8月7日 (金\土) 1:22am JST
Every night spent as a JET seems to involve at least some drinking.
In other news, H-sensei is truly odd. Not just things like covering her mouth when she talks or sleeping at her desk either. It’s more like the way she fights sleep by making the smallest possible talk to us about O. Henry or the school’s symbols. I feel like I should humor her in the same way I humor my grandmother. When T---- disappeared for an hour or two thus afternoon, H-sensei searched the school for her. Turned out she was using the computer in the career room. H-sensei didn’t seem to mind. She was more just curious. She still says, 「なんだっけ」 and other Japanese interjections when using English. And she’s so quiet. Apparently, she likes Korea and will put in a brief appearance there on a break.
“Good luck Korea! Just remember not to use the career room,
“XOXOXO,
“—Japan ♥”
8月8日 (日) 8:44pm JST
Stayed in all day in an attempt to make up for the failures (monetary, moral, and social) of the day before. I literally only left the apartment to get the paper and receive a replacement couch.
Basically, the day before I spent money on a huge bottle of saké that ended up shattering in the rain, then I took an expensive express train by mistake, then I drank too much at a Toyama get-together. Those experiences lead to me leaving a bag full of broken glass on the side of the road, stealing a box of tea from the train in “retaliation,” and upchucking in an pedestrian tunnel. Shameful, shameful.
Bad situations, bad reactions to the situations. Today, penance. Spent no money all day.
I read a whole book about Japanese dirty words this weekend. Interesting but not terribly useful, unless I want to get into the Tôkyô underworld. Used my toaster for the first time. Needs a timer but works.
8月9日 (月) 11:45pm JST
Normally, when I take a job that doesn’t require much work from me (which is to say, in every job I’ve ever had), I feel a certain amount of guilt. As an Assistant Language Teacher during the summer break though, it’s hard to feel too bad. There are several reasons.
First, I don’t yet have the internet at my apartment. Browsing my sites everyday is non-negotiable. I gots ta get my internet rosary on. Thus, guilt is mitigated. (Interesting or sad to note: I’ve had the internet at every job I’ve ever had.)
Next, I have a coworker doing equally little. Moreover, every JET I’ve ever met or read websites by proclaims slack to be the virtue and curse of the job. Essentially, short of being arrested, we cannot be fired. Further, the teachers have few expectations of us, which is good, since we are mostly untrained.
Finally, so far at this job the sub-truths told for the sake of the boss’s peace of mind have been almost entirely formalities rather than technicalities. Formalities are understood to be lies by everyone involved, so they aren’t particularly worrisome. My old jobs required a lot of lies of a technical nature. Normally, I have to simplify the inconvenient to ease explanation or just pretend to be working hard on some problem that I have no idea how to solve (and little inclination to do so) or some such. Here, clock punching is a virtue that trumps all others, which is a sentiment I can heartily endorse.
Today, I did nothing work-like while at work.
But, I did spend the evening fashioning my Toyama Orientation speech. It’s bilingual, which is a fun challenge, I guess. I think I prefer to do these sorts of things outside of the school for some reason. It may just be that the school has the internet, but I think working at night is more enjoyable. Personal idiosyncrasy, I suppose.
8月11日 (火\水) 1:00am JST
I was a bit more productive today. I thanked my ‘aunt’ for sending me a care package; tested my computer’s PowerPointing abilities; tried to set up the school printer (→disgrace); finished my speech for the orientation. The speech was revised by N-sensei mostly. She said to add a だから in one part, and I was like, isn’t that too informal? She said no. One of the final correction made by the people at the thing was to boost the politeness by making it ですから. I enjoy being right more than I ought sometimes.
After school, I Saty-ied briefly before Indian food with the JET crew. The food was too legit to quit, and the conversation enjoyable. Also hit a bar briefly before retiring. Tomorrow, is my last day before I take off a few to see the host folks in Double-Osaka and beyond. Fun.
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