Rainy Day Blues

Today it was rainy and cold and blah.

My co-worker tells me this year is very cold -- usually it's hot, everyone is wearing short sleeves and enjoying the nice weather while it lasts. Not this year. This year is cold. (Yes, this is about the level of my conversational Japanese. I can talk about the weather. Or at least understand what people are saying when they talk about the weather.)

I had a half day at the elementary school this morning, and my classes went well. Even my class of impossible Grade 6s. Who knew they would enjoy "What time is it, Mr. Wolf?" so much!

I was the talk of the office. My next door neighbor asked about my party, so of course we discussed how many people came, and this being Japan, how much drinking happened. Usually I have meetings with the teachers about next week's classes, but not this week. So I headed back to the office, leaving with all of the students and trying not to run any of them over.

***

After a long day of work, it's really nice to get the feeling that you're appreciated. I was leaving for home, when a group of Junior High school students spotted me. They called me over to chat. The class of third years I teach is incredibly genki, and a lot of them actually like speaking English. We hung around and talked for a while about their exams (they weren't worried about English, but Japanese weren't looking forward to Japanese). It was just really nice to know that the students do want to talk to me, even if my JTE doesn't really want the hassle of team teaching. Besides that, I haven't seen the san-nensei class in a while. They had their school trip last week, and I haven't been going to a lot of classes lately. Or at least it feels that way.

And now it's off to bed for tomorrow's exciting day of standing over a photocopier!