It’s nice when the most stressful part of your week is over on Wednesday at 2:05 in the afternoon, but that’s just how my schedule is set up. Every other day of the week is pretty light, with lots of my favorite students in classes that I really enjoy and can show up to without a lot of planning.

Wednesday has one easy class, and three tough ones. These tough classes require a new and original lesson plan each week. Some of the students overlap between two of the classes, so I cannot do the same lesson in all of them. I have lots of ideas for teaching, but week after week it can be tough coming up with things to do. Parts of Monday and Tuesday are used coming up with plans for those classes and talking them over with their respective teachers. The teachers like it because it means that they don’t have to come up with a lecture, and the students like it because they can enjoy my class and don’t have to worry about boring lectures.

So when I’m wrapping up the last class at 2:05 in the afternoon, I’m already starting to think about my weekend plans, and how lucky I am to have such a great job that pays me to live in a foreign country and study Japanese, with the benefit of teaching a bunch of great students who are really happy to talk with me.

After school I went up to the balloon room and helped for about half an hour attaching balloons to chicken wire. The balloon room has much fewer balloons in it, but it’s still impressive to see. One of the girls on the student council was running around in there and it was like a huge mass of blue balloons moving around.

While attaching balloons, I chatted with the students around me in English, and they asked me all sorts of questions about my personal life: Do I have a girlfriend? Is she Japanese? What’s her name? Where did you meet her? How many girlfriends do you have? I answered all the questions as honestly and evasively as I could, but the girls especially were really happy to hear about Kuniko. I didn’t mention that she was a teacher here – that leads to some really tough questions. The girls were saying “Rub, Rub”, which translates to “Love, Love”.

On the way home I shared a train with the student that lives in my neighborhood. Tomorrow he has my class, so he was asking me about the homework and what he should write about. I gave him some pointers – he’s really a good natured kid and I think he’s enjoying my class a lot.

For dinner tonight I unintentionally cooked up a gigantic shrimp, cheese, mushroom, and onion omelette. It was awesome – not healthy, not by a longshot, but it was delicious. I only used three eggs, but somewhere along the way things got out of hand and I had to cut it in half just to fit it on my plate. Lucky I only had a bowl of noodles for lunch.

I had a fun day today with just a couple of classes and some preparation to do. The ESS club met to do some final planning for our big newspaper publishing operation this week. We sat and made some big decisions, and it was nice to see the club thriving.

Before we only had a handful of people, and that made for some short meetings and a very casual atmosphere. Also, I knew exactly what was going on with all our projects, all the time. Now we’ve got a lot of things happening – we’ve got a club president, another teacher advisor, and so things change and move around without me knowing about it. I’m comfortable with that, in fact, it’s quite welcome. I like to focus on speaking English with the members, helping them with homework, and doing what I do best.

I had about an hour to kill at the end of the day, and so instead of sitting around at my desk studying, I walked around the school and looked in on the students doing their projects. The students really appreciated a visit on their home turf, and it was fun to chat. In one hallway the student council was attaching ballons to chicken wire, and I stopped in to help out with that for a while. When I ran out of balloons the students just pointed to the window of a nearby classroom. I looked inside, and the room was filled to the level of the window with balloons. Thousands of balloons in one room make for a really impressive sight. I was a little concerned that their balloons would slowly shrink by Friday, but they don’t seem to care about that.

I also paid a visit to some first year student classrooms, and shocked a few people. One girl almost started crying she was laughing so hard. Her friends gave her a hard time about that. Finally I came back to the bottom floor, and two of the ESS members were looking for me. They were going to the store to buy some newspaper printing supplies, and asked me to come along. It was on my way home, so I tagged along.

I’ve had the opportunity once before to go shopping with a group of schoolgirls, and this time was just the same – giggling, joking, laughing, and creating a big scene. I went along with them, and together we found some paper suitable for the newspaper. We packed it up, and I sent them back to school while I caught the train home from Takasago.

I just finished up dinner – some cabbage wraps that Kuniko left for me in the freezer. It’s pretty humid right now – so even with the apartment wide open it’s starting to get a little sticky. Summer is coming – and there’s no way to stop it.

I was really tired out at school today. It was useless trying to memorize words today – I spent almost an hour memorizing twenty words, when I should have done about eighty in that time. The history teacher took advantage of my weakened state to come over and talk with me about Gregory Peck movies. I did have an actual class today, in the sixth period, and it went just fine. Mr. Yamamoto was just as tired as I was – he sat in the back of the class in front of the open window and enjoyed the cool air blowing in.

Today people were dealing with the latest school crisis – some students were caught smoking in the bathroom. Their homeroom teacher was getting ready to go to their house and talk with them at home, since they are all suspended. I’m not sure what goes on during these home visits, but I am sure that it’s unpleasant.

Some of my students came by my desk and tried to help me study Japanese. They are always impressed that I’m studying Japanese, but always disappointed that they can’t understand what I’m trying to say in Japanese. I was talking to two girls from the second year, and I was trying to explain that I got my electronic dictionary for free from Casio, in the hopes that students like them would see them and buy them for themselves. In a way it’s an investment by Casio. Anyway, all I got from the girls were blank stares, and so I had to give up.

Before I knew it the time was 5 p.m., so I went on down to the station and caught a train home. I walked through Ito Yokado without buying dinner, because Kuniko had left some goodies in my fridge for this week. Tonight I cooked up some hamburger patties that she made, and together with some rice and some hot sauce it turned out great.

Today the weather is cooler, and there’s a nice breeze blowing. It was steadily been getting hotter, though, and soon it’ll be air conditioner time. For now I’m taking advantage of the temperature and the wind to dry out my laundry in record time.

Sunday we woke up about 7:30 in the morning to the sounds of equipment and people moving around outside. At first it sounded like the monthly community cleanup, but since that’s always on Saturday, I didn’t know what it was. It was still going strong at 8:30 or so, and then I realized that since it was raining yesterday, they must postponed it to Sunday. I decided that it was probably too late for me to join the party, and instead stayed tucked into bed with Kuniko.

Around 11 Kuniko and I went outside to meet up with Yasu, who invited me to go with him to a Hanshin Tigers baseball game. This year the Tigers are doing pretty well, and Yasu had tickets for a sold-out game against the Nihon Ham Fighters. Their name actually comes from the company that owns them, Nihon Ham – so it’s not that they are good at fighting hams. They are just good at fighting, I guess.

Anyway, all three of us had lunch at Ito Yokado, and then Kuniko went back to my place to study and relax for the day, and Yasu and I caught the train to Koshien stadium.

This was the second time that I’ve been to a Tigers game. The crowds were heavy and we bought a six pack of beer and some tea at the local Daiei store. We also bought some balloons to set loose in the seventh inning, and then we went inside the park. We had bleacher seats, so we picked a decent pair of seats near the Nihon Ham Fighters fan club, and settled in to watch the game.

The game was a blowout, and not in our favor. The final score was 10-3, and it 7-0 after the second inning. Ouch. Most of the cheering was done by the fan club in front of us, and they really enjoyed the game. It always surprises me that there are so few arguments or fights at the games that I’ve been to. That’s considering that you can bring your own booze into the park – and still people don’t get (too) out of hand.

We caught the train home, and during the long trip back there was a funny instance of language miscommunication. Before I went to the game, Kuniko had offered to have dinner waiting for me when I got back. So, on the way to the game I told Yasu that right after the baseball game I needed to go back because Kuniko was cooking me dinner. He said, “fine, that’s great”, and that was it.

Fast forward to the train ride home and just as we walked out of our station towards Ito Yokado, Yasu asked me, “I need to take a shower, so what time should I come over for dinner?”

I was surprised, and I had to think fast. How do you say “Actually, you’re not invited to dinner” to somebody? However, I didn’t want to invite him over without knowing what Kuniko had planned. In the end he said he would finish his shower in about forty minutes, so I figured that would be enough time for me to buy food and cook it if it turned out that we didn’t have enough.

I got home and Kuniko was studying hard. There was the smell of dinner in the air, and it smelled good. Right away I told her about our surprise guest, but she just laughed and said that there was plenty of food. She went over to the store to buy a little bit of salad while I was in the shower, and soon after we all sat down to a delicious meal. Kuniko had made cabbage wrapped beef, rice, miso soup, and we had a duck salad on the side. Everything tasted great, and we even had one cabbage wrap to spare for my dinner later this week. No problem!

Kuniko went home later that evening, and I did some final cleanup and went to bed. I’m really tired out from the weekend, and I’m hoping it doesn’t affect my performance at school this week…

Saturday was a nice relaxing day for me. Kuniko started off at my place and went to a BBQ for her exchange students in the afternoon, so I spent the day relaxing and reading for pleasure. Late in the afternoon I got a message from Kuniko that she was leaving early, so I hit the road for Kobe and met up with her at Kobe station around four o’clock.

We walked around the area, looking at shops and enjoying the scenery, but soon Kuniko developed a dull pain in her hip. We tried sitting down for a while and resting, and that seemed to help, but when we got walking again the pain came back. At one point we sat down and I was giving her hip and back a firm massage to try and loosen up the muscles. The problem with doing a firm massage to a woman’s hips in public when you are a foreigner in a foreign country is that you attract a lot of attention. So, we didn’t do that so much.

After a while though, she felt better, and so we walked out to Mosaic to meet up with Tsuji-san and her boyfriend. This was my first time meeting him, and he seemed like a really nice guy. Since he doesn’t speak a word of English we decided to do the whole evening in Japanese. That made for an interesting atmosphere, because it was really up to me to keep the conversation going, but my conversations were limited to what my vocabulary could do. Things were slow at first, but with Kuniko helping me out we soon were talking comfortably enough. I made lots of mistakes, and people kindly corrected me, and so I learned a lot.

We had decided to go to the Brazilian restaurant – a meat-oriented place that is well-known in the Kobe area. It’s an all you can eat restaurant, but you are limited by how often the guys come over with meat to deliver to your table.

After dinner we walked back towards the station to go to Sweets Harbor, kind of a food court/theme park dedicated to desserts. Strangely enough, it closed at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night – which seemed like a really bad time to close a place that specializes in dessert.

Instead we walked across the street to Starbucks and had some coffee and chatted some more. I tried to give some advice to them about meeting the family for the first time, and things of that nature. Hopefully it will be helpful.

One thing that was really interesting about their relationship is how Tsuji-san has a background of traveling and living overseas. She leans a little more towards the western way of thinking, and it seems like her fiancée is more of a traditional Japanese guy when it comes to relationships and roles.

Tsuji-san told me that after months and months of waiting for him to propose, she checked in with him last week to see if he was really serious about this or not. He said he was, citing extreme shyness as a factor, and then proposed to her right there. Tsuji-san told me that it was weird timing – like if she hadn’t asked about it he wouldn’t have proposed. I guess that took a little bit of the romance out of it for her.

Also, they have to work out what their roles will be. He wants her to quit her job and stay at home, and she just got a great job that she loves and she feels a responsibility towards them to stay with it for a while. The idea that she should be at home is definitely a traditional Japanese one – and her idea of working as well is more of a western one. Which idea wins remains to be seen.

Not much to report from the education front today – only two classes for me, and they were a piece of cake. I heard a rumor that three students were caught smoking in the bathroom (three second year boys). They are getting suspended all next week – and they’ll miss the popular Culture Festival. I wonder where they got the idea to smoke at school? Maybe when they walked by the teacher’s smoking room and saw all their role models in there puffing away like mad between classes. Hmm…

I had a good time chatting with students while they were preparing for their dances and events. They are really working hard, but they don’t mind taking a break and explaining what they are doing to me in broken English.

Between my classes I reviewed vocabulary, and read some Japanese reading material for kids. I’m getting a little better at reading, but only at a elementary school level. I still have trouble with anything more than that.

I came home at the usual time, and picked up some uncooked ramen at Ito Yokado for dinner. I had planned to cook a big dinner for Kuniko, but she had to cancel, so I had to go to Plan B.

Tomorrow Kuniko and I are going to meet up with Tsuji-san and her boyfriend for dinner in Kobe. I’m sure to have some good stories after that meetup!

Today I had the entire morning free, and two of the student teachers asked me to drop by their classes to watch their final lesson, and to give them sage advice afterwards. Of course, it wasn’t just me, there were several other teachers invited. I went to both classes, and although it was sometimes painful to see how nervous they were, overall they did a great job.

Later in the day both of the student teachers came by to say thanks for coming, and I gave them advice as best I could with my broken Japanese. They politely listened and nodded, although I’m not sure they understood. My basic message was keep up the good work – you’ll make a great teacher.

After school we had an ESS meeting to collect the articles for the newspaper that we are going to make for the culture festival. Some students came in and dropped off the paper, others came in and worked hard on their project. I chatted with several of the students, and we had fun talking about sushi, weekends, and the upcoming trip to Australia.

My next stop was across the street to talk with Tsuji-san. We’re planning a dinner together on Saturday, along with Kuniko and Tsuji-san’s boyfriend. She had good news – her boyfriend proposed last week, so we talked about that a lot. That was a very interesting conversation, but I’ll wait and elaborate on it after we have dinner with them Saturday night.

We’re also planning to go out with Tsuji-san’s other foreigner student, Daniel, next week. He’s wrapping up his contract and going home this year, so it’ll be kind of hello/goodbye party.

I stopped in at Ito Yokado on the way home because they were selling Hiroshima okonomiyaki – a real delicacy. They cooked it just the way I remember it, minus the garlic and kimchee. I took one home, and it was still steaming from the pan since my house is so close. It was a great dinner. They don’t do this often, so I just have to take it when I get it.

Yasu came by this evening to drop off some things for me. He wanted to get me properly outfitted for the Tiger’s game on Sunday. He bought me some noisemaking plastic bats, and a replica Tiger’s jersey to wear during the game. I was totally surprised. He said it was no problem, and wouldn’t let me pay him back. Instead I’m going to buy lunch and some beer for the game. The nice thing about Japanese baseball is that you can bring in your own food and beer!

This evening after school I went to Kobe to do some shopping in Chinatown. Chinatown is just south of the Motomachi station in western Kobe, and it was an easy walk from the station to the main part of Chinatown. Kuniko came and met me after her work finished up, and we walked together and ate various goodies from the street vendors. Most of the street vendors are Japanese, but when you go in the little stores behind the vending stands, you realize how many Chinese people are there.

I stopped in one shop and picked up various sauces and spices, for about half the price as you would pay in a place like Carrefour or an import food shop. The cashier wasn’t sure what language I spoke, so he asked his daughter to come over and ask me what I was looking for in English. Later, when I was checking out they had their son translate the amount of the bill and then he gave me a cheerful “Have a nice day!” in English as I left.

Kuniko and I had some trouble finding a decent dessert – we got what were described as Mango and Lychee shakes, but it turned out they were just flavored slushes like Slurpees. Mine was good, but Kuniko’s mango one wasn’t so great.

On the sixth floor of the gigantic Daimaru department store they had an exposition of Hokkaido goods, so we went to check it out. It was really cool – like walking through a farmer’s market in Hokkaido. There were a lot of things that you normally can only get in Hokkaido, so we got some desserts there to take home.

We stopped in at a Starbucks for something cold to drink, and from there went down to the Mosaic pier to walk around, ride the ferris wheel, and relax some more. There were lots of couples there, as usual, and the weather was perfect for enjoying the skyline view of Kobe.

We were both starting to get tired, and since it was a school night we headed back to the train station. Kuniko went on home, and I got off at Akashi, changed trains and went through Ito Yokado on my way back home. It was a nice school night excursion – it’s good to break the routine every once in a while.

Just two easy classes today – one without a teacher to help me out. Both classes went just fine, though, and I spent the time between classes going over Japanese grammar and typing in words to memorize into the computer.

The closer we get to the culture festival the more antsy the students are getting. They have been very friendly in the hallways – even more than usual. I’m hoping that there will be some energy left over after the festival for my classes, but I fear that won’t be the case.

I was busy chatting with several of the younger teachers in the staffroom today. I had a nice conversation with one of the student teachers. She looked really nervous talking with me, but I think she always looks really nervous. It was like at any second she would hear a loud noise and skitter away. Anyway, we talked about her teaching schedule, and it sounds like she’s having a rough time with our students. I don’t think they are so bad, but maybe they smell the fear on her, and like a pack of dogs they’re moving in for the kill.

After school I caught the train to Himeji and met Carrie in front of 31 flavors ice cream. It’s a great place to meet – if you stand there facing 31 flavors you can see lots of ice cream, lots of people walking by quickly on their way wherever, and if you turn completely around you can see the amazing 400 year old Himeji castle in the distance – lined up in perfect symmetry with the ice cream store.

We went to a yakiniku place for dinner, and spent time roasting meat and catching up. We haven’t met up since March, so we had a lot of talking to do. I told her all about the wedding plan, the visitors that will be here in November, and how exciting it all is. Carrie told me about what she’s planning for after her return to the states in 2006, how things are going with her boyfriend, and how the studying is going for the big exam that we’re both taking in December.

We ate lots of grilled meat – different types of beef and pork – and then finally headed back to the station. We stopped in at the aforementioned 31 Flavors for a scoop of ice cream, and we sat out on the step enjoying the nice weather and the conversation.

I caught the train back to Futami, and now I’m getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is my busy day at school – four classes in a row! After school I’m going to go into Chinatown in Kobe to meet up with Kuniko and do some shopping. I’m looking for some authentic Chinese sauces and spices to liven up my Chinese cooking.

Today I had the morning free to study, and so I spent about three hours studying uninterrupted up in my classroom as the school went about it’s business all around me. Two hours of memorization, and one of grammar, and I left my classroom with a tired out brain.

I had just two classes today – both with first year students. No problems today – the students responded well to the lessons. They are getting close to the culture festival, and that means that they pay less attention in class – they are dreaming of being onstage in front of the crowds of other students who are waiting for their turn on stage.

Today I had a couple of the students in my class that I had bumped into at Ito Yokado on Saturday with Kuniko. They commented on what a beautiful girlfriend I have, and they did it all in English. I told them in Ito Yokado that we’re supposed to use English in the classroom, so they worked hard today to ask me all about Kuniko in English.

After school I went over some plans with Tsutsumi sensei about the end of the term – we have to arrange classes to make sure that everything ends up evenly. Most of the time it’s pretty complicated, but today it worked out pretty easily.

I went over to the yakitori for a quick bite and a beer tonight – not really for the food or the beer, but to touch base with the master. He was happy to see me, and we caught up. It was fun to sit there and chat with him and some of the guests, and I really should get over there more. It’s a great chance to use Japanese, without a safety net.

Tomorrow I’ve got just a couple of classes. I am going to do another solo class. Apparently I set a precedent and now teachers are bailing out of my class faster than you can say “50 minute break”.

Kuniko and I slept big time Saturday morning. Late last night we had decided to just stay in and rest up this Saturday instead of going out hiking, sightseeing, movie-watching, or any of the other fairly active things that we usually do on the weekends.

We slept until nearly noon, and then wandered over to Ito Yokado to pick up a few things for dinner, and a movie to watch on Kuniko’s DVD player. DVDs in Japan are really expensive – some are as much as 5000 yen ($50), but recently they’ve been selling some pretty good titles for as low as 1000 yen. I picked up “There’s Something About Mary”, and so we watched that with dinner.

Speaking of dinner, Kuniko made up a great meal of Nikujaga (meat and potatoes), miso soup and rice, and we had a serious feast while watching the flick. Comedy is always a little tricky to translate, but I think for the most part Kuniko got the jokes. Some were good, some were bad, and some were really bad.

Late that evening I walked her to the taxi stand and she got a ride home. She had to leave early the next day to escort some of her students to a concert in Osaka. Kuniko is in charge of the mandolin club at her school, so four of the club members were going to perform at the concert. Later Kuniko told me that they had won an award, so they must have done well.

I spent Sunday talking with my grandparents on the phone, doing laundry and cleaning, a little bit of gardening, some shopping for lunches this week, and studying Japanese baseball terms.

It looks like next weekend I’m going to get a chance to see another baseball game, this time with Yasu. He got a pair of tickets for the Tigers, so we’re going to go catch a day game. I’m brushing up on my baseball vocabulary in anticipation.

I was watching some baseball on TV while I was studying today and the doorbell rang. I answered it, and it was the dreaded NHK man.

NHK is the Japanese broadcasting corporation. They send these guys around to houses all over Japan, and try to charge you for watching TV. Really! Before I didn’t have a TV, so I could just tell them “sorry!”, but today when I opened the door the sound of the baseball game in the background was pretty clear, and I knew that today I would have to pay.

I understand that most people get out of paying by making up some kind of excuse, or just outright lying. As Kuniko pointed out, I could have just pretended not to understand what he was saying, but I just paid up. The guy was almost surprised that I paid him, but I got a very official-looking receipt, so it must be legit, right? It cost about 2700 yen for two months (ouch!). What a weird system, though.

I wrapped up this weekend with a phone call from Kuniko – she was back from her concert and tired out from the trip. She’s got another busy week ahead of her – I’m just going to be doing a regular week, though.

Friday night after school I went over to Akashi to meet up with Komori sensei and drink some Guinness with him. We met up at Donkey, and caught up on what’s been going on at each other’s schools.

Mr. Komori is a tennis nut – he loves to play tennis. Unfortunately the other day he had his first tennis injury, tennis elbow. He got it just from reaching down and grabbing a ball, but we thinks that maybe he’s been playing too much lately.

On the good side, he bought another house that he has remodeled into an art studio for his wife. He invited Kuniko and I to come over sometime and make soba noodles with him at the new place. He’s also looking forward to showing my family how to make noodles when they come over in November – he seems just as excited as I am about the upcoming marriage.

After Donkey, we went over to the okonomiyaki restaurant – it was the same one that we visited with Nel and Kiyomi last weekend, and this time I knew exactly what to order. We each had a tonpeiyaki, and then we had a negisugiyaki – a big onion and meat okonomiyaki that was delicious.

Despite my protests, Mr. Komori paid for both meals, claiming that he makes lots of money and I should save my money for my new life. What a nice guy! He got on his bike and left, and I after sending a message to Kuniko I found out that she was just wrapping up her school party. A few minutes later she walked through the gate and we took the Sanyo line back to my place. It was great to see her – even though it’s only been a week my heart still kind of jumps inside my chest when I see her walking towards me. Yowza….

Only two classes today, but the bad news was that I had to teach them without assistance. In one way it’s a good experience – I can try to handle the flow of a class without outside help. For the most part I do that for my first year classes anyway, but this was like working without a safety net.

My first class was really surprised when I told them I was the only teacher today. I’ve got a couple of really noisy students in that class, but I worked early on to make friends with them. That really pays off in situations like this – I can use them to help me keep the class under control. Surprisingly, this class ran better than some of my classes with another teacher in them – I explained everything carefully in English, I translated some details occasionally, but I’d say that it stayed about 80% English.

At the end of the class everyone was happy and smiling, and it was the most satisfying class that I’ve ever taught at my school. Some of the girls from the class stayed around afterwards to ask me some details about my girlfriend. They are really intrigued by the idea of me having a Japanese girlfriend, and they want to know her name, where we met, what we do on the weekends, everything. I chatted with them a little bit until they were satisfied, and then I went back to the staffroom for lunch.

Today was Matsumoto sensei’s birthday. He’s a new computer teacher that sits two desks away from me. He’s a really nice guy – very friendly, and as a younger teacher we always get along really well. He turned 31 years old today, and I only found out about it because the other teachers had bought a big box of cream puffs to pass out to everyone to celebrate. He explained to me that it was for his birthday.

I asked if maybe we should do the birthday song, and two other teachers overheard me and before you know it all three of us broke into ‘Happy Birthday’. I realized halfway through the song that I was the only one singing it in English. Half the staffroom turned to see what the hell was going on, Matsumoto sensei turned bright red, and I cranked up the volume to cover for the fact that there were only three people singing. It turned out nicely, though. Everyone was suitably excited and embarrassed, and I earned my cream puff.

After lunch I had my second solo class. This one was a little louder than the last, but the students stayed under control for the most part. Two boys started playfully hitting each other over the head with their cardboard namecards, and I had to take them away for the rest of the class. After class they came to get them and they both apologized without me prompting them – that was a surprise.

After school we did our ESS meeting, and I helped fix some of the wacky English that my students were writing. I didn’t fix it all, just enough to make sense. Translation isn’t easy, but my students did pretty well. Three or four of my second year students were asking me all about a CD that I had played on Wednesday for Maeda sensei’s class.

We did a music lesson on Wednesday, and so I played a new song by Coldplay that I had downloaded off the internet. Not only did I not pay for the song, they haven’t released the album yet. Today I tried to explain to the students that I couldn’t give them the CD quite yet, but soon the official CD will come out in Japan. The reaction to the song was really good in the classroom, but these kids were going nuts afterwards. They wanted to listen to the song again and again, and it was really cool to see them get excited about something like that.

I spent about an hour with Tsuji-san after school speaking in English and Japanese. She looked tired, really tired. I think her new job is wearing her out. We are trying to set up a time for her and her boyfriend to meet Kuniko and me for dinner. Not sure when it’ll happen, but she sounded excited about the chance to meet up.

Tomorrow is Friday, and I’m going to meet up with Komori sensei over at Donkey for a couple of Guinness. I’m also hoping to meet up with Kuniko sometime tomorrow evening. She’s got a busy weekend coming up, so it might be the only chance to see her for a while.

I had a strange feeling of doom as I went to school today. I was not absolutely satisfied with my lessons – I’d been planning them the last couple of days, but for some reason I felt like I needed something extra, there was something missing, or that the whole thing was going to be a complete failure.

I’m happy to report that it was nothing of the sort.

My morning class with Matsubara sensei was good. The students responded well to the lesson despite looking tired and being really quiet. I’ve been doing this thing where I pick out somebody from the crowd that looks bored and keep eye contact with them as I teach for a few seconds. It tends to snap them out of whatever dreamworld they are in and gets them to pay attention (for a while). In this class I did a version of the game “password”, and it went pretty well. The students did better than I thought – it was a tough job to find words that were easy enough for everyone to know but tough to describe (without using Japanese).

Mr. Hayashi’s class was easy – just doing mock interviews with the students. They didn’t do very well, and I think Mr. Hayashi is having me do interviews at the 2nd grade level, but 95% of our students aren’t at that level. I’m not sure why he’s doing this, but I fear it might be a waste of their time. They tend to get frustrated with the process, and that won’t help build confidence for the future. After the class ended, Mr. Hayashi said that he had a judo tournament to attend the next day, so I’m going to have to teach two classes solo. It normally doesn’t bother me that much when this happens, but the lesson is designed for two teachers, and the first year students will need some explanations in Japanese. I hate to show them that I know Japanese – they will try to use it as a crutch the rest of the year. Anyway, the class should be fun.

I walked into the next class with Maeda sensei, and when the students saw me, they broke into what can only be described as thunderous applause. Some stood and cheered, others chanted my name, and it took almost five minutes to get them settled down and ready to learn. I’d like to say that it was because I’m such a great teacher, but it probably has more to do with the fact that Maeda sensei wasn’t going to be lecturing that class. I appreciate the popularity, but you can’t let it go to your head. I’ve got the reputation of having “fun” classes, which are perceived as “easy”. I’m hoping that the learning part is sneaking up on them from behind, but who knows?

My last class was with Oshita sensei, and about five or six students were falling asleep during our lesson. I don’t mind when that happens – it doesn’t usually happen to me because my classes are more active, but these guys were really tired. Later Oshita sensei showed me their schedule, and they have a long day on Wednesday. They come in an hour early, and they stay an hour later. They have P.E. in the morning, so by the time I get them they are worn out and ready for bed.

After school I came back on the train with Ibayashi sensei. He’s an interesting guy. He’s widely considered (at least, from what I hear) to be a rude teacher to older teachers at our school. He’s young and he doesn’t pay the proper respect. That’s a point for him in my book, but I guess it doesn’t help him with his co-workers. He slams the door, he smokes, he plays pachinko, and he does a lot of distasteful stuff that normally would make me stay away from him. He lives in my apartment complex with his family, and he saw Kuniko and I walking around together a long time ago, but he kept our secret to himself. He has always treated me with respect, and to the limits of my Japanese we have good conversations.

Today we rode the train back to Nishi Futami, and he was talking, talking, talking, and I did my best to understand exactly what was going on. I caught around 60% of what was said, which is pretty good for me. I was telling him how nice everyone at the apartment complex is to me, and he told me a funny story.

When I get home, there is usually a crowd of tenants from our apartment complex out front. It’s all the stay at home moms, probably 10-15 of them, letting the kids play and chatting. Apparently soon after I moved in way back in 2003, I had been talking to one of the mothers, exchanging hello’s, and then I said “See you later!” in English and left.

This caused a bit of a stir. I guess the woman wondered what that meant, so she looked it up word by word in a dictionary, and thought that it meant that I was planning on visiting her later that day. I’m not sure on the details, because I’m hearing this story second hand in another language, but her husband was wondering why I was planning to visit his wife, and they consulted Ibayashi sensei who at least worked with me and might possibly have some insight into this foreigner who was chasing around somebody’s wife.

They all looked through the dictionary, and apparently figured out that it was just a standard saying, and so there was much relief all around, and I probably narrowly avoided getting my ass kicked by some angry husband.

Of course I was totally oblivious to the whole thing and stories like this make you wonder what other misunderstandings are happening all around you day to day.

This evening is a quiet one listening to music and relaxing. Wednesday is my big day, so from now on it’s a slow mellow ride into the weekend. Looking forward to it!

Today my medical exam went off without a hitch. Since I’m under 40 years old I get to skip the blood check, and the tasty barium milkshake. Other teachers came in looking like they just had to swallow something awful. Like barium.

I think the results were normal – nobody freaked out when they saw my numbers. The blood pressure came in just fine 112/68, which I guess is OK. The other teachers were sweating bullets about their blood pressure, especially the ones that smoke. Sorry guys!

For lunch I had a great Chinese food meal prepared by some third year students. They dropped it off at my desk complete with a silver platter and the other teachers got jealous right away. The food was great – they did a good job and I’m not just saying that. I brought the dishes back to the kitchen and wrote up a little review for them to check out (in English). It was nice of them to think of me.

During my afternoon class they came in and took some pictures of me in action. I saw some of the results later on, and there were a couple where I looked like I was shaking my fist violently at my students. I’ll have to pay attention next time and see if that’s a compulsive thing or not. My blood pressure is low, so it must not be that I’m stressed, right? Right?

A couple of times today I had the chance to speak some Japanese with teachers and students, and people again mentioned that my Japanese is coming along. That gave me a lot of encouragement, and got me thinking about language learning in Japan.

People are really patient with my Japanese. It’s universal – I’ve never had someone get frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t communicate clearly with them. They are always polite, they look for other ways to say something, they find ways around the language gap. More and more I’m able to contrast this with the way that foreign languages are handled in America.

Say somebody comes into your workplace and fumbles with words, stuttering in broken English, and having to explain himself with gestures or by consulting a dictionary. I think people in America would do their best to understand, but also get frustrated. I know when I was living in America I would always say “This guy lives in America, why can’t he speak English?” Now I’m in the opposite situation.

Language-wise Japan is an isolated nation. There is no other nation on earth where you can go and speak Japanese to anyone you like and be able to communicate. The onus is on the Japanese to learn another language to communicate with the people of the world. Now compare this with English. If you speak English you can travel to countries all over the world, and travel easily. English is widely recognized all over the world, in brochures, books, and the internet. There is little to no burden whatsoever on native English speakers.

Maybe that helps create a “learn English or get out of here” attitude – one that I had before I came to Japan. It’s nice to see people around here being patient with me, because they recognize how tough it is to learn a foreign language.

Anyhow, I’ve got to say that working on learning Japanese has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, and I can tell it will be something that holds my interest for a long time to come. There’s this feeling you get when you are speaking or reading Japanese, and I’ve never lost it since I’ve been studying – it’s like a voice inside your head is saying “Holy shit! I’m speaking Japanese!”