Normally around lunchtime at Yamura I’ll either have paid for and be semi enjoying my school lunch or on my way to 7-11 where I pick up some tasty pre-prepared lunchtime rice+meat thing. Every day I walk to the 7-11 is a day I pass a curious Italian Trattoria. Today I didn’t just pass it, I went in!
Inside a slightly dark and slightly shoddy looking establishment was a bar area setup for loaners like me out for lunch. The menu was impressively large, but in all Kanji. I flipped to the one section I could navigate; pizza. I scanned until I found it, ma-gu-ri-ta. I ordered this simple mozzerella, basil, and tomato pizza with a “cola,” which turned out to be a coke. While the pizza tasted like it was made with 100% canned ingredients, including the basil, and the appetizer soup could’ve easily been warm water with pizza grease, the entire meal sure as heck beat another day of 7-11. Score? 6.8
Bonus review time. One of my classes this morning was being its usual disruptive self while watching a clip from Nightmare Before Christmas. My attention was fixed on the TV and I had tuned out the students wrestling in the background when the crash or a chair thrown across the room grabbed my eyes. I looked over to see two students grappling in a way that was anything but playful. My JTE made her way over the classroom and told the student to either behave or get out. Later she would ask me if she did the right thing, or if what she did was wrong. I had to reassure her that this was 100% the right thing to do. I held myself back from elaborating on all my feelings, about how she should discipline more often and not be afraid to be firm once in a while. I think todays class illustrates the differences of the student-teacher relationship between Japan and America pretty well. I’ve heard that JApanese teachers don’t have as much recourse for discipline as their American counterparts do, mostly because parents are less directly involved with their education. If the students are at school, it’s their problem. It can make sense if you flip the scenario, would you expect a teacher to discipline a student for things done at home? 7.4
Bonus bonus. I’m sitting in my room with a jury (jerry?) rigged rope drying rack because it’s too cold outside to expect my clothes to be drying from washing by tomorrow. Also it is nightime, a period annoyingly devoid of sunlight. I hope this stuff dries. I swear if I have to hoof it to the train station with the elastic part of my boxers still soaked I’m going to be grumpy. More grumpy than usual. So grumpy that my DS screen will be abused more than usual on the train ride to work. I can see it cowering in the corner, fanning my underwear. Score? Dry.GodDamnit
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