for lack of anything else to put on the internet, I'll use today to tell y'all how it is i spend my days. I don't have internet yet, but I do have a cellphone. Which took forever to get. And is a story worthy of telling.
Hold off on the daily-life stuff for a bit.
Adam attempts to buy a cellphone, wanders the streets of Mutsu City, annoys Poseidon, kills the Cyclops, and all his men are turned into pigs:So my recruiting company's branch manager comes up once I get my foreigner-registration card and helps me go to the two cellphone companies in the area and borrow, for free, a cell phone from each to see if it works out in the stix where I live (more on that when I have glorious ol' internet).
I eventually decide on one, and drop the other off first. Which is awkward, since I don't speak Japanese and sat there for a full three minutes insisting that I had only borrowed the phone, not bought it, I wasn't trying to buy a new one or return it for a rebate, I just wanted to give it back, while they kept saying, yeah, we know, you can go home now, really, please, you can go, why isn't he leaving?
You can probably figure out where this is going. I stop by the other store fully intending to buy a cellphone using what Japanese I know and pure headstrong idiocy. This takes a full two a half hours.
Explaining that I want to buy a phone is easy enough. I ask the girl which phone have English interfaces, and she says all of them. Alright, I think, and pick out the of the free-with-contract phones. We sit down, she pulls out the paperwork, and goes searching for the phone in the stock room.
They're all out. Does she tell me straight away? No. She is fully committed to getting me this phone, but doesn't know what to do. A little nervous, she doesn what any Japanese person does in event of unforseen events. She calls her superior.
After she rings him up the third time, I ask her what the deal is, and she tells me that there's no phone. Ok, so I pick out another. It's got English right? yeah, of course!
No it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. Definetly not after we finish a half-hour's worth of paperwork and micommunication. Certainly not when I realize that I'm forgotten my
hanko (name-stamp, like a signature here) and run home to get it. Of course, the phone's activated, ready to go, but there's no English, not on this phone.
And not, for that matter, on the next two we try. each time, the same pattern: it has an English interface, right? Oh yup! sure does! I think so! Possibly! Pretty good chance! Maybe! I don't know! Nope! Why would it! You're in Japan, jackass! Pick again, fatty!
But now, I do have a phone, so if you want the number so you can pay bijillions for a the sweet sound of my sonorous voice, email me and let me know. Also, I found some
wonderful postcards so if you'd like one send me a mailing address.
ok. now we start
My Daily RoutineUsually, I wake up at six a.m. Which is inherently awful. I make a big pot of coffee, take a shower, pick through my business-style attire, and head out the door sometime between 7 and 7:30, depending on where the school is and if it's my first day.
Commuting times vary from 5 minutes to 40 minutes. If it's my first day at that particular school (I have about six) I arrive a half hour early. Otherwise, I aim for fifteen minutes before. Most schools give me a desk. One gives me a folding chair only. It's a little uncomfortable but looking around the room I don't know what else they would do with me.
When I get to school, the least senior woman on the faculty serves everyone coffee. It's sort of like the 50s in that regard. Then at 8 am there's the teacher's meeting, of which I understand nothing, and then class begins.
Usually I have between 2 and 5 classes each day. In the bigger schools, there is an English teacher on the staff who incorporates me into their lesson. At smaller schools, I may be alone with about 5 kids at once. Big classes are easy, because there are more kids participating. Smaller classes are difficult, because if you have two first-graders and one is grumpy, well, half the class isn't going to participate.
After about four periods, it's lunchtime. I always eat with the kids, and school lunches are
very different here. A truck pulls up to the loading dock of the school, and the kids themselves unload the large, rolling metal cases that contain their meals. These are pushed by anywhere from five to two kids to their classrooms, where the process of serving begins.
The students who will serve the rest now don aprons and white bandannas. There are no lunchladies here. There are usually four different things to eat, and one server per food: rice, a meat, a soup of some sort, and vegetables. very healthy, always. usually tasty. when it's bad, it's reallllly bad. remember complaining about your lunches at school and how you didn't know what was in it? Well, sometimes I'd rather not know. For example, the squid is particularly awful.
As students take their seats with untouched meals in front of them, cheery kid's music gets pumped through the intercom. A designated person now stands up and hands are placed together, thank-you-Jesus style. With a cry of
ttadakimas!!! the feast begins.
Everyone is amazed that I can use chopsticks. Every time.
When we're done (
gochiososama!!!) the students seperate their plates, throw out their straws, wash out their milk cartons and place them in the recycling. They get a few minutes to brush their teeth once the garbage is sorted (but no toothpaste and no braces in this snaglle-tooth utopia). In elementary schools, they get a bit of recess to run around after lunch. This is a dangerous time for me.
Usually, only two or three will jump on board the H.M.S.
Adam, but a few times I've had a couple of kids wrapped around each leg, a few clinging to my torso, with the rest of the pack waiting for their turn to bite. One time, the students were so surprised at my ability to move with such a load of proto-human leeches that, all of a sudden, the children released their grip. I was more surprised when I was suddenly proffered one end of a jump rope. The moment I took hold of it, every child that had just been swarming me threw themselves to the ground and grabbed ahold of the other end. Evidently, they expected me to drag grades 1 thru 4 around the gymnasium.
After recess or maybe the period after, the kids break from studying and begin cleaning time. Most schools have one janitor, a person who is more of a handyman because the students spend an hour each day cleaning the school. Every floor is scrubbed, every surface wiped, every stair swept, every eraser vaccuumed clean by teams of kids. Designated groups of students clean every classroom; for instance, in one school out of the four who clean the 1st grade classroom only one is a 1st graders. After completing their cleaning session, the students greet the teacher assigned to this area in the at-ease stance to report what they cleaned that day. The teacher dismisses them, and cleaning time for these few is over.
Then a few more classes am I'm off at 4 pm sharp every day, unless students need to train for a English speech competition, in whcih case I may spend an hour after school helping them with pronounciation. I've only done one training session so far, and I'd rather not brag, me being a Humble Farmer and all, but I will here: one of my kids won the regional competition. That's right. I'm vicariously number one.
Then home, cleaning, shopping, cooking, ironing (more than I expected), etc. until I hit the sack between 9 pm and 10. Sometimes I make dinner, sometimes I pay a buck fifty for a sandwich or ten bucks for a cheap meal of sushi. When I'm way too tired to move (it happens) I usually hit the kon-bi-ni (convenience stores), which are fantastical worlds where I can get a six pack of watery Japanese beer, buy stamps, or pay my electric bill.
Ok. Classtime. Say hi sometime. Wish everyone the best.
