Days go by

Life here has begun to feel very normal. I feel comfortable sitting on the bus for my morning commute. I've just about gotten the public transportation figured out. On weekdays I have a normal routine- I wake up ten minutes too late, but still get ready on time, yet I always run to the bus stop just in case the bus comes early, which it never does. I stand in line for the bus after two business men and one lady. Sometimes a school kid is there. If its raining we stand with umbrellas. Everyone is listening to music on their phones. The first bus comes but none of us get on it- its the 80 bus, we're all waiting for the 60. Five minutes later the 60 bus arrives and we get on the bus in the order we arrived at the bus stop. By the time I get to my stop, at one big train station or another, the bus is packed with students and business people. Luckily I'm sitting squished against a window instead of standing. I get off the bus and get on the next train or bus and eventually make it to my school.

Once at school I change into my indoor shoes. Just inside the door there's a little step up. You take off your outdoor shoes. Then, in your socks, you walk over to the shoe lockers, place the outdoor shoes on the bottom shelf of the shoe locker and grab the indoor shoes from the top shelf.

Anyways, then I head up to the second floor and find the teacher's room. The first floor has random rooms that I never see because they're not classrooms. Second floor has the teacher's rooms and 3rd year classrooms. The third floor has second year classrooms and first years are on the fourth and top floor. Once I get into the teacher's room I sit at the ALT desk, which is obviously used for random storage when I'm not around.

At 8:15 a school bell rings and everyone stands up and faces the front of the room where the principal and vice principal sit. Someone says ohayo gozaimasu (good morning) and everyone sits down again. The teachers go over announcements and I tune out. Eventually the teachers go to homeroom period for about 20 minutes and ten minutes after that the first class starts, usually around 8:50. Each class is 50 minutes long. I usually have 2-4 classes a day. When I'm in class I either lead the whole class with the Japanese English teacher's help, or I just help wherever they want- usually reading dialogue or vocabulary out of the book. When I'm not in class I try to plan lessons. If I'm done with that I study Japanese or read. It's so quiet in the teacher's room it makes me sooo sleepy... At lunch I usually sit at my desk. Quietly. Alone. While the other teachers chit chat. I kind of listen but only catch tiny words so I don't usually know what they're talking about. Sometimes they have me eat lunch in the classroom with the kids. I think the idea is to get them to speak in English to me but it always ends up as a big waste of time. Lunch time is break time, for students and for teachers. When I'm there the students feel pressured to speak but they end up just talking to each other trying to figure out something to say. I'm trying to scarf down my lunch while saying dumb things like "what movies do you like" and the students try to ignore me because they just want to chill out and not try to think of English right now. Hey kid, I hate it too.

Finally 3:30 rolls around and I pack up and leave. I listen to music again on my trip home. I usually call Kris. I get home, drop my backpack and lunch bag at the front door and head into the livingroom to see what Kris is up to. We try to figure out dinner- usually that means we need to walk to the OK Supermarket, or we need to cook up whatever meat and rice or ramen we have. Sometimes we just need to reheat some curry and heat up tempura or croquettes to put on top.

We hang out in the kitchen and do some dishes and cook together while we listen to music or talk. When dinner is done we sit on our couch, and pull our kotatsu up as our dinner table. We watch some show we've been getting through (Yu Yu Hakusho, Girl Meets World, Agents of Sheild, Brooklyn 99) or maybe a movie Kris got for us or one on Netflix.

After dinner we chill out on the couch and keep watching whatever is on. After a couple minutes or maybe an hour its dessert time. Dessert is almost always ice cream, but tonight it was Chocopies. Sometimes I need to lesson plan at this point, which is a bummer. Otherwise we watch shows/movies, until I need to go to bed. Around 9ish, usually nearly 10, I pack my lunch for the next day and get everything ready for the morning. I get into bed, check out some Pinterest, then try to get too slepp, always much too late.

Then I wake up the next morning, tired and 10 minutes too late.

K+K