Work Week One

On my 20-minute walk in the rain on the way to the bus terminal this morning, I noticed two things: First, inside an office, the employees were doing their morning exercise routine. I don't know if what they were doing was actually tai chi, but I wondered if I'll be doing morning exercises at my schools. I kind of hope I will be. And second, who knew manhole covers could be pretty? Whoever had the idea of putting a design of sakurabana (cherry blossom) on the covers received an appreciative fan today, as they gave me something nice to look at while my head was down against the blowing cold rain.

Day four on the new job finally felt like a workday, despite the fact that I've been wearing a suit all week. Monday was spent at City Hall all day, applying for gaijin (foreigner) identification cards and a bank account. It literally was a lot of sitting around and waiting interrupted by a walk across the parking lot for Indian food. Tuesday was spent in training with the AET sempai (senior teachers); and Wednesday was more of the same. But today we put what we learned during yesterday's training to good use, as we went back to City Hall to meet several of the employees of the Board of Education and visited our main schools for the first time.

We were formally presented to the Superintendent of the Board of Education this morning and received our certificates to teach English before being formally presented to the kyoto-sensei (vice-principals) of our schools this afternoon. At both ceremonies, there was a lot of bowing on everyone's part, a lot of hospitality extended on their part, and a lot of mangled Japanese on my part. Five times today I had to say "Watashi wa (my name) desu. Watashi no shogakko wa (school name) shogakko desu. Yoroshiku oneigaishimasu." And I said it differently each time. But I appreciate their graciousness in accepting my bumbled attempts to speak Japanese.

My elementary school is newly renovated and very nice. The teachers and administrators seemed extremely nice; and as an added blessing, there are a few English-speaking teachers in my school. Tomorrow is a half day for students/full day for teachers. On Monday I'll be at the kindergarten connected to my elementary school. Tuesday is a half day for students, as all the teachers in the city are conducting afternoon visits to their students' homes this week. On Wednesday I'll be at my third school, another kindergarten. Thursday is a national holiday. And Friday is another half day for students before heading into a five-day weekend for Golden Week (a week in which two national holidays fall). So my first full day to teach English at the elementary school will be two weeks from today. What a way to ease into a new job!

Tomorrow night is my welcome enkai, literally translated as drinking party. I'm looking forward to getting to know my coworkers outside the school, since Japanese people's at-work personae are different from their away-from-work personae. But I'm not looking forward to being around a lot of drunk people. Enkai are extremely important in Japanese society; and it's encouraged that we attend as many as possible so that we can create deeper relationships with the other teachers and staff. However, more than one enkai occurs in an evening. And several (expensive) enkai occur in a school year. So depending on how tomorrow night goes, the next enkai I write about may be the closing enkai of the year.

Until next time...