The Sports Day scaffolding has been assembled in the arena. Praju reports students have locked off classrooms down a musty hall and filled them with the fledgling efforts of their massive billboard sized paintings. I see a few third year students wandering the halls like Lady MacBeth, their hands covered in red paint. Leaders have been selected. Classes have been re-scheduled. Starting next week we will have classes until lunchtime and then four hours of Sports Day practice in the afternoons. The Sensei (including me) are busy correcting mid-terms and marking essays, so these half day reprieves come at a good time in the term. We will do busy work inside and through our screened windows monitor the students flapping cards and dancing around in capes. All of us hope it will not rain.
I’ve been on sick leave for the last two weeks, in and out of school. Did you know all the massage therapists at The Massage Place wear white button-up coats that look like chef’s jackets? And solid white polyester pants? And the female receptionists wear baby pink aprons with their names written in hiragana so the little children know what to call them? It’s kind of cute in a cutesy way, and I now associate the color pink with all things medical. There is always pink somewhere in a doctor’s office over here. Pink slippers. Pink massage tables. Pink aprons. Is this meant to be soothing?
Also, there are only male massage therapists and only female receptionists. But hey, when I get a 10-minute foot bath followed by a 15-minute shoulder massage followed by 10 minutes with the octopus electric massage suckers all for 500 yen ($5) I wouldn’t care if it was administered in the 99-year-old woman’s smelly basement. I’ve been in and out of The Massage Place for the last ten days, and yesterday when they asked me how I was doing I was able to honestly say I’m “much better”.
I’ve been home the last three days resting up on the couch, reading, slowly (and I mean really slowly) packing our winter clothes boxes. I strategized. I developed a yoga routine. I figured out when I can go swimming and how often I need to do it. I finished two stories that have been in the back of my mind and eating up space in my sub-conscious. I have, in short, just come out of a spring hibernation. I washed dishes, lengthened my hamstrings and ate leftovers. I also got a little perspective, which makes me freak out a little less when I see on a neighbor’s email “status” the phrase: eight weeks left.
Eight weeks!
Eight weeks.
Back at school I’m eating my sandwich out of a bag that says I may put these things in it: carrots, broccoli, apples, sausage, candy, cheese. We’re getting tempermental plastic over here as summer approaches.
The three Board of Education professionals come in during lunchtime in black suits and power shirts and suddenly all 50 of us, chairs rolling back in our wake, are on our feet and the Principal gives introductions. They roam around all afternoon and then disappear. We did a stretch of “emergency” cleaning for them, if you’ll remember, but I don’t believe any comments were made on how spiffy our shelves were. Disappointing.
The student teachers are also here. There are about two of them to every Sensei and they’re all wearing the same black suit. During the morning meeting they troop into the room carrying their own red stools to sit on. They don’t appear to have any other purpose than just observing. I’m keeping a watchful eye on them.
I showed the second year students my brother’s high school graduation announcement and they gave him the highest praise: “Cool”. They were very disappointed to hear he had a girlfriend. He does have facial stubble in his senior picture, which is something the boys here won’t have to deal with for many more years. The Asian face just does not sprout hairs like a North American mountain man.
I filled one of Johnathan’s old socks with rice and heat it up in the microwave for my shoulders. Several of the Sensei have commented on how “cute” his sort-of-dirty old sock is. I think my parting gift to a few of them may be beautiful cloth bags of rice that will sit sweating in their metal desk drawers all through August and September and October. Until November when I expect a few thank-you notes and anecdotes about healed muscles. These chairs we sit in. They are very bad for the back.
Ms. Delicious is very glad to have me back at school and gave me an awkward side hug this morning. “You are feeling better,” she said. To which I said, “Yes, I am.” I did 30-minutes of yoga this morning, took a shower, made my own lunch and was 15 minutes early to school. “What does this mean, ‘be fired up?'” Kana asked me in debate class, holding out her dictionary. And so I taught them the cheer, Let’s get fired up! We are fired up! and I expect to see it used at Class Match while their classmates are thumping volleyballs over the net.
I’m feeling good and it’s great to be back in the saddle where I get to tell T-Rex Sensei, “The magazine won’t carry an item about his scandal,” is wrong, and I get to tell O Sensei that the phrases, “We will clean up the park this weekend” and “we’re going to clean up the part this weekend” are virtually identical, and where Kana answers everything with the phrase, “I am impatient”. How are you doing? I asked the class and Kana shouted back, I am impatient! Well, then, Kana, let’s get this party started.
The Kyushu Chronicles 