March
19, 2007
The
resurgent cold I reported on in my last letter ballooned into another big bout
with the flu that has consumed the whole week. On Monday after writing to you
all, I dropped into bed to fight a fever and slept very poorly. I could feel my
heart putting in the overtime to make white blood cells for the battle and
dispatch them to the front. It was long battle, and ultimately successful, but
since then I’ve been dealing with the other symptoms – runny nose, sore throat,
cough and fatigue. On the bright side, I was able to successfully describe my
symptoms to a pharmacist in broken Japanese and get medicine for them. Missing
work has been out of the question, so I’ve been putting in my time and teaching
my classes. My load was lightened when many of my students cancelled classes,
presumably because they are also sick.
The
office is like a hospital this week. Ryoko-san, the branch manager, got sick the
same time I did and has been feverish and miserable all week. Yuri-sensei, one
of the part-time teachers, has been sick for almost three weeks and she’s in
terrible shape. At Ryoko-san’s request, on Friday I started wearing one of the
medical masks that people here often wear when they get sick to prevent the
spread of germs. I only wear it in the office to prevent my other co-workers
from getting sick; my students have to take their chances in the classrooms. I
have my doubts about how much protection the masks offer, but it can’t hurt to
wear one and makes the people around me feel better.
This
morning, also at Ryoko’s urging, I went with her to the clinic. The clinic, just
half a block from the AEON office, is on the second floor of an office building.
It was quiet and pretty, with comfortable chairs, classical music and thermal
containers of water and hot barley tea, lots of magazines (in Japanese, though,
so I couldn’t read them) and fresh-cut flowers. The doctor saw me after Ryoko,
asked some questions in English, some in Japanese (Ryoko translated), gave me
the tongue depressor and stethoscope treatment, palpitated the glands in my neck
and said in English, “You have a cold. Take medicine.” I thought for a moment
she was just cutting me loose to go find my own cough syrup, but she also gave
me a prescription for four different kinds of medicine, three to take with my
meals and one for fever and sore muscles. The three medications cause
drowsiness, so I’m wondering what to do about taking them before or at work…
Turns out Ryoko and I actually have different illnesses, though we got them
around the same time.
Despite
the illness, I had some good classes this week. It’s always such a great feeling
to feel that I managed to teach the class and make it interesting and help the
students. Now that I have the lesson formula down, I feel I can start to
personalize a bit and make things more interesting for the students. This week,
I was talking about Halloween in one class (the unit is about Halloween), and we
talked about trick-or-treating and carving jack-o-lanterns, both of which are
new ideas for my students. Next week, we’re talking about Thanksgiving. Most of
my students have never tried turkey; even at Christmas, as I mentioned before, a
box of fried chicken is considered an acceptable substitute for a turkey dinner.
So that should be interesting.
I tried
to explain the concept of St. Patrick’s Day to Ryoko-san and Mayumi-sensei, but
didn’t have a lot of success, although Mayumi-sensei was kind of curious. I gave
up after trying to describe a leprechaun: “A little man in green, and if you
catch him, he gives you gold!”
I saw
Masaki, the tennis coach, twice this week. He’s trying to finish last year’s
lessons before the April 1 deadline. He’s already booked more lessons for after
April, so I’ll probably see him a lot this year. He was pretty happy because
there was a tennis tournament in Hiroshima last week and his player nearly beat
the champion. The downside was that, because his player didn’t win, they don’t
get to go to the big tournament in Hawaii.
On
Friday, I went to Kita High School with Ryo-san and a part-time pamphleteer, a
young man named Takaki, to hand out more flyers. This was so much better than
last week for me, because it wasn’t as cold (or hailing) and it was later in the
morning (we started at 9am instead of 7:30). We were at Kita High School because
Kita is the best school in Matsue (Colin from Lucknow, ON, who I met at Kaya, is
the JET teacher there). It is very close to the castle, located on a steep,
pine-covered hill. Students wrote entrance exams for the high school a while
ago, and the results were posted this Friday morning. All the students who wrote
the exam came to the school to see the results. So we waited just off the school
grounds with other businesses that were also handing out flyers (cram schools,
for example, and uniform companies). I felt like a vulture. Soon students
started winding their way up the hill in their blue uniforms, sometimes with
their parents or friends, a few on their own, trying to get to the school before
the results were posted. And boy, did we know when the board went up inside. It
sounded like Johnny Depp had just walked into the building. The teenage girls
were screaming as they found their numbers on the board. The boys leaving with
their marks tried their best to look cool, but little smiles curled at the
corners of their lips. The girls were clustered together, sharing their news and
shouting their success to friends just arriving. I only saw one girl who didn’t
make it, although there must have been more. Her two friends, who had passed,
were walking with her, their arms wrapped around her shoulders, talking to her,
but she looked inconsolable. With good reason; her life plans had just got
kicked in the gut and in the following year she would be parted from her
girlfriends forever.
We
didn’t hand out as many flyers as we had last week, but Ryoko-san was happy with
my flyering. I’m very friendly and professional, she
said.
I taught
a private lesson to a sweet older man named Masami, who is probably around
sixty. He is going up a level to a new grammar class, and was trying a lesson
out. After the class, I asked him why is learning English. Turns out he likes to
oil paint and his dream is to go to Europe and “see the art”. He was really
charming. And he still visits and takes care of his mother, who lives near
Yonago, about a half hour away. Lots of spry seniors in
Japan…
Because
I was sick, I missed Nihonglish at Kaya, and the farewell party for my aikido
sensei, and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. I worked at AEON on my usual Sunday
off, teaching a couple of private lessons, prepping for next week and being
available for “Hello time!” with prospective students. I stopped at Kaya after
for a Guinness and to say hello to Seigi, who was also sick this week. I spent
Sunday evening watching the end of “The Seven Samurai”, since I had never seen
the last hour. It is a fantastic movie (though I recommend subtitles). Now I’m
going to bed, to enjoy a drug-induced slumber, before work tomorrow. I’m glad
Wednesday is a national holiday, and I don’t have to
work!
I made
official web camera contact with my parents today, blundering through the
connections with msn Live Messenger to do it. But I sat here in Japan and saw
Hortonville on a sunny morning, and my parents sitting at home in the den. Jim
even read my mind and brought a cranky cat to the computer for me to see. Mum
wanted to have a look around my apartment, but I need to clean it first. So
anyone out there with a computer camera, let me know and we’ll talk
face-to-face. And if your computer starts ringing, it might be me calling, so
hit Alt+A to answer…
Talk to
you next week!
Sarah