Here we are then, back on the train. Well, not that I was ever really on it. Not since way back sooo very many years when we had dial-up at home. Yup, perhaps you guessed it. It’s the no internet train.
I feel a little bit like a criminal sitting here using my office time to write this. But alas, I finish work at five pm. Everyone else follows the buzzer and when the whirring analog chime clinks and rings at five fifteen pm, the rest of the office -nay, the rest of town hall is done work, too. Unless they have a holiday or a day off or something like that.
In fact, that’s something that I’m moderately curious about. Some people in the office periodically disappear. OH! Like the matrix, in fact! As if they’re suddenly ‘unplugged’ from the program, a few people say, this person or that person isn’t at their desk one day or the next. Guess they do take holiday here in Japan. Or. . or, let me clarify, perhaps they are just working outside the office. Geez, I sure saved that one.
But I’m going to post on now about a little quibble. An event of today. At some time after lunch -after having rush and bike home to meet the post man between noon and noon-ten pm, I went to visit two of my schools I’ll be teaching at.
Both meetings were swell. Formal yet somehow. . informal? When we sit down in the principal’s office -at least I think it is- where we conduct these meetings, we are always -always served a cup of cool roasted barley tea. Then we conduct business. The jist and most of it in Japanese of course.
That being said I feel like a child that is watching Sesame Street every morning. As that child watches and listens to the same show day after day, their listening skills no doubt increase. Sooner or later they begin to babble about the same things they have heard sputtered on the show.
That’s me.
Through all of these meetings and get-to’s I’ve been listening to a lot of Japanese. No doubt my listening skills are getting better. Yeah! Hey, I have to give myself some credit, right?
Anyways -tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to come to the office early. Today in fact is the last day of summer break here. Tomorrow I attend -with suit and tie donned- the welcome and start of second semester at my Elementary and Middle school respectively. All that being said, there’s one more thing.
I get to make a short and bubbly speech infront of each school, while sweating secretly due to nerves and the little bit of heat left here in Hokkaido at the tail end of summer, and deliver my speech.
Don’t worry for me. It will be fine. And if it doesn’t go great, then I may not eat for a week. Haha.
Here’s hoping that you are enjoying this tail end of August. If you are, then that’s good news! If you’re not. . well, do something about it -circumstance hopefully allowing!
Oh, and the most interesting thing that I ate recently. . hmm, that would be salmon or some kind of flying fish roe topped with grated daikon. All of it was clumped together in a healthy-looking fashion. And it tasted about the same. Yes, I would eat it again. And I won’t mention the high-grade sake I may have sipped-
(forgive any spelling mistakes -these are often made on the fly!)
The Traveller's Typewriter 