hey all,
Interesting weekend. Got to talk and play some Bad Company with Bri Saturday morning, and continued to play video games, watch movies the rest of the day.
Actually, the interesting weekend started Friday, because the ALTs received their pay checks, and we also had our monthly meeting. I don't believe I've described them yet, so I'll go ahead and do that here. First, we get out of work a couple hours early so we can go the the meeting, which is held either in city hall or the Board of Education building (it changes). Those last couple of hours are usually dead time: for the meeting we only miss one class, and we don't have to pretend to be busy after classes are finished. We aren't scheduled long enough after school to take part in club activities, so we can't fill the time with that. So we really don't miss much.
Anyway, at the meetings, all the ALTs gather together with our coordinator, and discuss any problems we've been having. Usually, everyone has the same problems, but a few people really just like to complain. I've already written this job off, so I don't usually say anything at the meetings. We also do presentations about how to teach certain grammar points. I have gotten some good ideas from some of these presentations, but sometimes they are a waste of time.
The highlight of these meetings is actually the drinking of alcohol which takes place immediately afterwards. This is usually lots of fun, but I've taken to leaving them earlier than everyone else, because they frequently devolve into complain sessions: all the complaints that don't get voiced to the school, the students, and our company, all the complaints about Japanese people, culture, food, etc, just come gushing out in torrent of negativity, which I really can't stand. Sometimes there will be one person voicing a few positive things that just get drowned out in the rising tide. The last thing I need when I'm imbibing an emotional downer like alcohol is lots of negative things flying at me like the monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.
This month's post-meeting imbibing was going pretty well, but I still left early because this time I didn't feel like drinking lots of wine and whiskey on an empty stomach.
Today was supposed to be a shopping day, but that got nipped in the bud this morning when Michi suddenly got angry at me. We've made up, but I see lots of fights like this in the future. It boils down not to personality, character, bad habits, or anything like that, but just the fact that I'm American and she's Japanese. I have to admit that these conflicts have lost some of their cuteness.
Anyway, we did end up doing the shopping, and even tying up a few more loose ends about future trips.
Cheers,
