The OC Gets Even Hotter!!
10月1日 (木ー金) 12:03am JST
An uneventful day.
It rained in the morning, but in the afternoon, the sky was dappled with wet clouds that lay over the forested mountains like a comforter over a reluctant educator on a slightly chilly morning.
M-sensei is in Tokyo, for some reason. So, I only had to teach two classes, which was nice. That said, walking out of one of my classes, I realized that I do, in fact, enjoy my job, which is also nice. I don’t have to do much, but unlike most jobs that involved me not doing much, there’s nothing that I’m really avoiding doing. The things like grading papers are a drudge, to be sure, but class isn’t bad, even if the students don’t respond. 50 minutes isn’t so long. You basically have time for five or so sections from a book. You read; you try to get them to respond. Not bad at all. Smiling for the class releases endorphins or whatever, making the smile less fake over time.
I like mass transit; I like Japanese ofuros; I like my apartment.
Things I miss: my subwoofer, Mexican food, my girlfriend.
(Perhaps not in that order.)
Other than that, it’s not entirely different from college.
10月2日 (金ー土) 2:20am JST
There is a sense in which I enjoy classes that go poorly more than ones that go well. When a class goes poorly, you flounder on stage for a while, ask the teacher what to do next, plead for volunteers, try increasingly absurd stunts to get the class to wake up. It’s all unplanned, so everything is new (though the lesson is not). When you leave, you have this shit grin still stuck on your face as you contemplate the strangeness of your fate.
A bad class restores some of the foreignness to Japan.
A good class, on the other hand, is a lot of work. The kids are always raising their hands and volunteering and you go through the lesson too quickly and have to make up something to kill some time at the end. You never get to sadistically force an uninterested boy to use just enough English in his Japanese answer to satisfy we tormentors.
Anyhow, bad classes today. OC was dead, and English club was a bust. So, that was fun. I didn’t plan my session with the international student, but that went well enough, as we just talked about the Nintendo DS the whole time.
Still, not a bad day at school.
10月3日 (日) 11:40pm JST
A reasonably fun weekend.
H-sensei gave me tickets to an art museum in Toyama. I went Saturday afternoon. It was raining and it took a long time to find it. That was irksome, but I trudged on, soggy socks or no.
At the place, there were a bunch of sumi paintings, that are a million times better than anything I could do. I stared at the rain and the rock garden. It was an aesthetic experience.
That night, Andy had a birthday party. It was a pretty good party! Needless to say, the cops showed up at the end. Afterwards, karaoké. I managed to find a comfortable level of intoxication, thanks to Mon Frere. One Japanese kid got completely flattened, and ended up puking and dry heaving. A--- came drunk and danced and beat on the walls (undoubtedly speeding the police). She also started a pansexual game of spin the bottle of whisky that I mostly avoided, for the sake of my tenuous heterosexuality.
In all, an enjoyable night. I even got to hide from police like Bond, JAMES Bond. Quelle hobo-chic.
10月5日 (月ー火) 1:30am JST
I suppose good classes are good too, sometimes.
The kids in OC 11 are ravenous for English. It’s insane. Or maybe they’re more convinced of the effect of participation on their grades.
Rumors of mid-terms have started circulating. Storm clouds on the horizon.
It was cold and rainy today. It cleared up slightly in the afternoon, and I almost forgot my umbrella again, in spite of repeatedly telling myself not to. In the end, the sight of someone else carrying an umbrella jogged my memory at the last possible second.
One of the earbuds on my iPod headphones has come apart. It still technically functions however. If you forget that their primary function is being cool. I have a strong desire to replace the whole thing. But, I’d have to find a buyer for the old one first. Based on ebay, ¥10,000 is reasonable for my old model.
Comment:
« Diary, October 6 - 8 | Insular Empire | Diary, September 27 - 29 »