The darkness doth approacheth hastily, m’lud. And yonder night time would chill a hardy knight of the Lord to the bone and have him hurrying home for his blanket, it doth. In the lands of “Their Space” the terror is twofold, as the merciless spirits wail on in the impenetrable fog. Still, I quested on to find more souls who did shock me with their kindness. Though their messages now soundeth the tone of soulless wanderers. Alas, not one hath heralded heart warming news yet and I hath disturbed the shades with the clearest faces. In the deep depths I must now descend to question the eternally faceless, slumbering and forgotten wretches. What hope hath I that they can stir themselves at my call, not least remember the passing of my maiden. My prayer is only that the last two magic messenger owls did reach their destinations safely and their greatly delayed return has occurred because their masters searcheth their logs so thoroughly. I pray.
Argggghhhhhh.... another swirly time hole!........
[Plop!]
The girls are getting brave. Well, maybe it is just the two I spoke with today, but lunchtime was interesting. I went to eat with a third grade class. They have proven to be energetic in the past, but this class was populated with a few of my favourites, including this one lad who is trying his hardest to win all my fake money. At my group of tables there was an empty place in front of me, and like some episode of Mastermind the students willingly took their place in front of me and let me quiz them on English or vice versa. The first was the eager lad, and I tested him with some great questions. He left happy, with another note. Then another guy came to sit down but while I quizzed him, the two girls sat next to him would chime in with questions. I was quite proud of them. When I can sometimes struggle to get a simple question out of a student, they managed to ask me if I had a girlfriend, when I last had a girlfriend, if she was British, why we broke up and if I was sad about it. It was very cool, and I was a little shocked. Why hadn’t they spoken much English to me before? Then the girl on the left, the one who, when I am talking, watches me intently, she took the seat opposite me with the air of someone “getting down to business”. I imagined the gloves falling to the floor. She tried to ask me one question which didn’t work out, and then .... my Japanese isn’t great but I think she asked me about sex. She either tried to say “Do you have....?” or “When did you have...?”. Luckily, I didn’t have to feign ignorance because I really didn’t know what she was on about, but I definitely got the feeling that it was something I had to pretend not to know. So I was a little surprised. Normally, the girls are the ones who are very quiet because they are shy to talk to me, but suddenly one was asking me about sex, or trying to.
It’s been a good day for talking actually. Sometimes I get jaded with how hard it can be to get one of my ideas through to implementation that I lose faith in the rest of the job too. Yet, when I take a chance and talk to people I realise how easy it is and I should make more of an effort every day. I was walking past the library when I saw one of Terry Pratchett’s books in Japanese, in the recommended section. So I picked it up and headed inside to speak to the newest English teacher who was working in there at the time. I told her I liked his books and asked her what the title of it was. In English it is The Wee Free Men but the Japanese title translates as something like The Witch and the Strange Fellows or something. It’s weird. All the Harry Potter books have odd names too, so I can never tell which ones the kids are reading. Anyway, I chatted with the teacher about that and other stuff for ages. It was nice because she was too shy to talk to me at first and so I thought her English was really bad, but that wasn’t it. She was much more relaxed and fun today. She also told me that one of my students had seen me in the restaurant the last time I went with my translator friend and they assumed we were a couple. I dispelled the notion of being a stepfather to a 9 year old and later realised that could have led into an ideal situation to chat up or at least inquire about the English teacher’s love life. But the company probably frowns on that anyway.
I have done so little teaching this week. In fact this whole term has lacked in lessons. There has either been sports days, tests, culture festivals or parent teacher meetings and while everyone else gets more busy, I just ended up with lots of free time. I’ve done all my planning for the next month. I edited some of my novel too, but I felt guilty, so that’s when I went round talking to people.
In general, I’ve been feeling really good. I’ve made an effort to focus on enjoying what is, instead of worrying about stuff. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be broken, much like Reality TV. Fortunately, in Japan real people are still attractive and if they are crazy and annoying I don’t realise it because it’s like spotting sugar in a pile of salt, so I don’t mind watching. All the TV watching I do is in the background anyway.
