I realised for all this time that I've been blogging I've never once mentioned how life actually happens for me here. Here's a usual day at a visiting school.
6:25am Alarm goes off. I press snooze. Twice. Then the thought of not having enough time to straighten my hair and finish my breakfast finally proves enough motivation to get a groggy me out of bed. I proceed to do my teeth, get dressed and straighten my hair, slap a bit of make up on and make and have breakfast.
7:35/40am I head out, and kick myself as I pass the rubbish racks for forgetting its recyclable plastics day or burnable rubbish day, but I could never be bothered or I usually have no time to go back to get the rubbish. I get my bike and cycle to school.
7:50/55am I get to base school, and by that time the taxi is usually waiting for me already. I roll in to say my good-mornings to staff room people, get the taxi tickets, say goodbye, roll onto the taxi, and daydream whilst the taxi makes its way to the visiting school.
8:10am I get to my visiting school, faff around, discuss with the teachers what we'd be doing for the day's lessons; go to lessons; play some warm up games; get kids to repeat what I'm saying; walk around and day dream some more when the teacher's doing the grammar explanations...
12:20pm Lunch time! At this one particular school, I have lunch with the kids. But they always take forever to prepare their lunches in their classrooms. They have to dish out rice or noodles or bread, and side dish, and milk, and maybe a dessert to 25 people in the class, get two people to come to the staff room to get me, find me a seat, get everyone to sit down quietly, say 'itadakimasu' (something along the lines of 'I'm grateful for what I'm about to receive'), and eat their lunch, all in 30 minutes. By the time they do start eating there's only about 15 minutes left to actually eat.
1:25pm Afternoon lessons start, and are usually very tough especially after rice days since rice just puts everyone to sleep. Which means I have to be extra animated and loud and crazy. Not fun, depending on how many classes I've had in the morning.
3:15pm (or earlier) Students clean the school and staff supervise. I'm never assigned any particular role in this but I also feel uneasy if I'm just sitting at my desk while the kids are sweeping and wiping and cleaning all around me. So I usually grab a broom and sweep a bit, usually my row of tables; or in other schools I help dry the mugs after the girls have washed them.
3:30pm Taxi comes to take me back to my base school from the visiting school.
4:05pm After sitting around and just faffing for 20 minutes or so I grab my stuff, hop on my bike and zoom down the drive way and go home. Or go to the supermarket.
But today, things were a little different. On Wednesday, I have calligraphy class. But this week, things were yet a little more different. Last week, I was asked to play the piano for the teachers' performance in the upcoming school choir singing contest. And we were going to have a practice. So today I stayed at school and practiced my piano part during the teachers' meeting, then the teachers joined me in the music room and we practiced two songs, me on the piano making an aweful load of mistakes.
So I was quite late for my calligraphy lesson today - an hour late to be exact. But there's no fixed time so I could turn up anytime and stay for as long as I wanted really. Today was especially nice because before I left I told my teacher why I was late and how busy it's been these days and so she gave me a bowl of hijiki-itame (umm meat + seaweed thingy + tofu stir fry) to take home so I don't have to cook!! Cha-ching.
(Carrying on with the usual Wednesdays)
5:20 I get home and change into my PJ bottoms, collapse into the 'couch' and read 2 or 3 chapters of the Bible according to the Bible-in-one-year schedule (although I'm usually a few chapters behind.)
6:00 Dinner, usually in front of the computer watching Hugh Laurie being a genius, American and rude. (Not implying any correlation between the 3 factors)
7:20pm E, a Japanese housewife, comes over, sometimes bringing delicious chocolates or snacks to feed my guilty conscience. We chat for about 2 hours, in English and Japanese, and by the end I'm usually so tired I don't realise what language is coming out of my mouth anymore. She get's the signals, leaves me, I shower, check facebook for the 38th and final time, go to bed.
Sometimes I write useless blog posts like these before I go to bed.
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