Monday morning brought three fresh faces to the morning meeting at our school. We’ve got three student teachers this year, and they all look particulary young and impressionable. Their bows are low, the look around them wildly for fear of getting in someone’s way, and they’ve got a long way to go before they become like the grizzled veterans of the Takasago Minami High School.

Mr. Hayashi told me not to come to his Monday classes, and told me that maybe we’ll wait until after the exam. We just wrapped up our mid-terms, so I’m not sure what exam he might be talking about. I didn’t sweat it much, though – no problem. I’ll just study instead.

Mori sensei came by and asked to talk to me in private about something “very personal”. With great anticipation I walked with her to the quiet side of the teacher’s office. She told me that she had applied and was accepted to a research group that will be going to New York and Washington DC this summer to study some part of the American educational system. There are teachers from all subjects going, and four of the teachers will be responsible for translating everything, and smoothing everything over for the research group. She will be one of the teachers, and there is a big grant of cash in it for her, as well as a free trip to America. She said that the position was highly sought-after, so she was really happy to get it.

I was also pretty surprised. If I was doing educational research and needed somebody to translate for me, I don’t think Mori sensei would be the first name that jumped into my head. She hasn’t really spoken to me much at all in the year that she’s been here, and she is too shy to speak English in front of the other teachers. She has waged a war against Mr. Hayashi over curriculum issues, teaching strategies, and general work ethics.

Anyway, she wanted to know if I could spare some time to chat with her once a week to try to get her English conversation up to speed. I told her that it would be my pleasure, and so we’ll be working on Friday afternoons trying to get her ready for translation duties this summer. It’ll be tough, but we’ll try it out.

Let’s see… what else? Tomorrow I get a free lunch, prepared by some of the students in the cooking class. They are cooking up a big meal and then they get to choose a victim/recipient to taste the food and evaluate it. I guess some of the wiseguys in the third year figured I would be a good guinea pig. They came by and invited me to eat tomorrow. I don’t know yet what it’ll be, but I’m looking forward to it.

Tomorrow is also the medical check, and they want to take some pictures of me teaching my afternoon class. They are using the pictures for a brochure or something. Luckily I have some warning and I can wear some decent clothes.

I cooked up some chige (Korean soup) for dinner tonight, using some of the leftover gyoza from the night before and it came out pretty well. Not so spicy, I’ll have to heat up more next time.

I had a really nice couple of days. Kuniko came over on Saturday, bringing lots of omiyage from her trip to Okinawa. There was delicious candies, Okinawa beer, even Aomori (the Okinawa version of tequila). Together we went into Kobe to drop by her school and pick up some exams that she needed to mark during the weekend.

It was my first time going to her school – it’s on the top of a mountain on the north side of Kobe, and it was an uphill walk to get there. Once we arrived we snuck up a side road to get there to keep out of the eyesight of any of her students that might be walking around. We made it there successfully, and then I waited out on a bench while she went into the staffroom to get her paperwork.

While I was waiting a couple of students walked by, and the groundskeeper came by to ask me some questions and figure out if I was just hanging around the check out the girls or if I had a real reason to be there. He seemed satisfied with my response, and a few minutes later Kuniko came out and we hit the road.

After running a few errands in Sannomiya we went back to Akashi, and met up with Nel and Kiyomi there. Nel is a really laid back guy who is fun to hang out with. I felt guilty not talking with him for so long, but we got right back in the swing of things. We went out for okonomiyaki at the restaurant right across from the Akashi Castle hotel – the hotel where my friends and family will likely be staying for the wedding.

Nel and Kiyomi handn’t heard about our engagement, so they were really happy and we chatted for a long time. They are in much the same situation that we’ll be in – Japanese wife, foreign guy, and since they had already gotten married Nel had some good advice for me. He’s also got some interesting ideas about working after JET, so I’m definitely going to pick his brain about that.

After okonomiyaki we went on to Donkey and had some beers and drunkenly threw some darts around. That was a great chance for Kuniko and Kiyomi to talk girl to girl while Nel and I threw darts and drank beer.

After a fun time there we headed out to the train station, and we went our separate ways. Kuniko and I came back to my place and hit the hay – all this hiking around has a way of tiring you out.

Sunday we went out for a McDonald’s breakfast. I hadn’t had one in so long that it sounded really good when Kuniko mentioned it. It turned out pretty good – the hot cakes tasted great, the Egg McMuffin was excellent. From there we went to the movie theater to catch an early show of “Million Dollar Baby”, which just arrived here in Japan. It was really good – Kuniko and I were both pretty quiet after the movie absorbing it all.

We spent the afternoon grading papers, studying, and relaxing. Kuniko worked hard and graded all her papers, so afterwards we went to Ito Yokado and bought some groceries for dinner. I made steamed gyoza (pot stickers), we had a pre-made salad on the side, and some rice. There were four different sauces to choose from, a chili garlic, a Thai hot sauce, regular old gyoza sauce, and jalapeno mustard. We ate dinner with a couple of Okinawa beers, marked ratherly strangely as “Hard” and “Soft” beers. Yum!

Another great weekend in the books. This week should be pretty straight-forward. I have a health examination at school, so I’ll be at home Monday practicing peeing in a cup in anticipation of the big event.

As I am writing this post I’ve got a small cup of chocolate chip cookie ice cream in front of me, I’m listening to the White Stripes’ new album, and I’m buzzing just a little bit from all the beers I just drank.

My day at school went just fine. I had three classes – one class was full of mock interviews to prep for the STEP proficiency test. Some of the students did well, others, not so well. It was a good reality check for them, though, and I think they will study hard to get ready for it. If they had trouble I would explain what I was looking for in Japanese, something I don’t usually do. After the interviews one of the students complimented me on my Japanese, saying that it had improved a lot. That was nice for me to hear.

I had lots of fun with my first year classes today. The students are really into the classes, and so I had lots of great conversations. They turned in their first homework today, and it was fun to read those. They are supposed to introduce themselves to me, and use at least 100 words of English. My favorite quote – one of my students wrote: “I am a fervid hater of tomatoes.” Oh yeah.

After school I came back home, did a quick cleanup, and then went out to eat some sushi at the local restaurant. Every time I go to this sushi place people have ended up picking up my bill, so I really want to go there and see how expensive this place is. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the cards tonight – it was closed for the evening.

Instead I kept going along the road and went to a yakitori that is next to the greasy ramen place. I’ve never been there, even though it’s very close to my place. My allegiance is to my regular yakitori (Denya), but I figured that I should at least try the other place. I ducked in there, hoping that none of the regulars from Denya were driving by just then.

Inside I sat at the bar – it was a fairly spacious place, and there were lots of other people in there. I ordered up a variety of food and a beer, and sat watching the TV and taking in the scenery. There was a couple of people to my right who were curious about me, but they were too shy to talk. The waiter took my order, and I could tell that he was impressed that I could read the menu. That made me feel good, even though my ordering in Japanese wasn’t so smooth.

At one point there was a big group of people coming in, so we had to sit close to each other at the bar, and that was the opening that the couple was looking for. They sat right next to me, and offered me some scotch. I was drinking beer so I declined, but they ordered some more beer for me, and then we started chatting.

It was a weird thing – they were really excited to be talking with a foreigner, but since they didn’t know English we talked entirely in Japanese. It was fun to chat with them – they were really nice folks. I exchanged business cards with the husband, and as I look at the card now I can’t tell exactly what he does. He works in Takasago, where I work, so that was a good conversation starter.

They ordered some food for me to try out, and we sat and talked about all kinds of things while the food was being prepared. I ate big once it came, with lots of thank-you’s, and after another hour or so, they said they had to leave. They were really happy to talk with me, and they invited me and Kuniko to come visit them sometime. The wife said to me that her husband loves me, so I’m not sure if we’re still on a platonic relationship or not. The husband told the master of the yakitori that from that point on, everything I bought was on them. He said that I should take my time and enjoy ordering from the menu. Then, they left.

I don’t know how comfortable I would be telling a stranger to order on me for the rest of the night, but I wasn’t about to take advantage of the guy. I cashed out soon after they left. My bill was only about ten bucks, a hell of a deal.

I’ve heard stories of people that come to Japan and take advantage of the curiousity and hospitality of others. It’s amazing how nice people are here – especially to foreigners. It’s financial evidence of how nice people are here – it’s a way for them to express their hospitality in a society keeps home life in the family… the houseparty hasn’t really caught on here.

As I left the restaurant there was a girl on her cellphone outside. As I walked out I nodded a goodbye to her, and she gave me a look that made me feel like the only piece of meat at a carnivore convention.

On my way home I decided to swing into 31 Flavors for a scoop of ice cream, and I could tell that I made the employee’s day a lot more interesting as I debated between flavors for a few minutes. Once I got my scoop of ice cream I walked towards the exit, and two girls dressed to kill came walking by – they said ‘hello’ in English as I walked by.

Life is very interesting in Japan, I can’t deny that. It was a fun night, but now I’m back home and looking forward to meeting up with Kuniko tomorrow. She’s back from Okinawa, and it should be fun to hear all the stories about her trip.

Because of various holidays, exams, and other delays, we’re still doing my lesson on complimenting. I’ll finish it up at the end of this week, but for now we’re still forcing our students to give us compliments. Today Tsutsumi sensei and I had one class full of compliments – she loves it when they compliment her. The students are good, too. “You look so young,” they say. “You have a wonderful smile,” they exclaim.

During the second class with Mr. Yamamoto, one girl complimented him on his eyebrows. We looked at each other and tried to figure out what the heck she meant by it, but maybe it was one of those backhanded compliments.

Both classes were full of energy, and right after that we had ESS, which is another group of students full of energy. Today we spent a lot of time on their articles for the culture festival project. I helped with some translation and editing, and the students joked around a lot. They put on a CD to listen to while they worked, and we spent the time well. They are getting close to the deadline, though, so we’ll see if they can finish the articles off on time.

I had a class with Tsuji-san after school, and we talked about her job, how her voice is disappearing from speaking so much, singing so much, and practicing English so much. We spent about an hour flipping between English and Japanese, and then I went on home.

The other day I bought a little rice ball mold – you pack it full of rice, squeeze it together, and when you are finished you have a perfectly shaped rice ball. Of course, they are triangular rice balls, called “onigiri” in Japanese. So I guess the term rice ball is a little misleading. Anyway, I packed half of it with rice, put in some filling (in this case some smoked and salted salmon, and then two drops of mayo. Then I put on a top layer of rice, and squeezed them together, and it came out perfectly. It’s a great way to get rid of leftover rice after dinner – make some onigiri and eat them for breakfast or take them for lunch the next day.

Tomorrow is Friday, and then the weekend is rolling around again. I’m hoping that Kuniko and I will be able to meet up with Nel and his with Kiyomi on Saturday night in Akashi. It’s long time no see – it’d be great if we can catch up with them.

It was a weird day back in front of the students – lots of unusual things happened, but I just rolled with it and it turned out fine.

I had four classes today, but only three of them panned out. The first was a solo class in front of some of our best second year students. They looked at me with their mouths hanging open, trying to make some kind of sense of what I was saying. I stuck to English though, and lots of gestures and sign language.

The class went really well, and I’m a big fan of these students. Most of them are getting over the shy thing, so they react well to projects and group work. Today I had them drawing which always is fun for everyone. I walked around and asked them in what things were, and they worked to try to explain their pictures in English to me. Sometimes it’s hard from them to speak in front of all their classmates, so explaining to me in front of three other people that are willing to help out is much easier.

Mr. Hayashi’s class went just fine, we started doing mock interviews for the upcoming STEP test. One girl in that class does great in English until she sits down in an interview setting – then she freezes up, stumbles, and gives up. It’s strange to see her demeanor change so quickly, but today she did it again. I’m going to try to relax her next time, and hopefully I can coach her for the official interview. I know she can do it – she has the ability – it’s just getting over the nervousness.

Oshita sensei’s class didn’t happen – due to a scheduling error I was supposed to be in two classes at the same time, so he was left with about five minutes to come up with something to do for his class last minute. I felt bad, but it was the scheduler’s fault, and I’ll do my class with him next week.

Maeda sensei’s class was all about numbers, and for my students, number in English are really tough. Million, thousand, one hundred, and all the commas and where they go – it’s tough stuff. I really drilled them on it, and we played a game at the end where students competed head to head trying to write down the number that I said out loud. It was fun, and the teams that I set up (the left side of the class versus the right) really got into it. I was surprised.

I had the afternoon free, and around 4:30 the history teacher came by and gave me a hot tip that both the principal and vice-principal were on a business trip, so he authorized my early departure. I took advantage and hit the road.

I got on the train home, sat down on the bench seats, and the girl to my right suddenly smiled at me, and it was one of my third year students. I didn’t recognize her because she had already changed out of her school uniform.

There’s a respectable distance that people keep when on the train. When the train is crowded it might be just an inch or two – when it’s really crowded you just make a show of moving away from someone, even though there’s nowhere to go. When the train is empty, like today, the farther away the better. We were sitting apart with space for about five people between us, so it made for a difficult conversation. She decided to move over closer so we could talk, and before I knew it she was right next to me. RIGHT next to me.

I looked uncomfortably around the train car for other students or teachers, but there were just people sleeping and ignoring us, and so we talked about this year compared to last, what she will do next year when she goes to college, what she’s doing on the train today, etc. She did a good job with English, but we frequently lapsed into Japanese to get a point across.

Finally at my stop we both got off, and she walked with me to Ito Yokado – she ended up doing some shopping there. I passed on through on to my place, and made up a dinner of hot dogs inspired by the Dutch hot dog place in Takasago.

Tomorrow is just two classes, but I’ll be doing ESS in the afternoon and I’ve got a Japanese lesson after school, so I’ll be fairly busy at the end of the day.

Exams are over, and for the students it’s a big sigh of relief. For the teachers, it’s back to work. Not really – most of the teachers at my school have been working hard preparing and then marking the exams, and they don’t have a light schedule like I do. Everyone is looking forward to getting back into a routine.

The history teacher was walking around today with a plastic plug in his nose, ostensibly to keep blood in, but it sure draws a lot of attention. Today he was asking me about the historical significance of Gurkhas in American education. He is a history teacher, and he is shocked that I’m not thinking about Gurkhas more often. You never know quite what to expect with the history teacher.

I sailed out the door at noon and made some ramen at home for lunch. The day was threatening rain but it never really showed up. I studied flashcards, flashcards, flashcards, and listened to some Japanese CDs full of simple sentences that I struggled to comprehend.

A highlight of my day was a text chat with Kuniko in Okinawa. She’s doing well and enjoying the trip. It’s the rainy season there, so we’re hoping she gets a little sunshine while they are there. She sent me a photo from her hotel and it has a beautiful view of the ocean – they must be right on the beach. Lucky!

In keeping with the listening comprehension theme I watched the entire Hanshin Tigers baseball game, struggling to understand the announcers. It might be useful to pick up some baseball lingo – I only know “strike out”.

Tomorrow I’ve got lots of classes, included one solo class, so I’m looking forward to that. Today the schedulers noticed that I would be going it alone, and they asked me if I was cool with that. I’m cool with it now – ask me again after the class.

Mondays are a lot nicer when you only have to go in to work for a few hours. I was up pretty early this morning, probably because of the surplus of sleep that I picked up on Sunday. I strolled to work and said to hello to all the usual people.

At work Yamada sensei was back – her husband died about a week ago, and she’s been off work the past week. She looked OK. I went over before the morning meeting and offered my condolences and talked with her a bit. I crammed the correct Japanese terms into my head and they all seemed to come out OK, so that was a relief. She is a really nice lady – in English she said “My husband dead”, and she held my hand and looked me in the eye and we both almost lost it. My Japanese wasn’t adequate to say what I wanted, all I know how to say is “do your best” which didn’t seem appropriate. She seemed to do OK the rest of the day, though, and maybe being at work will help her think of other things for a while.

The history teacher came by and told me all about how he woke up Saturday night in a pool of blood from his nose. He said that it looked like a murder scene, and he had made an appointment to see the doctor that afternoon. Unfortunately he got another bloody nose right in the middle of the morning meeting, so he got a ride to the doctor and they laser fused the blood vessels together right then and there, and now he’s going to be fine. Wow!

At around 11:30 I left school for home. All the students were leaving around the same time, going home early to study for the last day of midterms. I chatted with a few on my way back – they love speaking English. Some of them are shy, but once I break the ice, they seem to try hard to communicate.

On the way home I did some shopping at Ito Yokado for the week, and then came home and opened up the house to let the breeze through. I put on some shorts and then went out to the post office to mail some things.

I did surprisingly well communicating how I wanted to handle shipping, mainly by listening for keywords and focusing on the sentence around those. Sometimes the person I’m talking to will do a whole sentence that I completely miss, you just have to keep listening until you get something, and then go from there. I hope the packages make it OK.

I don’t get over to Higashi Futami so often nowaday, so when I was walking from the post office I was very surprised to pass a blonde Caucasian girl going the other way. She was just as shocked, and we said hello to each other. I think we were both wondering who the hell the other person was. Could it be there is a third foreigner living in my town? Wow.

The last stop in Higashi Futami was the liquor store. I cashed in a few beer coupons courtesy of Kuniko’s father, and I also got a chance to chat with the people that own the place. They are really nice people, and the son is the guy that I exchanged a bottle of sake for a bottle of wine. He’s looking forward to opening it up on his birthday – it’s coming up at the end of this month. I’m interested to hear what his opinion is.

I’d like to say that I got back home, had a wild party, and freaked out all my neighbors by throwing beer kegs out my windows onto the street below, but it was actually a quiet night of studying, listening to music, a dinner of mushrooms, beef and rice, and some Japanese TV. Those guys are really hard to understand.

Tomorrow is the last day of midterms, and therefore the last easy day for me for a while. I’ve got a full schedule on Wednesday, but my classes are all planned out and I think they’ll end up being fun. After Wednesday things should start settling back into a normal schedule.

On Monday Kuniko leaves for her school trip to Okinawa. She’ll be gone for most of the week, touring Okinawa, seeing the war memorial, eating lots of good food, and trying to keep track of squads of schoolgirls as they run riot all over the island.

She wanted to do some shopping for the trip, and so I met her in Kobe in the afternoon to look around with her. She bought a new dictionary to replace the one that died, and it sure is a nice one. It has some shortcuts that makes things quicker, but I’m sure there’s a lot more that it can do. It’s also got a secure digital card slot and a USB connection, which is pretty cool. Theoretically you could load up a document in English or Japanese in the dictionary, and then translate it piece by piece.

Kuniko bought me a present at a T-shirt store. I’m a sucker for the bad English T-shirts, and this one is great. It has a cartoon drawing of a beer – above the beer it says “GET A BEER. I think I need some cheer me up make.” Excellent!

We also got some other critical items, and then had dinner at AsianDays, a dimsum restaurant that has an all-you-can-eat special that’s a great deal. We were starving, and we ate big. I love just going crazy saying I’ll take 4 of these, and 2 of these. You can’t be shy in a place like this.

By the time I see Kuniko on the weekend she’s usually pretty tired out, and I was really hoping to get her rested up for her trip. We went home early and relaxed around the house, did a little studying, and then went to bed early.

The next day we slept late. Once you get by the guilt of staying in bed that long it’s really quite refreshing. We got almost 12 hours of sleep, and Kuniko looked like she could do more.

We did some more shopping at Carrefour, and I was shocked to find steak knives there on sale – I’ve had to find them in fancy stores because steaks are a little different here, and somewhat (if you’ll excuse the expression) rare. I had paid 450 yen for each of the four steak knives that I had found – That’s 4 bucks a knife. At Carrefour I found a set of three steak knives for 80 yen – That’s three for 80 cents. Ouch! I bought two sets just out of principle.

I also made a great discover while searching through the French wines in the wine section. They had misfiled some 2003 Hangtime Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir, and so I picked up a bottle for 20 bucks. It’s hard to find Pinot Noir here, and it’s one of my favorite varietals. I’m hoping the wine survived it’s long trip over here.

I managed to get Kuniko home for another nap, and then we went over to her folks place for dinner.

Earlier last week Kuniko’s father had sent me a present through Kuniko – some beer coupons. I’ve never seen anything like them, but you present the coupon at any store, and you can pick two free bottles of beer (633 ml each!). He gave me six coupons, so I’m stocked on beer. To pay him back I bought a six pack of beer at Carrefour – it’s a mixed six pack from all over the world – two from Italy, one from Canada, one from Spain, one from Tahiti, and the last one from England. I presented him with the cold beer and he had a couple with dinner.

We had chirashi sushi (literally “mixed up vinegar rice”) with sashimi on the side, some bean sprouts with pork, and a big slice of broiled fish that was really good. It was a very healthy dinner and it tasted great. I’m eating good over here.

Kuniko drove me home and I said goodbye from there. I hope she’s well rested for her trip and the kids don’t drive her crazy!

After just a few hours at school I was out the door and off to the Takasago train station. A ten minute train ride and then I was back home and relaxing in the afternoon. Soon it will be so hot that this option becomes less desirable, but for now the weather is perfect for an easy day at home.

I went out to Suma tonight to meet up with Antoine. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to meet up. I got there first, so I sat out on the beach next to the train station and watched the sun set over the mountains to the west. It was the first time that I’ve watched a sunset at the beach without the sun disappearing below the waterline. A south facing beach will do that, I guess. Through the magic of cellular technology I asked Antoine for a favor, and a few minutes later he came walking up with a couple of cold beers. It was a good way to relax after a long day at work (for him!), and after about half an hour we took off for the izakaya.

The izakaya that we go to in Suma is a chain, but it’s pretty good and it’s definitely in a convenient place. We loaded up on grease and beer and spent the evening talking about all kinds of things, including Antoine’s future, how things are going with his girlfriend, and the state of women’s rights in Japan.

After thoroughly exploring these and other topics, I walked him back to the station, and then I went back home via the Sanyo line. We’re hoping to meet up in the near future again, maybe this time with Nel and Struan involved – two guys who we haven’t heard from in a long time.

Today exams started for my students, which meant that I had lots of time to hit the books, without those pesky classes getting in my way. I did some memorization, grammar review, and after five hours I was spent.

Some of the teachers were doing a softball game today, but I noticed that I wasn’t the only one bowing out of the game. I snuck out right around 1 p.m., and came on home. I did chores the rest of the day, catching up on laundry. You’d think my place would stay clean for longer than a few days, but I just tend to come home and spread out, and before you know it you’ve got stuff all over the place.

My dinner was a simple curry and rice, and after dinner I walked out to Carrefour to pick up a few things for the weekend. I had a lot of fun shopping in the foreign food section there – it’s the part of Carrefour that I’ll miss the most once it pulls out of Japan.

This morning I stepped off the train onto the platform at Takasago station, and there was a couple of girls staring at me. As I got closer, I realized that I knew them – they were graduates from my school last year! They had dyed their hair, and they weren’t in school uniforms anymore, but I still recognized them. They made a big fuss on the platform, lots of people looking over to see why these girls are yelling “Bryan!” “Bryan da!”

I stopped and chatted with them for a while, and they were really cheerful and fun to talk to. After a few minutes I said goodbye and headed to school.

At school I had only two classes today, and one of them was a review for the exam we’ve got in store for them on Friday. They listened patiently, being very quiet and taking notes. Even when I tried to solicit some response everyone stayed silent – it was hard to get them talking. Next week I’ll be teaching this class solo, which is against the rules, but I don’t really mind doing it. What should I do? Matsubara sensei said that I can do anything I want. Should it be a real lesson, or should we just play games and have fun?

In the afternoon it was just study, study, study for me. The vice principal and the principal both paid a visit to my desk to chat with me. They like the fact that I’m working hard on learning the language, and they’ve both offered to help me out whenever I need it. It’s very kind of them – they are very busy guys, and I hate to bug them. Actually, I hate to bug any of the teachers – but if I’m gonna bug somebody they will probably be a little lower on the totem pole.

I snuck out fifteen minutes early, and caught the train to Akashi. From there I transferred to the JR line and bumped into Shigata sensei on the same train to Sannomiya. She and I chatted for a while about her new school, her honeymoon in Italy, and good Italian restaurants. Her English is pretty good for being a Japanese teacher, and it was easy to hold a conversation with her. She said that she has a friend that works as a translator (Japanese/English) at the Swedish embassy in Osaka. That sounded like a really confusing job.

I met up with Kuniko in Sannomiya – she came over to the station after work, and it was great to see her. We went over to a ramen restaurant that she introduced me to a long time ago, and we had a big bowl of ramen and shared a small bowl of fried rice. She looked pretty tired from working so hard, and so we didn’t walk all over Kobe this evening. After ramen we went over to a coffee shop and looked at some documents that Kuniko needs to translate for her foreign exchange students. I’d like to say that I was able to help out, but Kuniko had most of it already figured out. I was trying to come up with the English name for that little band you use to tie up a ponytail. Is it a braid? A hair band? A hair tie? If I was a girl I’d know it, I guess.

It was a great chance to see Kuniko, and now I’m back home and getting ready for bed. I’m tired out, but it was worth it to see her. The next few days should be a piece of cake at work – we’ll see if it turns out to be true.

I think I’ve written before about how much fun it is for me to walk around my school. In kind of a high school do-over situation, I’m the most popular guy around. The guys all say hello and the girls purr and coo and giggle when I walk by. Actually, a couple of the guys purr and coo as well.

I’ve got my students trained really well, too. At our school they hammer into the students “aisatsu, aisatsu!” which means “greetings”. One of the things they want to train our students is how to be polite, and being polite starts with saying “good morning” in the morning, “hello” during the day, and “goodbye” at the end of the day when they pass a teacher. Of course, these greetings are all in Japanese.

My first term at my school I did my greetings in Japanese, but soon after that I completely switched to English. After two years the students have caught on, and so now the students will greet me in English. With some exceptions they do really well, and they like the chance to use English in the hallways. Some refuse and stick to Japanese, others will shout out “Good morning!” as we’re leaving for home, but generally my students have got it figured out.

I spent time today with Miyake sensei, checking her English transcription, explaining some difficult English expressions to her (like “hit it off”), and studying English. During our free conversation she told me about a friend of hers from Hokkaido that came to visit. She has two kids, one is two years old and the other is just one year old. Her friend and her husband lived in Los Angeles for three years, and so their oldest daughter speaks very good English and Japanese. The family is trying an experiment, so the mother speaks to the girl in English, and the daughter responds in English. The father speaks to her in Japanese, and she responds in Japanese. It sounds really confusing, but evidently it’s working out just great. At that age kids soak up language like crazy, and does it make that big a difference if you throw in two languages instead of just one? Interesting.

Today after school I went over and played ping pong with the ping pong club. The new first year students were merciless, defeating me on almost every point. They’re pretty serious about ping pong here (called “takkyuu”), and when the guy you are playing against stops to spray chemicals on his paddle after every ten points, you know it’s big time.

I went back to class and bumped into the girls basketball team. They’re really cool and ever since I came to watch some games last year they are really enthusiastic when I walk by. I stopped and chatted with them in English, and met some of the new members. One of them is also in my ESS club, so it was cool to see someone doing sports and academics after school.

Midterms are coming up, and one of the exams that I’m doing involves identifying parts of the body. I downloaded a medical illustration of a guy so that I could have the students write “shoulder”, “arm”, “foot”, etc. The guy is not facing you as you look at it – it’s a drawing from the side. The guy is naked, but he has one foot on a step so it nicely blocks any genitalia from being displayed. It’s a drawing – not hot stuff at all. Still, Matsubara sensei drew pants on him – I think she was worried about the reaction. I’m not bothered by this infringement of my artistic values, but it makes for a funny story. And, he looks funny in little penciled in pants.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet up with Kuniko for a dinner date after she gets off work. If all goes well we’ll meet up for ramen noodles – not the most romantic place to go, but we should save the fancy stuff for the weekends.

Thursday midterm exams begin, and I’m hoping I’m on an abbreviated schedule. I begged off the teacher softball game – I’ve seen too many horrible, horrible injuries to people over thirty on the softball field. Friday I’m probably going to meet up with Antoine for a guy’s night out… I think he’s looking for some advice about his future. I hope it’s not a heavy meal.

I dashed off to work today, running a little late because it was garbage day and I was a little under-organized in the trash department. I made it to the platform just as the train pulled up, but I didn’t have to run at any time. I see people running to the train every day, and I wonder how busy their lives must be that they can’t work in an extra minute or two for an easy stroll to the train station. I’m all about the easy strolling.

At work today I had only one class, during the sixth period, and it was a new lesson about time expressions. We’re learning about the differences between usually, sometimes, always, never, occasionally, etc. The students did a pretty good job with the new lesson, and as always I was surprised that I didn’t completely hash it up. I seem to make more mistakes when I’m on the 12th time teaching a lesson than when it’s my first time.

The staff had a little bit of a somber tone as people were talking about Yamada sensei’s husband passing away on the weekend. Some interesting cultural notes: they are a Christian family, so when I asked another teacher if I should hand over the traditional sum of cash for a funeral, they said that since they are Christian there is no money involved. Also, the staff at our school came in over the weekend and organized the memorial, the funeral, everything for her. I’m not sure if that is because she is alone or if it common in Japan.

I came back and self-imposed a media blackout, the final episode of Survivor was being broadcast, and I didn’t want to accidentally find out the winner. That’s happened before, and it’s a little anticlimactic.

Instead, while I downloaded the episode on my computer I watched TV in Japanese on Kuniko’s television set. I watched a horribly acted show for kids about some poor junior high school boy with a crush on an older girl in his school. The theme was interesting, just work hard and eventually she’ll notice you. The boy was so stricken with shyness that he couldn’t just walk over and say hello. That’s not just a Japanese thing, though – I remember being in junior high and being paralyzed every time some cute girl would walk by. It’s part of the junior high experience I guess.

Also it seems to me that in Japanese TV and movies there is a lot of things that go on in the character’s heads. There’s lots of footage of people looking up, staring off into the distance, and silently pondering their fate. Even the print ads for various products and institutions often have somebody staring off into space. Contrasted with American movies and TV, where the characters seem to act out their problems, talk with friends, and generally keep things out in the open.

Tomorrow I should have my episode of Survivor, and then I can come out from the blackout and see what’s up in the world. Until then, I’ll stick with Japanese TV.

This weekend was pretty mellow actually. Saturday I spent my day doing laundry, lounging around the house, doing some pleasure reading, and enjoying my day off. Sunday was a little more fun – Kuniko came over early and we went out to go shopping in Tarumi in preparation for her trip to Okinawa next week.

Originally I had thought that her trip was this week, but it turns out that I was wrong, so she has plenty of time to get organized for the trip.

We did a little shopping in the morning, but by then we were so hungry that we went right over to Tooth Tooth restaurant as soon as it opened at 11 o’clock. Kuniko had the idea of going there because our friend Yasu works there, and sure enough, he was working that day.

He sat us down at the table, gave us some recommendations, and was a really great server. He did most of it in Japanese, but sometimes he snuck in a little English for me. We sat outside with a beautiful view of the Akashi bridge and enjoyed the weather and the food. They had a lunch special with all you can eat bread, so I definitely took advantage of that. I had the salad for lunch, which sounds healthy, but actually it had a fried egg and two strips of bacon on top of a caesar salad dressing. Oh yeah.

We wrapped up our shopping and then went back to my place. While Kuniko was doing her studying, I cooked up a quick dinner made from ready-to-eat ingredients that we had bought at Carrefour. It was sea urchin pasta and beef dipped in a sesame sauce – and it tasted pretty good. I’ve never had sea urchin pasta before.

One bit of sad news, Yamada sensei, a female Japanese teacher at our school, lost her husband on Saturday. Mr. Hayashi called to tell me, and it was really sad to hear. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the service, but I feel really bad for her. Apparently she has no kids, so it’s just her alone now. I guess he was a pretty young guy, actually, so it came as a big shock to everyone.

Nothing much to report from the school front today. The high point was chatting with one of the students from Mr. Hayashi’s STEP preparation class today. This student has broken through the shy barrier, and will stop to talk to me for long conversations in English, even while other students point and giggle at him. He tries hard with his English, asks me questions if he doesn’t understand, and is a pleasure to talk to. When I talk to him and encourage him I can actually see his confidence and interest grow. It’s a great feeling to work with someone who really, really, really wants to learn English.

The low point of the day was the rest of that same class. The girls in this class really enjoy the attention that they get from Mr. Hayashi, and he and they chatted and flirted and talked in Japanese for more than 30 minutes. The boys in this class stare at their worksheets and space out, perhaps wondering if it was really a good idea to take this class, or maybe they just think about what’s for lunch. After ten minutes of flirting, I went to the back of the room, sat down and relaxed. A part of me was hoping the principal would walk by right then and see how well I was being utilized.

The boys got a kick out of having me sit in the back with them, and they stole glances at me – probably wondering what was going on.

With a few minutes left before the class ended, Mr. Hayashi said that we should review the handout for today, so I went up to the front and did some pronunciation. Then the bell rang, and I was out of there.

After school Mr. Yamamoto and I drove over to the welcome/farewell party for the English department in Kakogawa, at a place called Grande Alberto. It was a real Italian restaurant, with real Italian food on the menu. Unfortuntely we had a set menu arranged in advance, so I couldn’t really pick what to have. The food that came was good – my favorite was the spaghetti with homemade salami and peas – wow! Other dishes were made for Japanese tastes, very little garlic and cheese. Other patrons of the restaurant were ordering something with garlic, though – the smell came through every once in a while.

To do the traditional toast Ms. Mori asked what we should drink, and I voted for wine. She thought that was a great idea, so I picked out a Chianti Classico, and we toasted with that. It was really good – and they gave us big monster glasses to drink from.

It was an eight course meal, so we didn’t get out of there until 9:30 or so. Mr. Kimura was nice enough to drive me home, so it was door to door service. I had a really good time.