Even though it’s “summer break” at school, the teachers are still hard at work. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing but they’re staying busy. What do I do at work? It’s pretty simple.. great even..
I. DO. NOTHING.
It may sound great, but in reality it’s not. It took me a day to catch up and organize all my things from first term and it took me 15 minutes to get ready for the second term. Everyday I come in, make a plan of what needs to be done and it’s finished by lunch. I even added in time to do a few speed walking laps around school in every hour (that’s more so I don’t fall asleep in the teacher’s room). Yes, surprise surprise, I can be productive… But I also don’t have much to do to begin with.
These days are long and they seem unbearable. For the past couple of weeks we’ve been dealing with a heat wave. High temps reaching mid to high 90s with 80-90% humidity. Doesn’t sound bad but when the building don’t have central ventilation, the teachers don’t want to turn on the AC because it uses energy, and they lack the understanding of how to circulate air in a room, it’s pretty unbearable. But that never stops us from going to work! Or, going on our teachers trip.
This year for my teachers trip we went to Tokyo…. again. But this time, instead of doing all the site seeing, we went to a comedy show! Half way to Tokyo, I realized that I might have made a mistake of going on this trip. The comedy show had 7 different acts … in Japanese. Despite the fact that I’ve been living here for 2 1/5 years. My Japanese ability is no where near good enough to understand a comedy show. I think out of the 7 acts, I fully understood 2 and partially understood 3… One of them being the MCs that made all the announcements before the real show started. Over all, the show wasn’t bad, but Japanese humor is different from American humor. At first I thought it was me because maybe I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but then I saw two of my teachers sleeping during the show so then I started thinking maybe it wasn’t me.
After the show, we went to Harajuku. Very touristy and very crowded. We split off into groups for 45 minutes and did whatever our hearts desired; which meant finding a place with AC and eating ice cream. I had an icebrule which was a creme brule ice cream bar with fruit on top. I debated getting two it was so delicious but I refrained. Honestly, I was a little worried about going on this trip. I was worried that it wasn’t going to be fun. But mostly, I was worried I was going to get bored and fall asleep but that thankfully, that didn’t happen! I dropped hints at my teacher they should go to Disney Sea next year. It has Disney, roller coasters, and alcohol! I say that’s a win for everyone. My favorite trip though is still the professional soccer game from my first year. I’m hoping I can go at least one more time before I leave Mito.
Outside of work, everyone is just trying not to die of heat exhaustion/ heat stroke. Many people have been hospitalized because of the heat and a small number have died, but knock on wood, my friends and I are safe and healthy. Today is finally cooler. And by cooler, I mean it’s 87 degrees and 75% humidity, woo break out the sweaters!
The countdown for America is in the single digits and I couldn’t be more excited. I have list of foods I want to eat, places I want to shop at, and that’s about it. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and actually staying home longer than a couple of days. Hopefully I won’t get too bored.
