Today at work they had to cut the power for about three hours in the morning. I had come in at my regular time, that is, early. I managed to get a lot of electronic studying done in the air conditioned well-lighted room, and so when they cut the power around nine o’clock I was already ahead of the game.
The room stayed cool for a surprising amount of time. I took a seat near the window, and studied by sunlight. I had a few visitors – the vice principal came by to ask me how many classes I had in a week. I saw the paper he was filling out and it was a board of education evaluation. Even though I’m scheduled for 15 classes a week officially, I skip three of those classes by teacher request, and I have ESS and three other periods marked off for meetings and for teaching English to other teachers like Miyake sensei and Mori sensei. I made it sound like I’m slammed with classes, in the hopes that my successor catches an easier schedule next year when he/she arrives. In reality I have the easiest schedule ever, and I’m taking advantage of it to hit the books hard.
Another visitor was Kobayashi-san, the cute office lady that I’ve rarely spoken to. She tends to avoid me, and if I catch her looking at me and smile she turns away quickly and rushes off. So, I was surprised to see her show up at my desk.
She had some mail for me, since the regular mail lady wasn’t in today. It was just junk mail but I confirmed it was for me and said thanks in Japanese. She smiled and left – a much calmer exit than she usually makes. Later I was in the office and I talked to her a little more, admiring the lunch bento that she had brought. It wasn’t half as cool as mine, but I didn’t mention that. She actually seems pretty nice; I think she’s just a little gun-shy because of all the attention she gets from certain male teachers.
In the afternoon I went over to Tsuji-san’s place and we talked. I paid careful attention and found that most of our discussion was held in English. I’d like to use more Japanese, but either I can’t say what I want in Japanese or things fall quickly back into English at the first sign of miscommunication. I might have to think about getting a little more strict, maybe cutting the session in half and trying hard to speak only one language at a time.
You’d think that since Kuniko and I are living together I’d have a lot more chances to speak Japanese, but we’ve got a weird kind of communication scheme going. I speak my mind freely in English, Kuniko generally speaks in Japanese for small daily things, and English when we’re talking more in depth. If Kuniko is talking in Japanese, I tend to respond in kind, but not always. It’s hard to explain, but it works well for us. Anyway, I think we’ll get the chance to use more Japanese once Kuniko’s exam is over next week. I want to make sure that she’s in an English frame of mind these days.
Tonight I’m heading into Akashi to meet up with Struan. It’s been a long time, and we need to catch up and see what’s going on. Struan is starting his third year of his JET contract, the same as me. He was pretty hesitant on whether to re-contract, but in the end he decided to stick around. I don’t know what we’ll be up to tonight, I’ll report more later.
Kuniko was feeling better last night, and she seemed OK this morning. She cancelled plans to go meet her co-workers in Umeda tonight, but I’m not sure if she’s going to uncancel them or not. I was happy to see her feeling better though.