New Job

MONDAY, AUGUST 2

First day of School (for me)

I had spent some time last night, while the vegetables steamed, looking at my map of town and trying to figure out where the high school might be. Something I should have done during the weekend, but just never did. Luckily, my memories, matched up with the map and I made an educated guess, but still built a lot of travel time into my schedule.

As luck would have it, I was completely right, and biked into school surrounded by small clusters of Japanese school children in their uniforms. I raised quite a bit of attention. So, I approached one group and politely asked where I should park my bike. They directed me to a bike shelter and mine joined the other bikes. I think now that that was the Senior bike place (there are no racks here, rather shelters with roofs, under which bikes are parked.) I believe the Japanese students are trustworthy, but I did wonder about leaving my bike so blatantly open to vandalism or other mischiefs.

Even though there are no classes, teachers still are expected to come to school (and if not, to take nanku, or paid leave, of which they have a limited amount.) Teachers all seem to be very busy, but under the watchful eye of Kyoto-sensei, I was, too. He swung by several times to check on what I was doing. I got a list of teachers photos and names to review and memorize, dates to write into my JET Diary (schedule book), and a desk to organize. Parker had left it in good shape, but I wanted to see what everything was. I can tell that many things have not been cleaned out in years as new JETs come through, as several of the books date back to 1994 or earlier.

Mama helped me get new post-it notes (pink) and pens from the office.

All of the teachers commented with surprise at my bento (lunch sack) on my desk. They were also very surprised to hear that I cooked it and inquired as to how early I woke up. When I said 7am, they were shocked that I'd had time to do that. I then had to admit that these were leftovers from the night before.

I had some Japanese green tea. It was bitter, but good.

I filled out a form for travel reimbursement from the Board of Education for traveling to orientation in Otsu. As Mama and Kyoto-Sensei were reading it over, I noticed that my name was misspelled and crossed it out and corrected it for my own personal satisfaction, being used to such difficulties. Well, oh my! You'd think that someone had died, the seriousness with which that misspelling was treated. First Mama and Kyoto-Sensei talked about it, then he called the Board of Education to get them to correct the error. The mistake was on the first page of my 14 page contract and no where else. They will be resending me my corrected contract, in full, due to that single misspelling. When I commented that I was used to such misspellings and that my first drivers license had been misspelled, I was met with stony faces bluntly proclaiming that in Japan, mistakes are taken seriously. Noted.

It does make me wonder why the mistaken pronunciation of my last name isn't also taken as seriously.

In the afternoon, Mama asked me if I'd please come with her and help in her English lesson. She's teaching during the summer for students who want to go to college. English is on the entrance exams, so students must study. I went over the worksheets ahead of time. At class, I was introduced as the new ALT. The students could then ask me questions. Anything I said was then translated into Japanese by Mama and explained in Japanese.

During class, I read the dialogues (little 2-4 line exchanges) then picked students to read the dialogues out loud. I chose students who looked like they weren't paying attention, starting with the student who yawned quite blatantly. My final pair, were chatting as I was looking for the last set. I gave them a look for chatting then assigned them A and B. I think some of the students understood as there was a bit of a chuckle. After that, I returned to the room and Mama finished the lesson herself.

At 4:30, I left, which may have been later than my contract, but that was okay. I was chatting with Mischievous-sensei. Here is the story there. When Mischievous-sensei gave me the papers with teachers' names and photos, he pointed out himself. While many of the teachers look serious, stern, or gruff, Mischievous had a bit of a smirk, or twitch of amusement in his expression. I told him he looked mischievous, but he didn't know the word, forcing me to have to define it, while also trying not to make it sound negative. He spent some time in England and, although I won't be working with him, talks with me a lot. His English is good.

Back at home, I had time to change and try to cool off before I had to leave with Parker. I will be teaching at three schools: Koko (my base school, where I've been all week), Kogyo (also in this town), and Nishi (in the next town over). The English teachers at Nishi were having a goodbye dinner for Parker and I was invited along. It was my first time meeting them.

Parker and I walked to the station, where we met the teachers, then walked to the restaurant. This particular restaurant, which I can't remember the name of, serves breaded and fried food on sticks, each stick costing about 100 yen-200 yen. I tried many things I hadn't, including bamboo, which was quite good. My favorite, though, was the cheese one.... just like mozzarella sticks. God, I miss cheese so much more than I thought I would. I'm obsessing in a most undignified fashion.

Salmon eggs are very pretty. And there's something very disconcerting about a salad with hundreds of little blue eyes staring back at you.

We had two desserts, one, a fried red bean paste, in some sort of cakey shell. It was very tasty. Beans are a traditional Japanese sweet, back before sugar was common. The second was a crème brûlée, also tasty.

Finally, I should mention that I had a few other firsts. These are drinking parties, so, having been presented with a menu with a few pictures and a lot of kanji, I ordered a beer with several other teachers. After that (it's terribly rude in Japan if your drinking partner's drink gets low, so everyone seems to encourage everyone to drink) I had my first plum wine, a traditional Japanese drink, which tastes like medicine. It was quite good, and didn't at all burn. It was probably my favorite drink of the night. Lastly, I had my first sake. I should mention that whenever I tried any of these drinks, the entire group would turn to watch, which was embarrassing. This especially happened when I tried Parker's wassabi wine. The man is brave.

Anyway, sake. I'd never tried sake, and, as a traditional drink, my companions were committed to changing that. I've actually paid for sake before, on a date with Victor, my first boyfriend three years ago, back before I could even legally drink it. It was served in a clay bottle and me and the other teacher who was also having it, were each given tiny glasses, about half the size of a shot glass, also made out of clay.

After my first (carefully watched) sip, I commented that it was quite bland in flavor and didn't taste like alcohol, which brought starts and shutters my companions. Parker told met that I'd best be careful then. I was told that I must have good alcohol genes.

Back at home, I got my things together for school, as I had forgotten my hanko that day. Let me explain. A hanko is used like an American uses a signature. It's a wooden stamp with your name. When you show up to work, you hanko a piece of paper to show that you came. Banking, contracts, anything of official importance requires a hanko. Like in America, if you make a mistake on an official document and must correct it, you must mark it, not with initials, but your hanko. I had been told that a hanko was very important, with the importance quite stressed. So, naturally, I kept it at home, safe, rather than carrying it everywhere with me. Turns out that the hanko is very important, and required all the time, although still dangerous to lose. So, I got scolded – kindly – for not bringing it and reminded – several times by several teachers – to bring it with me tomorrow.