I came to work today to find that the ping pong team has left a big garbage bag full with at least a hundred of these busted balls right next to my desk. Internet, what should I do with them?
Wore these around for most of the day today. So what if I look like a crazy person? What did YOU receive from a throng of adoring kindergarteners today?
That’s what I thought.
For the folks back home: here’s a panoramic shot of the view from my desk in the corner of the faculty room at my JHS (photos stitched together with the iPhone app ‘Pano’). Click on the picture to see it bigger
The school that I teach at 3 days out of the week has not one single western-style toilet. They only have the old Japanese-style squatters like this one. I have not yet had to go number 2 while at school, though, and I pray I can make it the rest of the year.
helpful tip:
When you have to eat the school lunch in Japan, it’s always a good idea to sit next to a teacher who will eat ANYTHING.
I have unloaded so much uneatable food on my desk-neighbor.
I’m sick
and it’s bad, but not really bad enough to keep me home from work, which is annoying. Even if it were that bad, though, I might end up going to work anyways because taking sick leave is such a pain here. You have to get a doctor’s note to take sick leave, which means you have to pay to go see the doctor, then you have to pay extra to get an actual doctor’s note from him/her, and after spending all that money it’s just not even worth it unless you have, like, leukemia or something.
Long story short: I’m at work today, and I’m not happy about it.
How our half of the conversation almost always goes when the phone rings in the teachers' room at school (translations in parentheses)
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
- Teacher:
A sad day
Today I went, as I do every Wednesday, to Maezawa Elementary School and was told right away in the morning that my students may not be themselves today. Over the weekend one of the first-graders had gone to Tokyo for a kidney transplant. His body, however, rejected the kidney and he passed away shortly after the surgery. The entire school attended his funeral yesterday.
Being only here a few months, I didn’t get the chance to know him very well, which in itself is a little sad, but it also means it’s not emotionally affecting me to the point where I can’t work. All day at school, though, you could feel a little bit of emptiness. Everyone was quiet, somber. I don’t really know how much kids understand about death at their ages, so I don’t know how much they feel the impact of the loss. But while they were quieter than usual, they were still at least able to focus—they didn’t seem distracted or depressed in any way as far as I could tell.
In any case, my heart goes out to his family. I can’t even imagine what they must be going through.
About Me
My name is Lawrence Denes.After spending 5 years studying Japanese language, culture, literature, and history in St. Louis and Kyoto, I now live in Japan, in a town that most Japanese people have never even heard of, lost amid the rice fields and vending machines.
Please feel free to ask me anything, or send me an email.
