It occurred to me while writing an email earlier that I may never have actually outlined a typical day for anyone who might read this thing. So, please allow me to elaborate. I try to keep it concise, but, if you read this at all on a regular basis, you know I’m not so good at that… Usually my three alarms go off around 6:15-6:30ish. Half the time I sleep through them, but when I don’t, I turn on my heat (we turn it off at night to save energy, which means my apartment can be in the 40s or 50s in the morning), and head to the shower. To get to the shower, I leave my bedroom through a sliding, Japanese-style glass door, and enter my camper-sized, unheated bathroom. Not fun. Especially in January and February – ice has been rumored to have been discovered on some of the apartments’ bathroom floors in the morning. But there’s lots of hot water, so I am thankful. At around 6:45, usually while I’m still getting ready, the other junior high teachers (5) arrive at my apartment for morning prayer. This has been a blessing to all of us – to have time to focus on important things before we rush off into a world that hustles and bustles, most of which we can’t really understand. Then, depending on which day it is, I head off to either Segawa Jr. High School, or Funehiki Jr. High School. Segawa Jr. High has about 75 kids in all three grades (7th-9th, what they term 1st-3rd because each level starts the numbering over – thus in high school they start again at grade “1”.) Funehiki has somewhere around 450 kids, so there’s quite a difference in atmosphere. Segawa is more traditional, but also more family-like. Funi-chu (short for Funehiki chu-gakko) is more casual, with more individual freedom because there’s too many people to keep track of everyone closely. When going to Segawa, I take a kindgergarten bus on its route to pick kids up in the morning. By the time I get to school, two adorable 3-year-old boys have joined me on the ride, and politely greeted me with “Ohaiyou gozaimasu,” the Japanese equivalent of “good morning.” So, when we pull up to the school, I thank the bus driver, and add “Ittekimasu” meaning “I’m leaving, then coming back,” and he replies with “Itterashai,” telling me, “yes, please do go and come back.” This was, needless to say, very odd for me at first. I kept thinking, “of course I’m leaving and coming back! Do you think I’m going to stay there?!” But, it’s polite. So I learn. When I step inside both schools (Funi-chu I walk to), the first thing I do is change my shoes. We have separate shoes for indoor and outdoor use. This, too, I found strange at first, but when I see the kind of mud that accompanies a good thaw around here, I realize the value in the exchange of footwear. So, my shoes in place, I head to the teachers’ office. The teachers in the schools here all use one office, with the desks arranged in some sort of pattern, side to side, all crammed together. It’s a big cluttered mess, if you ask me, but it seems to work. So, I enter the office, and loudly proclaim, “Ohaiyou gozaimasu” to anyone within earshot, and they promptly respond likewise, because it’s polite to greet everyone when you first meet them throughout the day. Because I usually arrive before most teachers, after I get settled, I usually try to find something to look busy with for the time between my arrival and the beginning of 1st period. There is a short homeroom class first, so I have a lot of time to fill with my pretend business. I usually just end up staring at the wall for a while, still not quite awake… Then classes begin. At Segawa, the most classes I can have in one day is 3, because there is only one class for each grade. (This leaves even more time for me to stare at the wall or try, usually unsuccessfully, to look busy) At Funehiki, technically I could have as many as 6, but since Tammy (the other Assistant Language Teacher at Funi-chu) and I split the load, it usually ends up being somewhere around 2-3. During class, I enter with the head teacher (a Japanese teacher that I work with), and the students all stand up. “Good morning Miss Hori!” They announce. And class proceeds after we have asked the weather, date and day. During class we usually do some sort of reading from the text book, then they either have to do memorizing exercises, or repeat after me, or copy stuff into their notebook (the ineffectiveness of the teaching methods and the lack of any desire to change them infuriates me, but that’s another post)…so, then at the end of class, the students all stand up again, and tell me, “Goodbye, Miss Hori!” It kinda sounds like they’re marching with their voices when they say it. They haven’t quite mastered the sing-song tone of English yet… The noon bell goes off at, well, noon, and the whole city gets excited (yes, the song reaches everyone in the city, it’s like a community alarm), that lunch is coming soon. Well, actually, usually everyone is totally consumed with their work and doesn’t even stir. But I get excited that lunch is coming soon, because I don’t usually have much to do. I usually eat lunches with one of the classes. I’m on a “schedule” at both schools so I can spend a little bit more time with the students on a more personal level. All sorts of things happen during this hour, from observing crazy 9th graders play some sort of tackle game, to asking a sweet 8th grade girl advise for my Spring Break trip to Kyoto. I love lunch! After all the classes are finished, osouji commences. This is cleaning time. Everyone participates. Even the principle and vice principle. Everyone (except me, I can’t get myself to do it) puts on a silly white cap to designate this as a “special time,” and begins to complete his or her assigned task. I help sweep the library at Segawa, and usually “help clean a classroom” at Funi-chu. The reason I “help clean” there is because Tammy and I managed to find the group of kids without a teacher chaperone, which means that we have a lot of fun basically giggling and goofing off for ½ hour… At the end of the day, the kids have homeroom again, and then clubs. The clubs can last up to 3 hours long, and the kids are DEDICATED. They do crazy things like go barefooted in an unheated gym to practice karate in the middle of winter. They play their instruments outside (in January), and other insane things that I really don’t want to participate in between the months of November and March. So, usually I stay where there’s a heater or, if it’s 4:15 or later, I head home, making sure to announce, “Osakini shitsureishimasu” as I leave the teachers’ office, backing out as I bow, letting them know, “how rude I am for leaving before them.” So, that’s my day. Of course, it’s always sprinkled with other random events and happenings, like right now – three former Segawa Jr. High students (high schoolers now) are peeking through the teachers’ room window, waving at me, and giggling when I wave back (did I mention two of them are boys – probably about 17 years old). Though the routine stays the same, nothing is what I would term “ordinary.” As Tricia says, “My time here has ceased to become ‘life in Japan’ and now is just ‘life,’” but it’s definitely life filled with the random, the odd, and sometimes, yes, the ridiculous and absurd. Maybe eventually it will just become normal. I hope not.