Beckteria

The Sound of Light

I am sitting in the school office all alone. All I can hear is the sound of the lights buzzing and me typing away. It`s pretty damn lonely in here. Sure, I could take a nap, I could attempt to study even more, but I`m completely unmotivated. It`s been really rainy lately and it`s certainly not helping me become enthusiastic about doing anything. So, I`m going to munch on the choco-java beans, contemplate life, and get on my soap box rather than be productive and take out the garbage. (We are the janitors here. How self-sufficient. No wonder why it looks like a tsunami ripped through the office--nobody wants to clean.)

The good news: because I think I`m supposed to come to work everyday even if there isn`t class, I`ve been seeing my Japanese skills slowly improve. I guess you know that your skills aren`t too terrible when you can talk to somebody in almost entirely in Japanese for a couple of hours. Mostly w/o "my best friend" the electronic dictionary even.

The bad news: spending ￥500 a day on bus fare. I`ve ridden my bike to school 2 times now, but certainly not in the rain. (Hey, back off bike nazi`s!!!) It takes about 45 minutes, which isn`t terrible, but will be hell in the summer. So, the bus continues to be my friend.

The deal: I`m sitting here alone because all of the other teachers are grading the entrance exams that the junior high students took to get into my high school. Here`s how it works: you decide which high school you might want to go to (usually a couple) and take a test for EACH high school. So, it`s kind of like applying to college in the U.S. with the exception that you take a test for each school and not a standardized test. Each high school has students that are roughly the same intelligence. My school is considered to be an upper school kind of in the mid range. (In other words, pretty smart but not crazy genuises either.)

I am super lucky `cause my students are really nice, smart, and friendly. They`re a bunch of kids from the burbs that come mostly from upper-middle class families. The other high schools that I know of around here are pretty good too, so I think that maybe geography is intertwined with socio-economics just like the U.S. It`s just harder to see here in Japan.

So, maybe I should consider what the hell I`m gonna do for the weekend. Just really want to pass out in front of a heater. Maybe I should`ve brought a video/dvd to watch on the big screen tv. Oops. Guess I`ll find something else to kill the time.

posted by Bex @ 10:48 AM