A weird day

Today started off weird and things didn’t change from there. I mean I woke up earlier than my alarm, but that was at 8am. I was still tired as hell and sleepy, but I figured that if I went back to sleep I wouldn’t wake up again until it was too late. So I just stayed awake. I went on the computer to check up on the news and was reading that so much that I left a little late even. But I still left my house with enough time to get to work on time.

I arrived at 11:30am, which is the usual time I arrive on Mondays. Since I only have two classes today and it’s a week before midterms. All the teachers are busy and none of the students are allowed in the teacher’s office. It was really humid today too so I didn’t feel too good because of that. I mean it’s not that hot really, the temperature is only around 63 degrees Fahrenheit, but the humidity is horrible it makes it feel like it’s around 95 degrees. Plus wearing a suit really doesn’t make it much better either. No one in Japan wears shorts either, which is something that I noticed last summer, even though it was scorching hot. Crazy, I mean crazy.

Since I only had two classes, I wasn’t too worried about being overloaded with work. I’m actually pretty ahead of the curve with the work so I’m not as busy as all the other teachers. I just sat for 20 minutes waiting for class to start, while I was in the office in the morning. There was a lot going on in there, but it’s so weird because I don’t have much going on.

My first class today was with the 9th graders. This class went weird, and I mean weird. It had started just as usual and the lesson was going ok. I mean it wasn’t perfect and I wasn’t leading the class so I didn’t understand what was really going on. But around 12:25pm, CP called it quits in the middle of class. She said that the class wasn’t making an effort to learn English and that they were being loud and inattentive so she stopped it in the middle of class and just left. Teachers have the power to just leave the class and the class leaders have to come and apologize for the class’s behavior and ask the teacher to return. This was a first for me to actually see at the school. I didn’t think that they were being all that bad and I’ve seen other classes behave much worse. I think that they just didn’t understand what was going on. But I could understand what she was seeing with some of the students. I think that the method that she used was a bit drastic, but probably was necessary. There is a student that’s a real big bully and she was bullying other girls in the class, so much that they don’t come anymore. So it’s becoming a big problem, something that I was just filled in on just today. I haven’t really noticed it before, but it’s not just our class it’s in all the other teachers’ classes too.

In our second and our last class of the day, we just went over the passages for the recitation contest. We started it off differently, but things ended up being the same. It’s getting pretty close to the real date that they will have to perform. They are pretty good to begin with since I believe that they are the highest level English class. They might be the highest. They are really trying hard, so I’m happy about that. I could understand that it might get a bit boring for them.

After class was finished, I went back into the office and started working on a form for the 11th graders. I didn’t have my laptop with me or didn’t have access to a laptop at work since everyone else is working on their midterms. But I didn’t mind since I was going to leave early today. I just didn’t feel like staying at school so long today. During my free period, I talked to the accountant at the school and learned that I owe taxes for my income in Japan. That’s so weird since I didn’t even make that much money last year. I only started working in October of 2004. But I guess that in 3 months of work, I made enough that I have to pay taxes. And I figured that the school wouldn’t pick up the insurance so that will have to come out of my income now too. So I wasn’t really happy about that, but then I am too. I’m on traveler’s insurance but that will expire soon since I think I will leave the country again soon. It only expires when I leave the country, but then I would fall under the government’s insurance policy for medical and health insurance plans.

Since I wasn’t having a great day at work, I decided to leave a bit early. I left at 4:30pm which is really really early. But since I stay at work so late usually that I thought I should be leaving earlier now. I have nothing to do and I asked other teachers if they had anything for me to do for them, which they did and I finished that early before I left. SO I really was able to finish everything then I left for home.

I didn’t end up getting home till around 7pm though. I went shopping for food and then just chilled out a bit before working on the papers for the 11th graders. I was actually watching a lot of TV today. I think Monday’s are the best day to watch TV. That’s the day that has most of the good shows. I’m working on this right now watching SMAP X SMAP. I really like that show, it’s great and they are really interesting. I lost my internet connection watching the show, but that’s ok. I was still able to type this entry. I was planning to work on a lot of things today, but I don’t think that I will have the time to get it all finished. So I’ll see how things come up during the week.