Summer's Gone!

Yes, indeed.  The weather has finally gotten cooler.

It was a hot one here in Japan this summer, and I hated every minute of it.  I work at a school that is not fully air conditioned, and it's amazing how a hot and humid public school, packed with naughty teenagers, can really sap all the energy out of a man.

This week was the week the weather changed... and right on cue, it happened on the autumnal equinox - September 23rd.  Banzai!

Work was tough this week.  My class schedule is basically packed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and on those days I have no time for anything but teaching and grading papers.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are lighter, so I have time for planning lessons for the next week, making PowerPoint presentations, etc.  However, this past week there were national holidays on Monday and Thursday.  In addition, on Tuesday the school ran a Monday schedule.  Therefore, all week from clock in to clock out, I was running around all day, trying to do everything with the limited time I had outside of classes.  I'm still worn out from that.

Luckily I was able to unwind by doing some container gardening.  In anticipation of fall, I planted some loose-leaf lettuce seeds a couple of weeks ago.  The weather stayed hotter longer than I thought, but now that it has been cool for a few days, the first seedlings have popped out of the dirt.  I'll share some pictures when they get a little bigger.

And if you were starting to question my manhood (Which sex do you think did most of the gardening in the history of mankind?), I saw some Falcons highlights on the Internet this weekend, too.  Great game against Arizona.  I'm looking forward to the Falcons-Saints game today.

Three Guys, Some Beer, and a Friday Night

I need to do that more often.

For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long, this past Friday I went out with the guys - specifically, with a couple of expat guys who teach English at a school I used to work at.  We went to a bar in Osaka, had a few beers, sat at one of the sidewalk tables and just enjoyed the Osaka night.  I was buzzed after just two beers.  Yeah, weak, I know, but I hadn't had any alcohol for two months before last night.

I forgot how much fun it can be to hang out with some expats.  Before Friday I could count on less than two fingers how many times I've spoken in person to a non-Japanese person since March.  I wasn't really bothered by that; after all, if you are going to live in Japan, might as well interact with Japanese people, right?  But there's something about hanging out with people who fluently speak the language you are fluent in, who have common interests and somewhat common backgrounds.  That is something I should try not to neglect.

Student's Pet

At my school, most teachers basically shun the bad students if they can help it.  They try not to talk with them or otherwise interact with them.  I perfectly understand that and expect that to happen, because some of those kids are a real handful (not to mention their parents). 

What I didn't expect was how much effort teachers put into interacting with the good students. 

When teachers walk through the hallways at school, making their way through the sea of students, they usually have their eyes focused straight ahead, trying not to notice most of the students.  But if they happen to see some of the good students, they will stop immediately and chat, sometimes to the point of having to run to make it to their next class on time.

But there's more than that.  I've seen teachers compete against each other to get in the good students' good graces!  The students stop by the teachers' office to chat, and a teacher will come up and chat with them.  A few minutes later, another teacher will butt in, and before you know it, several teachers are around, trying to win their affection.  In addition, some teachers are lurking in the background, hoping the first teachers clear out soon so that they can move in and have the students to themselves.

I guess that shouldn't be surprising.  After all, teachers are supposed to like students, and good students make that a lot easier to do.  Still, the sheer difference in behavior towards the good students, as opposed to the not-so-good students, is quite interesting.

Green Thumb Is Still There

Did some container gardening today.  Fall is around the corner, so I planted a long container of baby leaf lettuce.  I'm very excited about that, because I haven't had (eatable) lettuce on my balcony since about May.  Thanks to aphids and the brutal Osaka summer, it was impossible to keep the lettuce growing all year.  That was sad, because I came to like going out on the balcony, picking some leaves, and making real fresh salad.  Those days are almost here again.

So now my balcony container garden consists of a container of baby leaf lettuce (not yet sprouted), two containers of timothy grass for Hoppy, a container of oats for Hoppy, a container of lemongrass, some ivy, and a small tree (and I have no idea what kind of tree it is).

My Name Is Darth Vader!

Here I am at the store, modeling what a lot of middle-aged and elderly women in Japan like to wear in the summer when they're outside on a bicycle. It's supposed to shield their face from those dangerous UV rays as well as keep their skin as light as possible. I have no idea what it's called in Japanese. I just call it the "Darth Vader Mask."