Monday, June 4

Let's do that thing again where I write a post every day, no matter what happened, no matter how ranty, no matter how wonderful!

Today is Monday, it is about 2:15 right now and I have had an awful day!  Well...awful is pretty strong, but I have had small frustrating moment after small frustrating moment today and it has all added up to a not fun day..  Ranty post alert!

ok...I will start at the beginning.

I got to school like usual, no problems there, and I was just getting set up when one of my teachers came up to me and said the equivalent of "I am counting on you for today!" and walked away.  .......um..........  did I miss something?  20 seconds of PANIC, frantically searching through my schedule book to see what I had promised to do today that I had forgotten about found nothing, and followed after the teacher and asked him to elaborate.  Turned out he wanted me to do the whole class by myself (he would be in the room, but I would be in charge of activities)  which is fine, but then when I asked him for a theme of some sort, he gave me the very specific  "nandemoii"  (anything is ok) answer.  Well, great.  Thankfully I had first period to figure it out, but these kinds of moments just frustrate me.  I need more warning usually, and I need something a little more specific.  So that was 1 small moment of irritation.

Next...I went to the class I discussed above.  I made a word search and then we were going to play spoons.  Mostly the class went badly.  The kids were talking, not listening to me, not playing the games right, etc.  And the teacher mentioned above is not so good at disciplining, so he just let them go.  moments of irritation to 2.

Next.  You all probably know I like my space.  I don't like people to touch my things or go through them unless I have given them permission.  Well, another teacher was talking to me about 4th period and he came over to my desk and for one thing he does not know how to make eye contact, so he was looking all over the place, but then he started touching the papers I had on my desk!  And commenting on them!  (It was a stack of puzzles I have made...but still!!)  And he also had no idea what he wanted me to do during class, so it was one of those incredibly awkward conversations that was mostly pauses.  we decided I would just do a quick warm up game and then we would work on the textbook.  Ok, cool. but still touching things+awkward = moment 3.

Well. I went to 4th period, did my quick game, we were working on the textbook in which the students learned new words including appear and disappear.  The teacher decided this was a good time to point out the prefix "dis" and how it makes words mean the opposite.  He then decided to give another example:  appoint, disappoint.  He told the kids the meaning of disappoint, and then he just decided for himself that appoint means to put at ease.  (best I can translate the Japanese word he used).  NO!  THIS IS NOT RIGHT!  What am I supposed to do with this?!  Moment 4.

Sometime between moment 2 and moment 3, I came into the teachers room and there was cake on the table.  CAKE!  Just what someone who had already had 2 irritating moments needs!!!  CAKE!  So I get a piece, and a teacher says to me in a special* tone "oh, Elissa, that has anko in it, so be careful."  Back story...anko is red bean paste, it is sweet and delicious and in a lot of Japanese snacks.  I have lived here for 3 years and these people have ALL seen me eat anko and say I like it.  so WHY WHY WHYYYYYY would this teacher pick today to give me that condescending-toned "oh...it has anko in it" warning.  *Not sure if you know, but sometimes Japanese people get this tone...it is sorta condescending?  I can't really explain, but other people who have lived in Japan will probably know what I mean..  Like when someone says to me "Iiyama has four seasons!"  Basic statement, yes, but in the tone, there is this implied meaning: "aren't we wonderful? we have four seasons!  bet your hometown doesn't!"  So this makes 5 moments.

And one more for the list...this is a constant annoyance, though.  We have a hot water pot in the teachers room that everyone can use.  I wanted some coffee but then pot was EMPTY.  I have never understood why someone would leave the pot empty.  You finish it, you fill it back up!  Why is that such a hard concept!  But I filled it, waited the 10 minutes and then got my coffee, so, I will only count this as a half an irritating moment.  it probably would not have bothered me at all if it were the first thing of the day.

today's total 5.5

Add to all of this the fact that I am trying to write grad school goal statements, figure out how to get letters of recommendation from people who don't know how to write letters of recommendation, work on a letter to my successor, and study really hard kanji and you have a frustrated Elissa.

here's to tomorrow being better!  I think I will walk to and from my English conversation class tonight to de-stress a bit.