Yoke and CP's house for Thai food

I only have two plans for today. And that consists of me getting out of the house. I’m really happy to report that. I had gotten up a bit slow today. I mean having this many days off is almost like the feeling I had when it was summer vacation. I mean I had 5 days in a row that were my days off so it will be hard to get back into the swing of things when school starts in two days.

The first item on the agenda for today was the YOKE meeting at 1pm. I have to leave my house around 11:30am to get there on time, but today I left at 12pm and still arrived there even a little bit early. I’m not sure how that works out, but I guess that I was in a hurry and walked really fast to the station. I think that could be the only reason how I could get there so fast because the trains always go at the same speed and arrive at the same times, so that’s fairly standard.

We started a bit late and I was starving at this time since I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch, but I didn’t really have enough time to get something on the way. There were a lot of paperwork today and I think it was fitting since the exchange is only two months away and I don’t feel that a lot of the work has been completed yet. This was going to be long meeting and I could tell that a lot of the membership had been slacking on their duties and couldn’t pull through with their commitments. This will lead to some complications, but overall, I think that it will be fine since the Red Shoes organization isn’t taking the lead, but just assisting YOKE with what they need. I think that they will be able to have everything completed before the program really begins, so I’m not worried at all. There weren’t many people here today too. That was something that shocked me because there wasn’t that many that said that they weren’t going to come. I found out that I would only be available for the program three of the days during the program, but one of them will be for the main day where they get to go visit places and do their observing. I found out that I know two of the people that are coming on this years’ program. I look forward to meeting them again since I’ve met each one of them on one previous occasion in San Diego.

After the meeting which lasted till around 4pm, the guys, like usual, went to get something to drink and eat. YFto and I always seem to be the hungry ones in the group so we just got a sandwich. But the other guys got something light to eat, but the Prez KHma didn’t get anything to eat, only to drink at Café De Crie. We were wondering what that meant, but couldn’t figure it out. I had to jet a little early since I have a dinner appointment tonight too. I had planned to leave at 4:30pm, but didn’t end up leaving till around 5pm. I knew that it would take me about 45 minutes to get there if I took the right trains. But for some reason there was one special train that was leaving the station at the time I arrived there. I’m not sure why there was this train, but it was going to a direction that the line doesn’t normally go to. So it was a bit weird why it was there in the first place and at the time that I was riding on the train. I decided not to take it, but it turned out later that I would end up having to take it anyways to get to my destination of Roppongi station. The whole time I was sending messages back and forth to another teacher. It was a nice little conversation that we had during that hour while I was on the train, but I kept on getting interrupted because my phone loses its signal underground.

I was supposed to meet her at the Almond café place at 5:45pm, but I didn’t arrive till around 5:50pm. I wasn’t too late, but still, everyone here is anal about being on time. It was weird because all the teachers met up at the same place all at the same time too. Most of the teachers didn’t know where it was and for some reason all brought wine to drink. I wanted to be a bit different and bring ice cream. I led the teachers to CP’s house since I knew where it was and they didn’t.

It was nice and we all got involved in the cooking process. It was fun and nice to see. She made everyone Mango cocktails, but it was a bit too strong for me after a little while. I should have drunk the whole thing when it wasn’t so strong. I’m not sure, but it kept me quiet the whole night. I think some people when they drink too much get a little crazy, but I tend to just get more serious. The menu was impressive. There was Pad Thai… which wasn’t my favorite even though it was at my request. There were spring rolls and a papaya salad. There was Thai curry and chicken sauté with a nice Thai sauce. Most of it was pretty good and mind you… Thai food isn’t my favorite. I didn’t want to be the only one that was very picky so I just went with it and ate as much as I could. Oh and for dessert there was a tapioca mixture of some sort. At first it was too much, but after a little break, it was much better. I had a lot to eat, but still all the female teachers ate more than me. That was a bit discouraging and quite embarrassing. I was the only guy and a young guy, I should be able to eat more, but I can’t eat that much anymore.

We had dinner around the sofa area and had a long conversation about many things. We were talking about language and cultures and how things get mixed up in translation. We brought up the term pragmatism, or language in its practical use or how to use the words of the language at the right time. She had some funny stories to tell us and it was all good. She had received one of the cooking degrees from the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand and therefore was a master chef in Thai cuisine. I mean the Oriental hotel in Bangkok is THE Oriental Hotel. Every year it’s ranked the best in the world and that’s where she learned how to cook Thai food. Which is amazing stuff to tell you the truth.

But then came the serious stuff. She brought up the topic of our school and how things need to be improved and how the situation is. She will not return next year to work at Yakumo. So next year, the school will lose both of their Native language teachers. I’m assuming that she will leave in March since that’s the end of the school year, and I will leave in August of the next school year. That’s a bit sad for me because then I’ll have to cover all of her classes and to be honest, I don’t really want to have that heavy of a load. I’m hoping and praying that they will hire a new person to replace her; so I won’t have to do it all on my own. I could understand what she was talking about and all the problems that the school faces with what they offer as opposed to what other schools do. I do feel as if the school is falling behind, but I think it’s our job as teachers to not let it go in that direction. I’m not sure I could do it on my own though. I was excited at first of the idea that I would be in charge and that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, but I wouldn’t want to have so many classes, which would really wear me down and I’d die with the lack of energy I’d have.

I could understand her reasoning for things too. I mean, it all made sense for her since she’s 43 years old and needs to worry about money and retirement since she doesn’t get a pension plan in Japan or Canada. So she will be heading into some financial trouble in the future at the rate she’s going. We all started talking about the school a bit after that and that pretty much took us till 10pm. We had wanted to leave, but it takes awhile to leave as it always does.

I was talking to another one of the teachers as we were going to the train station. I really enjoy her company and our conversations. I would say that of all the teachers at the school, I’m closest with her and I would consider her a very good friend. But she told me some disheartening news too. She was also going to leave the school this March. I personally feel that she’s one of the best teachers at the school, and I’m very sad to see her go. It will be very soon and she needs to leave for her reasons too. There’s a lot of pressure for her working at the school, since no one appreciates her teaching abilities and the older teachers criticize her a lot. And both of the Native English teachers would be making their exits too. But she will leave before me, so I’m a bit bummed out. I also look at the advantage too, and she’ll have more time so we could hang out more and she’d be less stressed out. I think she’ll be very free from all the stress and she’ll love it. Since she just got married this year, I think that she feels very restricted with everything, so I wish her well.

I will probably make a trip to her house soon to have dinner since she invited me last time, but I couldn’t make it. Anyways, I didn’t make it home till around 12:30am. I’m glad that I don’t have work tomorrow.