Back to the Grind

We've been back to work for about two weeks now. Peppy gave us nearly three weeks off before making our jobs slightly more stressful for the next two months. We have parent observations at our schools at the moment. That means that students and their parents are squeezed into our tiny classrooms. The parents usually sit as close as possible to the door and stare blankly at you as you interact with their child in a language they don't understand for an hour. In one respect, it's a bit better, because most of the students are better behaved when their parents are looking on. Some, however, decide to show off their ability to annoy the teacher and act a little worse than normal. I'm told that the parents often report that they enjoyed the lesson even if their facial expressions lead you to believe otherwise. If that's the case, I'll take those bored looks as a compliment.

The worst part of the return to work is the commute. I normally enjoy my train rides immensely. Because it's the peak of winter, however, getting from my apartment to my classrooms is very difficult indeed. Every day, I sadly pass my bike wishing I could use her to get around like I used to. Dustin bravely rides through the snow covered streets. The one time I tried, I nearly wrecked my bike on the icy streets so many times that I've scared myself from even attempting to hop on again until the snowy weather has passed. I haven't decided which I like less: trudging through the side streets left uncleared of their foot high piles of snow or the bigger streets with spouts of water shooting out of the ground creating an icy sheet by nightfall. Sometimes, you run into an over-enthusiastic spout of water that hits you right in the thigh, leaving your upper leg wet and cold. The snow and wind have made the trains unreliable. I've had to wait on the platform hoping and hoping my train will eventually come like it is supposed to only to catch the next train an hour later. I understand that snow is a part of winter all over the world. I've experienced my fair share of snow and ice storms in my lifetime. I've just never had to endure such extreme weather for an entire month. And it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon.

The snow has forced us to take taxis more frequently. For our schools that are a 45 minute walk from the station, we have to take a taxi both to get there and back to the train station. Since Dustin and I work at these schools (which are in the same Academy Plaza) during the same week, we get to take the taxi at the end of the night together. This taxi comes at the same time each night, so our boss reserves it for the whole week and it just shows up and takes us away. To get to the classroom from the station is much more of a hassle. Our classes start at different times each day, so we arrive at the station separately and take different taxis to the classrooms. We choose when we get to school, so we have to reserve the taxis on our own. Dustin has a good enough command of the language to get his taxis easily enough. I, however, have had a long "conversation" with the taxi company each day I try to convince them to pick me up. The first time I called, I relayed the train station where I needed to be picked up and the location I needed to be taken. The time at which I needed the taxi was hard to convey.  The word for 3 is san and the word for thousand is sen, easily confused. I needed to be picked up at 3:20. I assumed they were asking what time to come, so I kept repeating sen ni ju, or thousand twenty. The taxi employee kept repeating the same question, that I continued to assume was "What time should the taxi come?" and I kept repeating thousand twenty. This went on for a few minutes before the woman put me on hold and handed me over to someone who asked "What time?" I said, in English, "3:20." I think this new woman repeated my entire taxi request back to me, so I just kept saying "hai hai hai", or yes yes yes. Once the taxi arrived, the taxi driver spoke to me in Japanese during the entire ten minute ride to my classroom. I occasionally said, "hai" when I heard a word I knew like English, English school, or teacher. I don't know what he was saying or asking about these things, but I agreed.

It hasn't been all work in the past few weeks. Last Sunday, we went to a New Year's celebration at the Civic Center. We pounded mochi (rice cakes) with a giant mallet that was too heavy for me to lift on my own. Luckily, a strong man was nearby and helped me lift it up and down. Pounding the mochi gave us good luck for the New Year and we got a delicious treat. It was very yummy, but we couldn't eat too much, because we'd had a larger than expected lunch. For the second time, I ordered ramen as my meal and somehow ended up with two bowls of it. We've decided that anytime I want ramen, Dustin's going to have to eat it, too. He's eaten the second bowl and whatever he ordered these first two times, but from now on, we'll just be ordering the one bowl of ramen we think we've been ordering all along and see if we get the two we usually receive. 

I have officially experienced my first earthquake. I almost missed it, too. Dustin and I were sitting on our futons, doing something or another on our computers when the floor started rumbling. I leapt up and stood in the doorframe while Dustin ran to the sliding glass door and opened it! I yelled at him to get away from the window and he laughed at me. It was such a small earthquake and lasted for less than 10 seconds, but I erred on the side of caution and Dustin found that ridiculous. 

There's a conbini near the Nagaoka train station called Save On (its name makes me think of a frugal hippy) that Dustin and I frequent quite often. Sometimes you need to grab a warm drink, a little lunch, or an onigiri (rice ball) to hold you over on your way to school. We go in at least twice a week. When we first arrived in Nagaoka, a little old woman who works at Save On slipped some free juice in our bag with a wink. A few nights ago, Dustin needed a chicken snack, so we stopped in at Save On. The same little old woman came up behind us and shoved a bag stuffed with baked goods that expired the next day into Dustin's hands. We tried to say "Arigato," but she put her finger to her lips and shushed us. We walked out of Save On giggling while we surveyed our loot. Sometimes it's good to be a foreigner in Japan.