The rubbish rubbish situation.

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Tuesday 26/06/2012

After not being able to sleep last night, I allowed myself a sleep-in. Still found time to start preparing the Juku Song Books before I left for school. When I arrived, the kids were sitting nice and quietly in front of the TV: Rebecca had taken them to the park, and thus they were chilled. This morning in addition to their ‘Let’s Talk’ books, Rebecca started them on their milk carton Windmills, which meant painting! Although a lot of paint somehow managed to get on their knees, the classroom and the children remained mostly paint-free! So it was a success!

Mummy Lunches meant a very peaceful lunch time, and all were finished and packed up by 1pm, meaning I could head straight on home.

Spent the afternoon counting Song Book pages and avoiding my Japanese homework before heading in to Juku early to print off the remaining song pages. Thank goodness that is all finished now, as a Juku day is hard enough without having to come in early. I put the song pages out in a big long line, and the kids had to pick up one of each page and keep them in order for me to staple at the end. I showed them how to do it, but some children have nothing more than soft mashed potato in their heads. When three girls in a row made a big mess of it, I took their pages off them, and told them just to start again, but when I turned around, they were moving the piles of paper around so that the piles were the same as their wrong order, instead of just getting a new set! Why, why, why!? I know it wasn’t my instructions as all the other kids managed. Ah well, you get through to some, you don’t get through to others.

One of my senior Juku kids brought in his PSP to play a Linkin Park song that he wants to learn next week.

Dominica dropped around before Juku with a bag of potatoes for me from Nagata San, so I microwave/oven baked two of them for dinner with cheese and corn. They were delicious! I haven’t felt so full since I have been in Japan. After a good hour of letting them settle, I headed out on a bike ride, my sniffles and sore throat too much for a run. I stopped at a few places to video/sound tape the different frogs and the boomer frogs that I encounter on my evening jogs. I really need to pump up my tyres, but it would seem that I would rather ride around for weeks peddling really hard, than simply pump them up.



Wednesday 27/06/12

Woke up at 6.45am and had a mad panic that it was past 9am. The sun was so very bright through the window, and I didn’t believe my phone, so ran out to get my watch as well. Went back to sleep till 7.30, but then had to get up, my eyes wide open. Finally found time to open up my Japanese books and get some study done!

Thank goodness the weather was sunny, so we took the kids out to the playground, the Bears were there too, and they had a good 40minutes of play time before the mad rush for music. At music, I was waiting to see how the music teacher would react to me, and whether I had been dobbed in for dobbing her in. She finished the last class only 5 minutes early, instead of 15, so I guess she has been told.

Lunch started off well, but got progressively worse, and four kids were still sitting staring at their lunches at 1.10pm. Put Finding Nemo on, and the kids had a good long discussion about fish eggs and eating them. Stayed back after school to chat to Emily Sensei about the fantastic looking Croquets she made out of our fresh potatoes from the field. I want her to teach me how to make them!

Going to attempt scalloped potatoes tonight, but need to buy some foil containers first, which means a ride to the 100yen shop.

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Skipped out on the 100yen shop in order to avoid sunburn (certainly not due to laziness!), but couldn’t find foil containers at the Shizutetsu or the Winderland. So I got creative and made my own oven out of a fry-pan and a roll of foil. It was very effective, but I did have the heat up too high and burnt the bottom layer. No matter, as the rest of it was delicious! Will never get that crispy cheesy topping this way, but when I haven’t had scalloped potatoes in months, I’ve almost forgotten what that’s like. I used criminal amounts of garlic and copious amounts of cheese, and it was amazing! Did plan on leaving some for lunch tomorrow, but I gobbled it all up.

Tidied up the house, but left it too late to vacuum, so that’s a job for tomorrow night. Instead, I rode my bike to the city and back after commandeering a bike pump that I spent ten minutes pumping water out of, and pumped up my tyres. Turns out I’m not fat and lazy, it was just the total lack of air in my tyres! Rode right into the city so I would know where to park, and after a few whistles from some men (could not believe how many people were on the streets, business men having drinks, girls in gorgeous heels on a Wednesday night!), I rode back. Several sets of traffic works as the road is being repaired. Took around 80minutes return.



Thursday 28/06/2012

A cool and fresh morning, the ride to school was very refreshing. Rode past the Pandas walking to the playground, and they thought it was very amusing to see me on a bicycle. Many scraped knees and head-butts today, the kids were very rough with each other. The play at the playground barely made a dint in their hyper-energy levels, but we soon had them sitting down and working on their Windmills. Packed them up early and took them to the park. I have grown smarter in the wilderness and ran for my life as the animals pounced on me for the box of toys. I stuck to my advantages: my legs are longer than theirs! So I soon outpaced them and was able to dump the box without being clawed. Little hyenas.

Despite lunch being curry (delicious curry, I even stole a spare lunch from the office to eat!), there was very little eating, and a lot of playing. I concentrated on force-feeding the kids who have to get on the first bus, and at least got them ready. Was hoping to watch the rest of Nemo, but it had been traded with another classroom. Instead I wrote my Japanese diary out for my lesson tonight. Need to start doing it daily, rather than in one huge clump just before my lesson. Left relatively on time, and although I had intended on riding my bike, the sky threatened rain, so I caught the bus instead. Napped the whole way on the bus and hurriedly made my way to the free coffee before having a wander around the shops and finding some Schwarzkopf shampoo! Fantastic! Except for the price: $36-$45 per bottle! Guess I’m going to have to go on a new-shampoo brand hunt.

Arrived at my lesson a little early, to find Hiroko waiting (I wonder what time she gets there?) to give her the Backstreet Boys CD and some honey joys! Fantastic lesson as usual, she read a story to me and then asked me questions about it, and then she read it again, and I had to repeat the whole story back. And I could! Have decided to start doing four pages of vocab a week instead of two, so we will see how well I manage that next week. Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}This week I learnt ‘Shujin’ which means ‘husband’. I was having real difficulty in remembering it, till I made my own little translation ‘Shoe Jin’: a person who pays for your shoes! Hiroko found this very funny, but told me to be careful to not say ‘Shuujin’ which means ‘prisoner’! Also went over give and receive and receive (there are two words for receive in Japanese!), but I feel like I am still struggling with it. Hiroko is challenging me with making my own sentences, and I have to make longer and more complicated ones every time. It really is stretching my brain out!

After class I went to the 100yen shop before grabbing some Subway for dinner. Although Thursday night is Gyoza night, I really just felt like a sandwich. I got Spicy Mexican, but there was nothing spicy about it, even the jalapeños weren’t hot! Back home I would have taken it back, but here that is normal (the Japanese don’t know how to do spicy unless it is wasabi), and it was still nice for something different. Plus, since the whole shop is in Katakana, ordering is beyond easy.

Riding my bicycle home from the bus stop, as happy as Larry, on the corner stood several neighbours who watched me ride past, park my bike, check my mail and pick up all my bags to carry inside. I waved and said Konnichiwa before heading towards my door. Then, an old lady started yelling ‘SUMIMASEN’ at me, (why couldn’t she have just said something when I was nearby?), and then the whole group followed me to my door. They kept asking if it was my house, and I said yes, you followed me home, you watch me all the time, you know this is my house. Then the lady said some more things at me, so I just looked at her blankly. Then she stepped up on my step and ripped a mail slip from out of my door. This was so rude, as I hadn’t even the chance to look at it yet. She kept pointing at the slip of paper, but since I had just got home, as they saw, and hadn’t read it yet, as she would know, that didn’t really explain things to me. Then she told me to read it, and it was 99% kanji and I couldn’t, so I just said to her over and over again ‘wakarimasen, wakarimasen.’ It was at this point she started pointing at my rubbish, and then I realised what this was all about. Still, although I could guess at what she was saying (whilst half the neighbourhood eagerly watched on), I didn’t fancy being lectured to, especially since all I wanted to do was put my stuff down, put my feet up and eat my dinner. Instead, I was ambushed and yelled at, and my good day turned very sour.

She called the number on the slip of paper and asked to speak to someone who spoke English, she then put me on the phone. The man spoke very little English, and from what I could understand, he told me that I had been putting my rubbish out in the wrong place and that the truck wasn’t going to pick it up. I told him that I do put my rubbish in the right place, and that it was already picked up. Then we argued and argued and I just said over and over that I didn’t understand. (Perhaps if I hadn’t worked a full day, then gone to lessons and shopping, and wasn’t expecting to relax the very second I got in the door, I would have been in more of a mood to read between the lines.) Then finally, I worked out that the council had sent someone to pick up my rubbish at my door, but they couldn’t find it, so they didn’t pick it up. If I wasn’t so embarrassed by the disgusting pile of rubbish, I would take a picture to show you, but to give you an idea, there is enough to fill a big Australian recycle bin, and it is all dumped beside my door. They must have been blind rubbish-people. Interesting job for someone without eyesight. I finally told him that I would speak to my manager and she would call him. Then the old woman spoke to him again, and then she rattled off something to me for five minutes. I’m sure that by this stage I was glaring at her. What a horrible end to my day!

Frustrated and feeling spied on, I shut all my curtains, locked my door and shut myself in like a hermit. After I had relaxed, had a whinge about it to some friends and finally eaten my dinner, I felt much better, but it wasn’t till 11pm that I went outside for my bike ride, absolutely dreading seeing anyone from my street’s face.

Rode a different route into the city and found it to be two lanes each way and a big wide footpath too, so much better a way to go. Also, past the Lemon 100yen shop, is an Orange 100yen shop! I can’t wait to go and check it out. I’m loving sifting through all the different 100yen shops, it’s almost like op-shopping but everything is new and the same price. You get some really awesome things if you scrounge around long enough. Exhausted on the way back, I stopped off at 7/11 for a strawberry yoghurt and some fresh beans which I ate on the ride home. What I was really craving was a lovely crisp apple, but there weren’t any.

I learnt this evening too that the new teacher won’t be here till September, so although it is Rebecca’s last day tomorrow, there’s no one to cover her shifts for two months. Next week is going to be chaotic, and the next two months are going to be very busy indeed.

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