It Takes My Breath Away

Hello everyone!

For dinner I'm eating chicken nuggets off of a lacquered plate. And before you ask- yes, the Japanese make good chicken nuggets (they make good lacquered plates too!). Getting them unfrozen was the hard part. As I may have already told you, Japanese homes do not have regular ovens. Indeed, they would take up too much space in the relatively cramped living conditions. Instead they (and now I) must make do with toaster ovens with buttons so numerous that they fall just short of airplane cockpits in grandeur. For example my oven boasts that it is able to cook sponge cake (suponji ke-ki), gratin (guratan), and cookies (kukki-). This is very impressive, but so far I have been unable to find the setting that simply re-heats food. Until I discover this carefully guarded secret I will have to lie to my oven and tell it that my chicken nuggets are actually “toast.” Hopefully it does not leave me in a gourmet huff when it finds out otherwise.

Anyway, Monday was my first day at the school office. I went in around 8:00 am and soon thereafter a teacher arrived to show me around the school. As everyone may or may not know, Japanese teachers live together in one large communal office rather than having their individual classrooms. Instead it is the students that have their own classroom, divided up by cohorts within grades. The teachers visit these classrooms from their office, and the cohorts of about 25 students stay together for all of their classes. I believe the theory behind this is to create a strong sense of “The Group” within the students, along with a sense of pride in their space. Students are in charge of cleaning the school, and one imagines this chore comes more easily when students feel ownership in their classroom.

(Side Note: Alistair is all ready to go to work with me now that I'm done making his tie!)

Classes do not start in earnest for another couple weeks, so the tour was pretty quiet. Quiet but hot. The majority of the school is not air conditioned and for the majority of the week temperatures were in the 90's with humidity up near 70%. Hoping to look sharp I was dressed in linen slacks with a dress-shirt and under-shirt tucked into them. By the time we returned to the air-conditioned staff office I was sweating like an adulterous politician. I sat down at my desk to watch videos of language assistants demonstrating effective lessons. Moments later I had stopped sweating and started feeling nauseous. As I began to fan myself a dialogue sprang up between mind and body. Body remarked that it felt pretty crummy, and that perhaps asking for help might be a good idea. Mind retorted that Body was clearly overreacting, and that sitting tight would improve the situation. “Nope! Still feeling like fainting!” remarked Body. Mind groused about making a bad impression on the first day of work by looking needy. Body described in lurid detail the amount of bowing and formal Japanese required should the notion of vomiting on the office laptop be realized in actuality.

Getting over my pride I finally asked for help. The dress-shirt came off and one of the other teachers got me a cookie to settle my stomach. Then the vice-principal went to turn the air-conditioner down even lower. (Keeping in mind that Japan has been moderating their AC use because of the power shortages) Basically, my co-workers are the best. This is one delicate Oregonian who won't be forgetting that any time soon.

-Andrew