Spoiled Rotten

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

I woke up to rain. I like the sound of rain pounding on the roof; it's pleasant. I fact, when I first arrived, if I heard a rainstorm, I'd OPEN my screen door so I could hear the rain better.

But it's different when it wakes you on a school morning. And it's different if you have to get to school. And look presentable. For a first-hour class.

By bicycle.

I was pretty slow getting ready for work. I ate a leisurely breakfast and chatted with a few people, but always kept an ear tuned to the pounding rain. It got harder and it lighted faintly, but it never stopped. Eventually, I could procrastinate no more, and I pulled on my Limerick sweatshirt, and pulled the hood up over my french braid. I pulled on my rain pants, sent by the lovely Julianna in California, and I pulled on my BoatHouse jacket, leftover from my days as a rower. I'm lucky that my time as a rower means that I have a lot of wet gear. It just means that I associate all my rowing gear with being miserably wet and or cold.

The weather matched my happy, bubbly morning personality perfectly.

I also took my laptop along, which worried me as I'm not entirely confident in the water-proof of the free laptop case I have. (Thank you New Orleans 2004 conference of the American Epilepsy Society!) But, it seems to have held up. It's gotten to the point where I can't imagine doing a day of work at Kogyo without my laptop.

And I biked to school. It wasn't as bad as it could have been – the rain did lighten up from the torrential downpour that had woken me. But it still wasn't pleasant. I wore a pouty, upset look on my cold, wet face the entire ride in, but the rest of me did manage to stay pretty much dry.

Once inside, I stripped my sodden layers and realised I didn't have a coat locker. I put my pants, which condense, in with my shoes, and took my BoatHouse jacket and my sweatshirt upstairs with me. I'll have to ask about a locker, as no other teachers have coats here and they must have worn something in, even if they did drive. I'm not making a mess, though so it's not like I'm currently being disruptive.

I have all my papers graded here, so I sat and listened through the morning announcements. I'm not sure what was said, but one teachers was laughing as he gave his announcement. Morning meeting starts 1 minutes later at Kogyo than at Koko, which is nice since it's a smidgen farther away and I still leave at the same time, so I feel like I get there early.

I poured myself some green tea, which I'm getting used to, but I'm more fond of the other, brown kind. The green tea is just bitter, but nice when I just biked to work early in the morning in a cold rain. It makes my saliva taste really sweet, which is rather odd.

I had all my photocopying done, too, so I didn't even have to do that before school, so I started this blog entry.

I rushed off for my first hour class, and it went well, except that I forgot to bring my script for the oral practice exam and had to rush back to the room half-way through class to grab it. That made me upset, because I try not to do stupid things like that. It also mean, even though I think I was pretty fast, that we didn't make it entirely through the practice exam. And, the hardest part (the end) was the part we didn't finish, making me feel like I'm leaving my students unprepared.

My co-teacher told me as we left that the cat and mouse game was really good. I admit, I like it, too, and the students love it, but I need more strategy, as it usually ends in a draw. But, it does get the students talking. It also means that when we get to the section of the practice test later where they need to write directions, they practically sleep through it, it's so easy.

I had a student come give me his homework after class, as he'd forgotten to do it. He apologized most seriously and it made me feel like a horrible teacher for assigning homework to such good kids.

Now, I have an hour off, then we'll be recording the real oral exam. I won't be here for all the classes to read it aloud, so we tape record it (on a cassette, I think, which is so... retro, especially for a tech-savvy country like Japan) so they can play it for the students when I'm not here. I'd put a copy of the exam and a bunch of other paperwork in my supervisor's mailbox, but she apparently never checked it.

I also need to plan my lesson on injuries for next Monday. *sigh* Work just never ends.

I started putting together a worksheet of Mario with parts of the body labeled when it was time to go to class. I forgot that Kogyo lunch is short an earlier than Koko's, so I was a smidge late. I had to quickly shut off talking with Marie and rush off to class.

I had three classes in a row, and by the last one (which is the most troublesome) my voice was beginning to crack. I did have a nice experience of coming out of the second one and meeting up with the teacher from the class next door (who I'd taught the previous hour.) He said he'd had his students trying to sneak in and peek in on my lesson. I take that as a sign that they enjoyed my class. Apparently he could also hear my “turn left.” “Turn right!” commands, because he was saying those. I'm rather excited, though, that the students enjoyed the class that much.

After school, I went to the Language Lab with Sheila-sensei and Aimee-sensei, who finally have names! We got settled, then had to figure out how to work the whole lab. We were recording on a cassette. Really. It took ages to get it all sorted and I was no help, because the direction manual was all in Japanese. But we got it working.

I read the script and paused every once in a while for Sheila-sensei to explain my directions in Japanese. The whole recording session took about 90 minutes (with re-records and tech issues) and the test section will be about 13 minutes for the students, which is pretty good.

Then, I rushed home. It was not raining this afternoon, so I I held my BoatHouse jacket in one hand while biking, which is dangerous, but safer than an umbrella. At home I had two package slips in my mailbox! I had little time, so I rushed off to the post office and grabbed those.

Back at home, I had just a few minutes to change before I needed to scramble to my kimono lesson. I remembered to change into my cami, but I forgot to change to white panties, but luckily they didn't show through too much.

This class was yukata obi ties. Everyone else brought yukata. My English friend from last time, whose name I need to learn, gave me one she'd brought for me. It's pink (which she later said was a good color on me. I told her my mother agrees.) It has some pink flowers with some strong green leaves and is quite pretty, although I think it needs a bold obi to balance out the pink. I'm thinking green, actually. Especially as my obijime is pink.

We put on our yukata, then learned how to tie three yukata knots: the butterfly (for all occasions, but favored by younger women), the open shell (for older women, and more informal), and the half-open shell, which uses an obijime. I ROCKED these. At the end of the class, she had us tie them all, show her, then tie the next. I was one of the fastest and mine looked good.

At the end of class, I was packing up my stuff – I'm always the slowest, which is embarressing – and discovered that when my classmate gave me the yukata she GAVE it to me. Like... it's mine now! I owe her a gift next class, which actually isn't for two weeks because of a holiday next week. I'll need to buy an obi to match it, but that should be easy enough. I was floored. I discovered why people bow in Japan – I couldn't imagine NOT bowing to her!

Meanwhile, my teacher and the school invited me to a kimono luncheon in Kyoto, but it's a Thursday and I work. It's also not going to be vegetarian. So, they had a nice little “ohhhhh” session over vegetarianism, which I actually didn't have to define, which makes me really, really happy. So, that won't happen, but I got ANOTHER invitation, this one to a tea ceremony this weekend, but I'll be in Tokyo, so I had to decline, but I explained that it was a one-off and I'm usually free. Hopefully, I'll get another offer soon. FINALLY, my kimono teacher asked me if I was going home to America for Christmas or New Years. I said I wasn't. She has now invited me to her home for New Years (on New Years, you wear a kimono) and, floored, I gratefully accepted her offer. I don't have plans yet, but I hope I didn't just screw over travel plans. At the same time, this is true Japanese culture from the inside and I'd be a fool to miss it. I also hope that Kiki and Walker won't be offended if they make an offer.

Then, a classmate, hearing that I walked, told me she'd drive me home, which I accepted. I got into her car (the first car I've been in since August!) and it was weird to sit in the driver's side seat (by American standards) although driving on the opposite side of the road doesn't throw me off, perhaps because I bike. She got me home all safe, and I knew my mother would probably be thanking her if she were there. My mother (and Kiki!) worry about me walking there late at night, especially as I live within a stone's throw of some Hostess Bars.

At home, I opened my packages, and praised my mother for the candies, the mac and cheese packets, the warm winter pajamas, the hats, including my amazing green Ireland hat which I love and had thought I'd packed, but hadn't found. I'm wearing that to school tomorrow!

And then I opened Miriam's and found a map of the Mall of America, two postcards and a Godiva truffle. Miriam, you rock!

So, suffice to say, I've been spoiled so rotten today. It's been a great day, rain and all. And I'm happy.