[above, Dorothy tries not to be another Hollywood icon ‘Gone With the Wind’… -don’t worry if you don’t get that one]
No, it didn’t take long. I am definitely famous. At least that’s what I’ve managed to assume following last nights stream of events. Okay, listen in.. last night outside my window there was this lone flash that seemed like it was right adjacent to my flat, rattle-y window pane. There would be a flash or two (most likely from a lone glamour-star magazine photographer snapping pictures of my house), and then a thuderous applause resonated in the distance. After that was a smattering of applause right outside my window again !
Now would you have guessed that I was a celebrity? Me neither. And that’s the beauty of it!
You see, none of the above is actually true. Living out here in the countryside, small town in tow, you have to find ways to invigorate yourself and to spice up your life. Even if that fun means telling yourself that the tearing and streaming rains and the haggard winds slam-rattling your windows and doors are really something that they are not.
But let me get to a point. Let me release you a post. And so !
Today’s fantastic bit of information is not just something to inform you about every detail of information that is going down here in town. Nor to inform you about every last thing that is happening in my life. Today’s post has a little more to do with a Monday than is does with Japanese culture/life. But somehow it is inescapable. Living here in Japan in some small town how can you not encounter something radical and different every day?
Today, Monday, was one of those days. As I had struggled to lift and propel myself up and out of bed and then towards the responsibilites of my day I was not expecting a pleasant surprise. No, there is no whimsy attached to this story as it really is sincere.
My Monday posting was work at the local high school. Today’s order included three classes which were to be taught back-to-back. But how can I complain about this as there very well may be teachers, let alone people who have or know people who are teachers and know how the whole teaching shindig works. So, therefore I hold my tongue about how teaching three classes back to back on a Monday may seem like a lot of work. But again, I have taught for days straight -ESL class after English class in exotic countries like Thailand and Central America. I may just have a leg up on you on that one..
Sorry. Back to the juice.
After I had dove right into and love-taught my way through my three classes with the teacher that I assist, I was plopped down in the teacher’s room just gobbling up some lunch. Lunch, that I might add was a bento-box from the nearby market costing me only four and three pence (okay, okay, like four dollars or soemthing like that).
While chomping a mouthful of rice and pickled plum dusted with black sesame seeds, the all too familiar ‘pardon meeee’ of a student entering the teacher’s room astounded my silent chomping.
One of the students from my third year class (that would be grade twelve equivalent) had brought in a steaming tray of cheese gratin for the staff to sample. It wasn’t before the student shuffled over to the Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) that I teach with and practiced the proper English phrasing for, ‘Please have some’, that I was soon chomping down some cheesy mash of Japanese-style gratin along with my lunch.
This surprise to the normal melodrama of any Monday shook my day right up. From there on I had no problem parading my way through town back to my home-base office to finish off the rest of the day writing a short children’s story for my Friday kindergarten class (yes, I happen to have a few creative freedoms regarding my work..).
So. That was my Monday. However I still have to trek back home -I can hear the wind howling like a banshee craving a Starbuck s latte outside my office window even now- and figure out what dinner will be. Heaven help me if I actually have to leave my house to pick up some groceries and enter this wild wind just one more time today. Gosh.
Here’s hoping that your Monday(s) are, if not filled with cheesy goodness of any sort, are well enough for you to look brightly at the rest of the week. More cheesy goodness to follow soon. Maybe even this week I can manage another post.. if I’m not blown over to Russia from my little seaside town by this Wizard of Oz-like wind.
The Traveller's Typewriter 