Brian's Japan Adventure

October 25^th, 2007

Decisions, Drama, and Snow

I don’t get to sleep anywhere near as long as I wanted to today. The alarm went off at 8:30 and my first class is at 10:50. Plus, I want to stop in and see Mrs. Y about what to do about next Wednesday. So I read over K-Sensei’s article, this time about the water cycle, problems with water pollution, and the drying up of well water around the world. I surprise myself with how much there is t talk about in this dry article (look, a pun!).

I stopped in to see Mrs. Y before class, and she said the students were right and that there would be no class next week at the community center.  The Kindergarten, however, still wanted me to come. So now I have to decide what to do next Wednesday afternoon. I could come home at noon and have a lazy day. I could explore Hiroshima without the usual time limit; that’d be fun. Or if I really wanted to make some “points”, I could volunteer to spend more time at the Kindergarten since I have nowhere that I need to be in the afternoon.  I think that would be a great gesture on my part, but it could easily backfire if they want me to do something crazy.  I’m not much of a gardener. I have time to think about it, and can always change plans if some new idea comes up. I like having choices though.

And then I go to K-Sensei’s class and get through that easily. I didn’t have any witty catch phrases to give him this time, but I filled up the board with tips on how to make an outline from an essay.  He likes my American “homilies,” but he’s happy with useful English lessons too it seems.  When I finish my part of the lesson, I walk back down the mountain, and just as I open the door, my phone rings. It’s Mrs. Y telling me I have another package back in the office. Groan. I tell her I’ll pick it up in the morning since I have that meeting about the Halloween thing. Too bad she didn’t call ten minutes sooner!

Snow in Okayama

I have a couple of hours before Japanese class, so I throw in some laundry and listen to my iPod and eventually go to Happy Town for groceries while I wait for it to finish. I learned a new lesson today: it’s a good idea to make sure you have no tissues in your pockets before you do laundry. Wow. I had no idea there was so much paper snow in one little tissue. I expect to be plucking the bits out until real snow falls.

Is Japanese Class Eligible for a Daytime Emmy Award?

Then it was time for the soap opera I have come to know as Japanese class. The entire cast of the show is there today; me, Marc, Y-Sensei, and the language school Principal. The latter came in about ten minutes into the lesson and talked to Y-sensei in very fast Japanese. About all Marc or I caught was the language school principal making “throat cutting” motions with his hands and the name “Mrs. Y.” Ah. It seems the drama is ongoing. Nothing more is said. Yet.

We then go on through the lesson. It seems to me that Marc has indeed been studying some, but there’s just so much anyone can learn in two days, so he is still far behind. We take a “quiz” that I finish about 15 minutes before Marc, so I go outside and look around for the “school” that is hosting the Halloween party on Saturday. It’s supposed to be right behind the language school. The problem is that I actually found two of them with th same name in opposite directions from each other.  I guess I’m simply going to have to ask for clarification in our meeting tomorrow.

After Marc finished the quiz, I go back in and the lesson continues. We learn ho to ask people to do things with us. For example, “Do you want to go to McDonald’s with me tomorrow?” and that sort of thing. It’s simple enough. Then, as class is done, Y-Sensei mentioned the bit with the principal. It seems that Mrs. Y has suggested that the class be split up, with Marc getting 45 minutes and me getting 45 minutes each session. I wonder if Mrs. Y really came up with that or if it’s just an extension of the “splitting” idea they tossed around last week. Details will be forthcoming next time.  OK, that works for me; this way I don’t even have to ask.

On the way home I stopped at the carryout and picked up some kind of sampler plate that had a hamburger patty, two chicken nuggets, a piece of tonkatsu, and some kind of mushy fish-thing that I tossed. Of course, all their dinners come with approximations of cole slaw, potato salad and pickled radishes. Overall, it was pretty good and I’ll try that again sometime.

And then it was blog time. I wrote today and last night’s entries this evening since I went to sleep too early yesterday to even think about it.  I’m going to read a bit and call it a night. In the morning I need to head up the hill to the office to pick up my box from home, which I know includes a coat, some t-shirts, and other stuff that I can’t remember at the moment.  While I’m up there, I will meet the owner of the school hosting the Halloween party and find out exactly what she wants.  Maybe I will have to spend some time on the Net hunting more materials for the party, but I think I have plenty already.  I’ll probably have to make a commitment to a party on Monday during the meeting.

No related posts.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Japan, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.