Everything Started Out Happy My only two classes were first thing in the morning, so they went fast. I did basic reading and pronunciation practice in the first class - that's all I do when I don't make up an activity. The second class was the elective class, so I did my class on "Happy Reactions" for the 9th graders. There's nothing quite like yelling a big orgasmic "Yes!" in front of fourteen-year-olds to make a class interesting. I even taught them Woo hoo, though I think maybe that's just something I use all the time, not the rest of the English-speaking world. I couldn't get them to have much emotion when they did their dialogues, but I suppose that's the hardest time of one's life to do anything embarrassing. Anyway, to continue the Happy feeling, I had a great conversation with my sister, cell phone to cell phone!

Melissa Takes Action I've felt empowered ever since yesterday and decided to go ahead and ask Tomomi-sensei if I could change the way my part of the elective class was graded. If the kids' grades are at stake, then I want to grade them fairly and I don't think I've been doing the best job of that with the sheet I was given. I've been sort of guessing what the sheet means from the beginning since no one explained it, but it seems like I'm basically marking up to four points for each student based on their Memorization, Loud Voice, Eye Contact, and Creativity. For one, it is really hard to mark these for such a short dialogue and still keep the class moving. For another, because these dialogues are in front of people, I feel like I'm giving the better grade to the braver and/or less embarrassed person which has little relation to English (and I told Tomomi-sensei that.) Furthermore, I have no idea if the students realize what they are being graded on. And the other reason I want to change the sheet is that, for some reason, only the first names of students are written on the sheet. Now I don't pretend to have ALL their names memorized, but I did spend a bit of time with the name sheet, and this neat picture file that my predecessor made, trying to learn them. The problem is that sometimes I know their last name because they have a sibling and sometimes I know their first name if they introduced themself to me. Sometimes I know both if I memorized it. Tomomi-sensei seems to call them USUALLY by their last name and I feel uncomfortable calling them by their first name, even if it is what we do in America. I want their last names written down. Also (nitpicking now), the list is in order by last name, so the first names don't follow any logical order. (Also a few names are misspelled. I'm sick of looking and looking for Yuusuke and finding it under Yasuke. ANYWAY, the result of all this is that Tomomi-sensei gave me total permission to change the grading sheet as I saw fit and to do any sort of conversation activity I wanted to for my part of the class, basically giving me total freedom. Yay! On a side note, I discovered why Nosohara-sensei no longer is showing up at the elective classes for her third of the class. She apparently was told not to since vice-principals are not supposed to teach (even if they do know English as well as if not better than Tomomi-sensei.)

Normally, I Would Never Turn Down a Day Off, But... I did it; I decided to go ahead and ask Nosohara-sensei about the "daikyuu" (the Day in Lieu) for the Culture Festival that all the other teachers are getting on Monday. I explained that I had elementary school planned that day, so I was not getting a day off for my hard work Sunday. Nosohara-sensei did something very typical of her. She told me to go ask my supervisor the board of education (Kato-san or Jicho-san) but then a half hour after I agreed to do that, she called them herself to ask. I understood most of her end of the conversation. Or so I thought. She handed me the phone at the end and I thought they would tell me what day I could take off, but it was only Maruyama-san asking when I would get home because she needed to have "a little talk about garbage with me." Not even letting myself wonder if my non-burnables (which I deposited this morning) had gotten returned AGAIN, I told her 5:30 and said goodbye. Right after I got off the phone, Nosohara-sensei was on her way out, but told me that it was no problem. I could take a day off on Monday, too. But... NO! I gaped at her for a moment, trying to form words, but she was moving quickly and just said (in English) "as you like" and then left. But I didn't want Monday off! I have plans Monday. I have big Halloween games to play at the elementary school. Because there are SO many holidays on Monday (including next Monday) that I've never had more than three weeks in a row of classes, I didn't want to add one MORE holiday! After feeling a bit confused and panicky, I decided to just call the board of education back myself and tell them to cancel that request. After stammering to a confused Takata-san for a few moments, I finally got back to Maruyama-san. She told me that the Elementary school had agreed. I told her extensively why I didn't want the day off and she agreed to call them back. What really got me after this was that I wondered now if I would ever get a day. I really want my fair day off, just not MONDAY. Any day but Monday. I was kind of upset at this point and did not even know where Nosohara-sensei was let alone want to explain to her that I sort of threw her favor in her face. Luckily, the social studies teacher heard my entire conversation (even asking me about it afterward, though I think he thought I was giving up my day, not reversing an order to get rid of the day) so I have a witness if I ever decide to bring this issue up again.

If It Hadn't Been Misawa-sensei... It was festival preparation time again so I wandered toward the gym. Misawa-sensei quickly found me and told me he had a favor. He asked if I could have my Halloween corner out in the hall instead of in the gym. Now, when I first was asked to do an activity I assumed it would be in the hall and I was quite happy to hear they made a spot for me in the back of the gym (with perfect view of the stage for the shows!) Now, however, I was back in the hall again. Oh, well. He found me someone to help me carry a table out to the hall and apologized. Yet I can't be irritated at Misawa-sensei for either this or the booklet mixup because he is the coolest guy there! He is always energetic, cheerful, and on the go. He smiles a lot and always tries English and it's really cute cause he says very simple things like "Come. Here." and "Go." in his low, deep voice yet smiling. Anyway, maybe he thought I was honestly upset because I no doubt looked a bit distressed after the wrong-vacation-day incident, but I really was not mad at him at all, only slightly bummed. I did confirm that I could still watch the kagura if I wanted, though. The table was a bit short but two tables would be too long. Luckily, just at that moment, I saw two 3rd year girls carrying a student desk. I enlisted their help and got myself two student desks to put at either end of the table. Then I started on my sign-making.

Happy Irony Misawa-sensei walked by later to compliment me on my signs and on a whim, I apologized to him for not giving him a B5 sheet to put in the booklet. He looked surprised and said "it wasn't there?" referring to my page. And I nodded and said sorry I mixed up the sizes. THEN, we walk into the staff room, he pulls a booklet off of the closest desk, turns to Pg 15, and there it is! It was a shrunken down copy of the B4 poster I did, but it was still quite readable. I stared at in shock. So I had a page in the booklet after all! I showed him the booklet I was given and he was really surprised to see that it was, indeed, missing my own page. He gave me a new booklet off the stack and sure enough, it had my page in it. What an irony that I received a booklet without my page in it. Anyway, it was nearly 6pm by the time I finished my signs (A "Welcome to Halloween Corner" and step-by-step instructions on how to get free candy from me. I spent far too much time making these, but I can't help it. I think I have some inner need to play with construction paper.) Anyway, it was late, so I planned to carve the pumpkin tomorrow night.

When the Bread Seller Comes... On my way out, Nosohara-sensei offered me a piece of cream-filled bread by saying "pan kirai?" ("Do you hate bread?") I've never heard a gift deprecated THAT badly, though I know the Japanese do deprecate their gifts before giving them. I think receivers are supposed to politely refuse a gift first (how is refusing a gift polite! No one has explained that one to me yet, though I have witnessed this initial refusal often enough to know that it is true), but the sight of sweet bread when I was just getting hungry put the thought out of my mind. I was like "Oh, free bread! I want!" I'm a little too fixated on food. Speaking of which, I recently discovered the stash cabinet in the kitchen area! Apparently, when people bring snacks for the staff from afar, they put their leftovers HERE. I would have been better off not discovering that the cabinet often has chocolate in it, but luckily, it disappears quite fast, so I am not the only chocoholic here. Anyway, after I walked out of the staff room, a woman near the entrance called to me and I realized it was the bread seller! Now, I live close to the bread maker, so I'm like a neighbor, so I really could not refuse to buy something even if Nosohara-sensei had just given me bread. I picked out two yummy-looking cream-filled breads (she was surprised I wanted just two) and she only charged me 200 yen (less than $2). When I commented how inexpensive it was, she said something like "it's a service."

Garbage Pain It was my worst garbage fears realized. As I pulled into my house after dark, and the guy with the blue truck (who is, at least, now parking in a way to make it the least inconvenient for me) was on his way out, Maruyama-san arrived. And, with a sinking feeling, I watched her take my non-burnable garbage out of her trunk. I had NO idea how she ended up in possession of my garbage, but I recognized it as the garbage the garbagemen had refused last month. I was way too tired to deal with this, but I wasn't about to take that out on poor Maruyama-san, so I let her in. We spent nearly half an hour on my kitchen floor. She went through every piece of my non-burnable garbage (I'm glad there was nothing too embarrassing in there) as I defended my reasoning for putting it there. She seemed to think I did not understand the meaning of the bags. No, I simply had a different logic. My logic was that if it did not fit into the categories of Burnable, Plastics, Paper, or Recyclable, then I would put it in Non-burnable. Her logic was that if it did not fit into those categories, then put it in Burnable. I guess what I learned tonight is that styrofoam is recyclable, plastic is burnable, and something that sounded like "veneer" but which I was told later was "vinyl", is plastic (in fact, I'm supposed to put things that look like foil - granola bar wrappers, for instance - in Plastics.) A couple of the mistakes were just me not reading close enough, but some mistakes I still do not understand. First: why doesn't Japan recycle glass containers and tin cans like we do in the States even though they recycle glass drink containers of specific sizes. Second, why do I have to WASH out my non-burnable garbage? Isn't it just going to be buried in the ground somewhere? Maruyama-san had no answer, but she told me I really needed to wash out everything I could. Dirty garbage goes in Burnable, even if the item that is dirty is not necessarily burnable. (She also told me, several times, to wrap questionable items in newspaper. How can she be so honest and sneaky at the same time.) Anyway, by the end, she put just over half my previously non-burnable garbage into different garbage bags. She was kind of cute as she debated some items, especially those items of food from overseas that are packaged differently, but I was just frustrated. I did not want to be short with her because she's the sweetest woman in the world (I mean, she's touching my garbage for Pete's sake. I would NEVER touch another person's garbage if I had the choice) but I just was having the longest day. I finally led her out too quickly, but I thanked her. She told me if the garbage is returned, she'll have another look at it. Meanwhile, I'm thinking if those anal garbage nazis return that damn bag of garbage one more time, there will be violence. The one thing that kept me from screaming out my frustration was at least they did not return my garbage to me the FIRST month I was here because it was filled with my predecessor's stuff that I did NOT want to clean out since I did not know what it was or how long it had been there. Speaking of which, this has kind of rekindled my anger at my predecessor. I feel like she left all the food there, not for my use but more so she wouldn't have to dispose of it! Anyway, to not make me feel so bad, Maruyama-san gave me a gift. It was the October Sakugi magazine (with pictures of the festival I missed last weekend) and two packages of Bread from the Bread Seller. Yep, that makes five pieces of Bread total I have now. I guess I'm having dessert tonight!

Bug Entrance I just saw one of those weird bugs again (that looks like it has a hard shell, but isn't too big for me to squish.) It was just walking across my living room wall. I've been in my living room all evening. Where did it come from? It COULD have come in through the door but I suspect it came in through the heater. That never even occurred to me, but I bet the passage is big enough. I do not think this will prevent me from using my heater, since it's getting brr, cold out. (It was 41 this morning.) but it will keep me on the alert. I always have to be on bug alert, you know.

My Own Glue Stick! I can't believe it! Although the elementary school teachers have taken note (at least once) of the fact that I'm always running around borrowing other teacher's scissors and glue sticks, I did not think anyone would bother doing something about it for me, who is only here once a week. But, lo and behold, I was presented this morning with my very own, freshly bought glue stick and pair of scissors. Yay!!

And The Costume Parade Begins I did all my classes in the Big Room today because of my Grandiose Halloween Plans (i.e. so I would not have to lug the box of costumes around to different classrooms.) I put my bunkasai Jack-o-Lantern out (re-lighting it for every class) on the stage and everyone loved looking at it before and after class. (They still got a kick out of the mini-spiders and those who attended bunkasai seemed pleased to see Mr. Pumpkin again.) Anyway, my class was rather simple: I said Happy Halloween after initial greetings and bowings and asked if anyone knew what Halloween was. Even in my 1st grade class, there was always one person who seemed to know all the details, which saved me the trouble of trying to explain it in my broken Japanese. After that, if I remembered, I passed out a few pictures I brought. Then I put on four selected costume bits out of my box (which I am so, SO pleased my predecessor left me) which included a witch hat (complete with green hair), a crown, a pirate hat, and a blow-up football helmet then I told them how to say each in English. I put them in a circle and did my favorite game; I had them pass around the costumes to music and when the music stopped, whoever was holding the costume had to put it on and answer my question "What ARE you?" I wanted Halloween music but did not think I could find any here and so did not look very hard. Too bad I completely forgot about The Nightmare Before Christmas which I left at home; it has the appropriate "This is Halloween" song on it. Afterward, I had them all get into costume (I had, except in one class, enough for everyone!!) and told them if they knocked on the white board and said "Trick or Treat" that I would give them candy. ("Oooooh!") I gave everyone a mini Kit-Kat (on the school's budget). Why a Kit-Kat? Because it was the one American candy I could buy in bulk at Sungreen. Anyway, it was lots of fun - I am very glad I called back and told them I didn't want this day off after all! Also, in every class, I was sincerely thanked for the Kit Kat afterward.

The Masks I did the above game for all the grades except the 1st and 2nd. To be brutally honest, I was kind of worried for the costumes. It probably would not have mattered, but I didn't want to take chances. Instead, I bought paper plates (also on the school's budget) and had them make their own masks. They were so impressed when I demonstrated that folding the plate, making two easy cuts, then unfolding it created two eyes! (They should be impressed since this shortcut only occurred to me an hour before when I was making the sample paper-plate masks. I taught it almost on a whim, but it turned out to be the most helpful thing I did.) Their masks turned out very cute. I had them do the Trick or Treat thing as well, but in twos since some of the 1st graders are quiet.

Pumpkin Problems My poor Jack-o-lantern, being lugged all around Sakugi... It did stay intact through the whole bunkasai and all day in classes, but the bottom of the cut-out pumpkin lid was getting black from all the candles I had burnt inside it. One minor problem occurred after my 3rd year class. I realized after I had already gone downstairs that I forgot to blow out the candles. It probably would not have caused a problem since the pumpkin was pretty thick and the candles burned quickly, but I wanted to be safe. When I went upstairs, I saw that my two candles had reached the bottom, but because there were SO many other remnants of candles and partial candles and wax inside, the whole bottom inside of the pumpkin was flaming pretty good. I blew it out without too much difficulty, but I sent a nice plume of smoke into the room. Luckily, no alarms went off. (Really, with all the burning that goes on here, you'd think they'd go off on a regular basis. OH, I have a theory about the burning! I think this is a post-harvest burning of all the remnants of the rice plants so they can start afresh next season.)

Sharp Students Almost without exception, every time I've asked if there are any questions about Halloween (always allowing ample time), there have been none. Not this time. The sixth graders were grilling me big time about Halloween - the origin of Halloween, why people dress up, why children receive candy and so forth. Rather stupidly, I didn't have a clue about half the things they asked me. I can barely explain "Trick or Treat." The upside is that Nakamura-sensei did a little research and gave every teacher an explanation of Halloween written in Japanese. I'm curious what it said... I should try to translate it. Hopefully, that will answer any questions that will come up later. Anyway, these guys are going to be sharp 7th graders, I tell you.

* * STUPID THING OF THE DAY * * This morning, I drove up into the loading zone so I could more easily carry my Big Box of Costumes and my Jack-o-Lantern into the building. I did so. What I realized, as I left that evening was that I HAD NEVER PUT MY CAR BACK! It had been in the loading zone all day! Oops. I guess if I had been blocking something, someone would have come and get me.

The Deal I explained my lack-of-a-fair-vacation-day situation to Maruyama-san (which took forever because she was the only one in the office and every time the phone rang or someone came to the window, then she became otherwise occupied). We agreed that I would not come in on Wednesday morning. I told her I did not want to miss the Wednesday class at the Junior High because it was the elective class that only I could do the activity for - there was no one to cover for me. She said she would call and check, but that otherwise that would be the plan. This is half satisfactory to me, but I can't think of a better way to do it without serious inconvenience. Maybe I'll get another Wednesday morning off later, which would be cool.

Returning Favors Since I had almost 2 bags of Kit Kats left, I left the partially opened one at the Primary School Staff Room and brought the unopened one to replenish the Junior High Staff Candy Stash that Misawa-sensei had donated to my Halloween Candy cause. I had also bought a bit of chocolate in Miyoshi over the weekend, so I put in some of that, too. And of course, I had my own personal drawer stash. I think the whole staff room must have smelled chocolatey.

Have To Read The Blackboard More Carefully I was halfway across the staff room, ready to meet Tomomi-sensei and go to class, when I had an urge to look at the blackboard. (This is always a good urge to follow, so I did.) I realized that what I thought was a 1st period class was actually a 2nd period class since 1st period was dedicated to Bunkasai Clean-up (I did notice that they closed the school less than an hour after the shows ended on Sunday and wondered when they planned to strike the stage.) I had cleaned up my corner on Sunday so did not have much to contribute and glad I caught my mistake before asking Tomomi-sensei if he was going to class or what.

Happy Birthday Today was Tomomi-sensei's birthday. I found out when he announced it to the 2nd year class. Speaking of the 2nd year class, I really look at them in a whole new way. After witnessing that amazing Kagura show, I just find myself thinking "WOW, you were part of that!" and completely respect them. I also started trying to figure out who played what since it was hard to tell with the masks. I did have a chance, during the lull in class, to tell the sole female performer how good of a job she did. (The other Yama girl played drums.) Anyway, both the 2nd years and the 3rd years were pretty nonchalant about Tomomi-sensei's b-day announcement, but he received an ovation the instant he walked through the door of the 1st years classroom! On the board was written, "Omedetou!" (Congratulations!) It took me a second to remember it was his birthday and that was the motivation behind it, but it was all very cute.

Dream a Little Dream I spent three of my allotted six hours off sleeping. It was worth it (despite 3am mobile phone call that luckily stopped after the first ring), only I felt like I had very little time to actually take advantage of my morning off.

The Egg Hunt I SWEAR, SWEAR, SWEAR I saw an egg in my fridge last time I looked. I remembered which little oval slot it was in and everything, but when I opened up my fridge to add the egg to my pancake mix, it was GONE. (Since the bread I bought at the store on Saturday has also gone missing - I had not even eaten a piece of it yet - I wonder if there are secret Japanese gnomes scurrying around my kitchen.) Anyway, being that my mix was already in the bowl and I was really set on pancakes, I decided to go on an egg-finding mission. Out of the three little food stores I know of in the Sakugi area, I decided to try the one I got the pumpkin from because it looked fairly food oriented (unlike one of other ones) and because I wanted to patronize her establishment in thanks for said pumpkin. Driving before eating is not usually good for me to do, but my orange juice held me over until I arrived. I found EGGS! Okay, a dozen, which is way more than I need, but eggs are eggs. Since I was here, I decided to look for bread (of which they had none) and honey, since I had run out of that due to drinking hot tea on these recently chilly mornings. I could not for the life of me remember the Japanese word for honey and they did not recognize the English one. Anyway, I did talk to the woman for a little while wishing I was not so sleepy-eyed at 10:30am. Her and a couple other people assumed I was totally Japanese-helpless. I even heard them saying, "Oh she wouldn't know what THAT means" to a word I knew. Maybe my frantic honey descriptions (including a gestured bumblebee) made me look pathetic at Japanese. She was very nice, though. Oddly, she did not seem to realize that my predecessor had left and that I had come to replace her. I wonder if my assumption that everyone in Sakugi knows exactly who I am where I come from and what I'm doing here is a bit arrogant on my part. Then again, it WAS in the Sakugi magazine. Anyway, a nice conversation that I wish I was more awake when having.

At Least It Wasn't Cancelled Literally one minute before class, Tomomi-sensei casually asks if I realize that this is the LAST ELECTIVE CLASS for the 2nd years! I was like, 'Huh? Last until when?' He said (as we walked up the stairs to this Last Class) that the 2nd years only have the English elective for half the year, having a different elective the rest of the year. It sounded vaguely, vaguely, VAGUELY familiar, but couldn't they have put this in writing somewhere? Looks like all that re-making the grading sheet for the 2nd years was kind of pointless (though I suppose I can use it next year.) To my relief, it seems the 3rd years have the English elective all year. I would have been irritated if not only my whole re-making the grading sheets had been a waste of time, but also my whole plan for the next two weeks. Well, I guess that's one less hour of teaching a week and it may make Wednesdays completely class-free. Well, except for next Wednesday, when we have the Big Class on Weather.

Melissa, the #1 Hit Tomoko had mentioned it before, and now I heard it mentioned again: There apparently is a song called "Melissa" (in katakana) released recently by a Japanese band. Whoa, weird! Despite that it is a fairly common name, the only other time I've heard of my name as a title to a song was back in the '70s in that song by the Allman Brothers.

Look, the 'O' Dressed Up! I adore Google's holiday-izing of its site, especially when the holidays are really obscure, like Leonardo DaVinci's Birthday. I showed Tomomi-sensei the Halloween Google, but he did not seem quite as niftified as me although he did say it was "cute." Anyway, I was on the computer a lot today trying to prepare for this Big Nov. 5th Class. Tomomi-sensei now has me looking up famous buildings in famous countries so I can start off by telling the students what cities I'm going to quiz the Time and Weather in. It's a good thing that I enjoy doing this kind of thing, though Tomomi-sensei had to curb my over-enthusiasm on showing students cool buildings. He told me to stick with something they'd know, like London and Paris. But, London and Paris are both in Europe which 1) isn't very international since I was trying to have a city from every continent and 2) makes it hard to leave enough room for the little weather symbols (courtesy of the weather channel website of course) and a slot for time. Oh, well, at least I found lots of pictures which brings me back to how I love Google's Image search.

A Bit O' Redemption My half-and-half sentence game worked very nicely which made me feel a lot better since the last too-hard dunce activity I'd tried with the 3rd years. I noticed that Tomomi-sensei did not have me doing many activities since that day so I'm glad I redeemed my activity-making skills.

What? Normal? I was looking, just for fun, at the class schedule they had given me when I first arrived. I realized that this week is the closest it has ever been to the original schedule! All the classes were at the same times and grades as listed! Whoa! In fact, except for that extra first-year class I did today, it would have been identical! Too bad I do not refer to that sheet anymore, having become in the habit of looking at the blackboard every time I walk in for the "actual" schedule, but still, something to note. It only took them two months to have a regular week and I thought it would take them at least twice that!