There was a train delay today that caused me to encounter into a train delay. I was also being clumsy so the delay was probably for the best.

At the start of July we finally got June weather–rain–but it’s been unusually cool this year. However, any time there’s rain, even though Japan has an annual Season in Which it Rains and a proper Rainy Season, there’s always a risk of train delays as certain train lines always seem to have delays as if there’s never been any rain on the tracks before.

This, of course, had to happen the first day of exams. However, on the way to work the only problems were mine. I was pouting at the rain and listening to music and didn’t notice the train signal and was surprised when barricade started to lower. Then I walked into the station with my umbrella still deployed and had to undeploy it before I got on the escalator.

Luckily, there were no problems with the exam itself, although I remain nervous during the listening test. There weren’t even any questions which is unusual as at least one person tries to trick an answer out of us (more on that in another post).

Then, after the tests were picked up and sorted, I found out that one of my students had arrived late because of a train delay and was taking the test in another room. I’d have to wait 20 minutes to get the test.

After the test arrived I headed home and as soon as I got to the station and saw the crowd of people outside the gate I knew there was a problem.

Someone had apparently committed suicide on the tracks about the time I left the school. If I’d left right after I got the main batch of exams I could have probably got home with not problem. Instead of hanging out by the gate I went to buy some pretzels. (Someone is dead and you are buying pretzels? Yes. That’s cold, dude, that’s cold.)

An hour and a half later the police had investigated and cleared the scene and the train finally started running. I had pretzels but didn’t eat them. I mostly napped. Which is also kind of cold.