Monthly Archives: September 2017

Night of the Last

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It’s a the last day of summer vacation before actual work starts.

Although I’ve dropped in twice at the school where I work in the last couple days, I haven’t actually met any students. All that changes tomorrow and things could get badly rather quickly.

All my classes tomorrow are junior high school classes which means they will be working on their speech contest speeches which, in theory, were supposed to be completed as summer homework.

In reality, probably less than a third will have completed their speeches; another third will have their names on their papers and maybe one or two actual lines; and the final third will have lost the papers or claim they left them at home.

My job is to guide them through a couple days of writing and checking and then, if necessary, drag them at lunch and after school to complete their speeches. (My students know this is not a bluff.)

For two weeks there will be a lot of stress and annoyance, for both me and the students. Then we’ll try to get back to regular classes. That has its own problems. (But more on that in a future post.)

A Matter of Time

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I wanted what he wanted. He wanted what I wanted. Our timing was just off.

In the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down, the main character shoots up a fast food restaurant after they fail to serve him breakfast despite his being only a minute or two past official breakfast time. In my case, I arrived at a fast food restaurant while breakfast was still being served and opted for breakfast.

Granted, I was actually getting brunch (long story) and thought the changeover time was later. I could have asked, but I didn’t care enough to be bothered.

Then, a minute after I ordered, as I was waiting for my food, the staff flipped the signs to the real menu. I was annoyed, but not as annoyed as the man who couldn’t get breakfast. (I’d have swapped with him, but I think he wanted pancakes.)

After that, the only thing that bothered me was the quality of the food. I got the dregs of breakfast and what I got didn’t match the picture but I’m pretty much used to that now.

 

Thoughts After the Bar

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We took our youngest to a bar tonight because our oldest was out with her friends and doesn’t understand English or Japanese for “Get home early, we want to go out”. (Long story.)

This means She Who Must Be Obeyed finally got some beer tonight. However, although we had fun, it wasn’t as good as she was hoping.

We went to a local izakaya called “Yakitori Big” which features a good selection of things on skewers and a decent selection of alcohol flavored beverages.

The beer was fairly watery, which disappointed SWMBO, but the food was good. I started with watery beer, then ran through a selection of drinks, finally settling on sake which turns out to be the best deal for the money.

Our youngest had soft drinks, of course, but we got her to try gizzards, hearts, and tongue. (She was unimpressed with the first and last; tolerant of the second.)

Hopefully next spring we can make plans for the Spring Craft Beer Festival. If we start planning now, we might be able to pull it off.

Cold Beer Festival

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She Who Must Be Obeyed has been in the mood for beer. She even managed to discover that the Autumn beer festival had been moved to this weekend.

We (her, actually) made plans to attend the festival. Friday night, though, was thwarted by cold rain.

Today our plan was to go to the festival in the evening or, if the weather was bad, got to a nearby izakaya for less crafty beer.

Although the weather was gorgeous (eventually) it remained cool enough that beer was suddenly off the table.

Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer and plans have been made for tomorrow. However, the plan depend on our oldest being dependably on time.

I’m not holding my breath. We may just have to go to a grocery store and buy some beer.

The Summer Time Blahs

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Suddenly, I remember what the end of summer was like back when I was in elementary school. I’m ready for it to be over.

The doctor who did my retching/endoscopy check said I didn’t have cancer, but that my stomach showed signs that I was stressed. First I was like “Really? What proves that?” Then I was like, well, yeah, I could have told you that.

I was in a bad mood all summer and I’m not sure why. Maybe my usual October malaise has become an August angst.

There’s the anniversary of dad’s death along with the recent death of people I knew when I lived in Colorado. What bothered me about the latter was I didn’t remember the person until I saw pictures of her when I knew her. Even now, I don’t remember specifics, just warm feelings and a friendly smile. I’ve even seen pictures of us camping with her family and all I can do is think “when was that”?

There are also issues with my in-laws that are going to force major decisions fairly soon.

School starts soon, though, and I’m getting back on a normal sleep schedule. Maybe that will help.

Another Day and Another Confusion

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As I start gearing up for the start of classes next week, I find myself doing something resembling actual work on my “house arrest” days. Today, for example, I spruced up the spreadsheet I use for recording students’ marks.

However, because it has students’ names, I can’t actually send it in as evidence that I did something resembling work.

Instead, I filled out an online form that said I did it.

I’m operating with the depressing feeling that no one is actually paying attention to what is being submitted. I think this because I’ve been waiting for someone to contact me and tell me where to actually submit stuff and that hasn’t happened all year.

We got a video sometime earlier this year explaining how to submit one part of what we’re supposed to do but 1) I have to watch the entire video to find out what to do because no one thought to create a written version and 2) no one told us how to submit the things we will actually probably use in class.

I’m now in an odd waiting game to see what, if anything, ever comes of this.