February 10th, 2011

After working here for 15 months, I only just now noticed that the chalkboards have horizontal guidelines on them. Being notorious for my inability to make straight lines, my printing on the board has thus improved leaps and bounds! I stand in the back of classrooms now and admire how lovely my work looks.

All this time the kids must've thought I was batshit crazy for being the only teacher to write up and down and around like a serial killer.

February 10th, 2011 - Part 2

Teaching classes with this cold is pretty difficult. I've lost a good 50% of the hearing in my left ear, so if the students weren't quiet enough already, they're really inaudible now. And since they always panic and assume they said something wrong when I say, "what?" it's become a game of succinctly expressing that they were too quiet to be heard before they can freak out and assume they made a mistake.

In general, my patience is quite low today, which makes working all the harder. I'm plain old sick, but I'm also sick of blank stares and bewildered reactions. I'm sick of avoidance and panic. Don't even get me started on tediousness. If I ask a question, just answer it! Say anything. If you don't know the answer, say any number of things - "I didn't understand," "what," or even "help me!" Use your brain, I am not a rocket scientist and if you stop and think about it for a second you can follow my logic. And this isn't even connected to the language issue. A lot of this shit is happening in Japanese too. There are so many things I've run into today where the problem isn't in the English comprehension, but in the actual application of common sense. Sweet Jesus on a bicycle. I'm getting pretty fed up with this particular breed of incompetence.

As a result, I'm involuntarilly becoming even more direct and even more passive aggressive in an effort to break through all the bullshit and make up the lost time. I may cut a bitch up in here if I can't spend time with a BAMF who's direct, capable, and efficient. Thank god it's gonna be an ALT weekend. I'll need to play [summon gaijin army] if I'm gonna get some peace of mind back.

At least I've got one thing going for me, and that's that I wore my bigass winter boots today. I thought twice about it and almost wore the shoes I've been wearing all week, but somehow I just knew I'd need them. Sure enough, when I got outside there was already 4 inches of snow on the ground, and a good 2-3 more have fallen since. Thank god for second-guessing.