rest of her life. I guess they haven’t had many deep conversations, and Tsuji-san may be wondering if they ever will. She was curious about how Kuniko and I handle the deep stuff, and so I gave her as much information as I could think of. Anyway, she’ll be watching Mikitoshi very carefully during the first meeting, and his behavior will be a big part of what happens in the future. He’s really fighting an uphill battle, because Tsuji-san’s dad already doesn’t like him, and they haven’t even met. What will happen? I’ll have to wait until next week to find out all the gory details.

For Wednesday we had no classes, just a long involved staff meeting in the morning. Everyone was there, and there were a variety of topics. The most interesting involved the new tobacco policy that they are considering. I guess there is some serious teacher resistance to the idea of a no-smoking campus, and it sounds like they have been exerting pressure in various areas. The principal appealed to the teachers to do their best to quit smoking by the next spring, and asked them to consult with him if there were any problems. Some of these teachers are heavy, heavy smokers – this will be tough for them to deal with.

I hung out the rest of the day studying at my desk, and talking to students here and there. My new resolution is to talk to students more, even if it’s in Japanese. I’ll still be using only English in the classroom, but I want the students to have more chances to interact with a foreigner.

Around 5 p.m. Maeda sensei gathered up a group of about 15 teachers, and we walked across town to an okonomiyaki place. We all sat down, and the menu had been pre-arranged. The beer situation was really unusual: whenever you needed a beer you just went to the fridge and grabbed it. People were constantly getting gigantic cold bottles of Asahi Super Dry and pouring them to their neighbors in the Japanese style. The owner of the restaurant kept our okonomiyaki plates full of food all night, and everyone drank and chatted and chatted and drank.

The owner came by our table and I said “thank you” in Japanese when she gave us our plates, and she commented that “I’m very good at Japanese!” This is pretty common in Japan – you say one word in Japanese and you are talented. It just shows you how low the expectations are for foreigners. That in turn is a great motivator for me to learn.

I sat at the middle table with Maeda sensei, Arauchi sensei, and Yamamoto sensei for the first part of the evening, but later found myself sitting with the school nurse (also named Yamamoto sensei) and Arai sensei, a P.E. teacher. I spoke only Japanese with Yamamoto sensei and half and half with Arai sensei. Everyone kept my glass full, and so it was really hard to tell how much I drank – which is one good way to know if you are drunk or not.

The school nurse and I rarely talk at school, but we have some things in common. We saw each other in Carrefour a long time ago and we were both with our secret “significant other”, so we kept each other’s secret for a long time. We also both get chased around by the history teacher, for quite different reasons.

We talked a little bit about her mystery boyfriend, and it sounds like that relationship is on the rocks. She’s the same age as me, so the clock must be ticking, but she’s pretty relaxed about it and isn’t bowing to any pressure. She was the only woman at the party, and was nice enough to translate drunken old man Japanese into normal Japanese for me.

Drinks were poured, I made new friends, one of the math teachers admitted that his English nickname is “Crazy Monkey”, teachers began calling for crazy orders of more and more food, and we all just kept drinking. The refrigerator was always full of cold beer – and it didn’t seem to matter how many we took – nobody was keeping track.

Around 10 o’clock I made my move out of there and headed to the station, briefly accompanied by the school nurse who probably wanted to make sure I didn’t get lost in Takasago. I assured her I knew the way back, and headed off to the station. I got home just after Kuniko arrived from her dinner date with a friend. I guess the atmosphere of their place was good, but the food wasn’t. Too bad. Kuniko got a new haircut and had gotten lots of bread and cakes for us for the next day. We talked for a while about each other’s day, but I made a poor conversation partner due to inebriation and so I fell asleep sure of the fact that I would have a pretty good hangover tomorrow.

After I got to school today the rain came down like crazy. It looked nice enough when I left, but I was stuck at school with just my reserve umbrella.

There were a few more teachers at school today, but it was still pretty quiet. They’ll all be there tomorrow, and we’ve got a thrilling staff meeting in the morning. One of the part time teachers came in and said hello – she offered her congratulations on the paperwork wedding.

I went home around two o’clock, likely my last short day for a long time. I was dodging raindrops with my tiny umbrella, and I was able to get back to the station reasonably dry.

Tonight Kuniko was home a little late, so I tried to make California sushi rolls. I don’t think they turned out so hot. They were good, but they didn’t quite taste like California rolls to me. Maybe they needed more crab. Maybe less avocado. I don’t know. We’ll have to order them sometime in a restaurant for Research & Development purposes.

Tomorrow night I’m going out to okonomiyaki and beer with some of the teachers, and Kuniko is going out with one of her friends after work, so it’ll be quiet around here. I’m looking forward to the dinner – it’ll be good to hear the stories from the teachers about what they’ve been doing over the summer.

So I was minding my own business in the staffroom today. Wednesday is our first all-hands meeting, and so I figured there’d be more teachers back working. Actually, there was hardly anyone there. I guess these last two days are the last chance for a vacation for quite a while, so people are taking advantage.

I’ve mentioned the guy two desks down that has a hobby of picking his nose. He’s a strange dude all around. He’s got a big dandruff problem, he speaks so quietly you can hardly hear him, and his desk is covered with books. He has only enough space to write on a piece of paper, and then the other areas are towering with books. Lots of privacy, I guess.

Anyway, I overheard him tell some teachers that he is getting married next month. I wasn’t the only surprised person there. I think the teachers were asking him to see a picture – out of curiosity or as proof – I’m not sure. Anyway, I couldn’t catch the whole conversation, but I’m sure we’ll hear more at the big meeting Wednesday. Can’t wait to see the pictures.

The vice principal came by my desk pretty early and told me I could split. I had finished up my lesson plan for the first years in the morning and I was busy reviewing vocabulary, so I didn’t take him up on it until around 2 o’clock.

When I got back home I found that Kuniko had done all the dirty dishes from last night and also a big load of laundry was hanging out on the patio. I think we need to eat some stuff out of the refrigerator just to make room – it is packed with food. Tomorrow is another exciting teacher-free day, and then things will settle into a normal schedule and hopefully by next week I’ll be able to teach some classes!