Birthday Palm Readings and Paper Fans

Hello again internet comrades.  Thank you for sparing a moment of your valuable internet time to catch up with me!  First off, this week I did not teach a single class!  Since it was the first week of our summer schedule, basically everything was canceled and many of the branches were actually shut.  I didn’t discover this until after I had bicycled 6 miles to my Monday branch.   I think I actually should have been off this week, but due to lack of planning I spent the week cutting strips of fabric for an upcoming craft, and handing out paper fans to promote our new branch in Nagoya.  The root of the problem is that I work at Shimon schools, but am actually employed by Hellos English.  So while I was fooling around all week the other Hellos teachers were administering finals and holding parent teacher conferences.  I wonder if they noticed me twiddling my thumbs in the corner…  But never fear, I’ll be back to work tomorrow with a confusingly altered class schedule.  I learn as I go.

So the week before last I had my birthday brunch.  Over 20 July babies went out to an Italian restaurant and had a 5 course meal complete with a happy birthday serenade from the staff.  I sat next to the company president who demanded that I make a speech in English and then translate it into Japanese.  I told everyone that even though I was born in July I don’t like hot weather.  Deep, huh?  The president also gave me a palm reading and discovered that I will live a long life despite having my heart broken as a young man.  He is not your typical boss.

I also had my birthday one week ago.  I got a couple people to go bowling with me and we managed to knock over a few pins.  Then some other Americans surprised me with rice crispy bars and cake.  It was subdued but a big improvement over my last birthday when I worked and four buses overheated in the span of two hours. 

This weekend I went to an Opera concert.  My coworker and former classmate Ryan is an avid singer and invited all of us to his yearly performance.  The event was sold out and people were actually lined up outside the door.  I couldn’t figure out what language they were singing in most of the time, but I enjoyed the extremely shiny and provocative costumes.  Afterword we had a big a party at the apartments and took shots of carbonated sake out of square wooden shot glasses. 

Well that’s all for this report.  I’ll be back again in a week or two!

Summer!

Hi folks, time for a quick word from Japan.  The rainy/crappy season continues here and the past couple of weekends have been humid, cloudy and 90+ degrees.  So no outdoor adventures unfortunately.  I am looking forward to nicer weather though, as yesterday I bought a unicycle at a second hand shop.  It was 50 bucks and rides pretty well.  The seat is too low for me though.  I’ve fallen off quite a bit from my prime, but I can still ride in straight, turn and stop pretty well.  It will be fun to see if I get even more stares riding down the street on one wheel.  I also found a gym inside a shopping mall near my house that only costs like $25 dollars a month.  I am debating if I can motivate myself enough to go when it’s too sticky to run outside.  It’s in the same building as the 24 hour supermarket (five minutes from my house).  The supermarket is ridiculously convenient, but it’s impossible to go to without seeing coworkers.  On Friday at 1130pm I ran into to three Japanese Shimon teachers in one shopping trip.  None of them mentioned that the strange fruit liquor I had selected was actually intended as a base for brewing your own home made fruit liquor.  Oops.  I found that out after I opened it and started drinking.

Well, it’s mid-July and that means my birthday is coming up.  Tomorrow I’m going to a birthday lunch that the company president throws for all employees once a month.  We’re going to a fancy Italian place with a three course lunch.  Word is I have to make a speech at some point.  Not sure if it will be in English.  I don’t know how many people will be there, but there are at least 5 July birthdays just in our section.

The kids are nearly to the end of the semester and are behaving wildly.  On Wednesday a 10 year old boy said the F word several times in class.  When I scolded him he insisted he had no idea what he had done wrong.  The he turned to the boy behind him, whispered “Fuck fuck” and gave him a double middle finger.  I blame the TV.  Summer vacation should start any minute now, but I still am not sure what my teaching schedule will be for July and August.  The kids come to the branches any time between 10am and 10pm, and they often have special study camps, where we challenge them to study for 8 or 10 hours straight.  Fun times. 

The one thing I do know about my summer schedule is that I have a plane ticket to come home from August 10^th to August 20^th.  I put this at the very end of the blog to see who reads it all the way through.  Congratulations for making it this far without a half-naked picture or the promise of a free credit score.  See you soon!