August 10th

After waking up later I went into the office today for the first time. I met another one of my JTEs who is also near-fluent and he seems really nice, too! Shiho-san took me on a little tour of the school and my desk and prop cupboard. The schools here are organized by year so there are three floors for second year, third year, and first year bottom to top. We all eat in a central lunchroom with the children. We’ve decided that I’m going to bring a lunch every day while I try out the Kyushoku lunches we pay for so that if it’s got a lot of meat then I still have food. This means I need to make things that won’t go bad if there’s no fridge space for me. I also don’t have to go into work over Obon next week since almost no one is going to be at school, so I’ve got three more days off before the Gifu orientation and when I really start to work.

It sounds like my predecessor didn’t take her job very seriously so I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to actually teach eventually and that the JTEs will want to let me really work with them. I don’t want to just be the stereotypically lazy ALT who plans a few activities, says a few words, slacks off at her desk and goes home as soon as she’s allowed.

I rode a bike for the first time in more than six years today. It was actually pretty easy, I only messed up one time and there was a metal fence I could catch myself on. Here’s hoping that I get better and less wiggly over time. If I can walk to and from school every day and do some biking I should be in great shape in no time! Haha, if that doesn’t do it the constant sweating buckets should! Don’t worry, it’s only 3 now and I’ve had way more than 8 glasses of liquid already.

I got my first call today, too! It was from my Seino PA just checking in on me and seeing how things are going for me. He also wanted to know if I’m going to the Seino welcome dinner tomorrow. My town festival is on Sunday night, too! This weekend is going to be really, really fun! Ryan said I should be able to find a nice men’s Yukata that will fit. Tomorrow Alex, a lovely older JET with a family who I talked to a lot on the Shinkansen, is going to pick me up and take me to visit her town and family! Everyone is so nice~!

Hm, hm... Tonight I’m going out with Alice and some of the other local JETs for sushi. She came over with Brandon and Ashley last night to say high and I’m so brain-dead that when she said she was one of my students (accent and everything) I actually believed her. XD And I thought I was becoming less gullible, haha! I haven’t met Dan, the English teacher who’s been here for 13 years now (or our crime boss, as Brandon says) but the more I hear about him, and everyone really, the more excited I get to meet them!

P.S. So this evening I met Simon who actually lives like right by where we parked to go to the temple yesterday. His students gave him two little Rhinoceros beetles to raise recently. *envy* Sushi was good and we hit up some more stores I hadn’t been to yet. I saw a huge toad on the drive home. I thought he was a fist-sized rock at first.

My new futon is actually absurdly comfortable and easy on my back and man, the only time I stop dripping sweat here is when I’ve been lying down immobile for at least 20 minutes with the fan on me. I even sweat when I sleep. I don’t want to be an inch higher than I have to be. I’m going to sweat off a few pounds if nothing else, I think! I actually have a mild rash on my throat from sweating so I’ve been trying to rinse it whenever I can and keep it as dry as is possible in this disgustingly hot country. Gifu is the hottest prefecture in Japan and more humid than Tokyo, hey? I’ll appreciate it in the winter but for now it sucks.