"I like the cover - Don't Panic. It's the first useful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day...."
Today is Saturday. I only know this because the calendar tells me it is. Everything else is screaming otherwise. You see, I'm at school. On Thursday we had a half day for the kids to revise for their exams. On the free afternoon all the teachers went for an enkai, that is, went out and got plastered. Not me though, I still had to go to my special school, but, I did have most of the afternoon off at home - which is just as nice. Weekends don't mean anything here (just ask the kids who never seem to be out of their uniform). Oh, didn't we mention that when you signed up? You had a weekday off because of some curriculum thing? Oh, then you must make it up on the weekend. Waht? Overtime? Noooo.
Tell you what - why don't you keep your little day off and let me have my weekend, hmm?
Ah well. I prepared myself for this hell in the only way I know how - last night I went bowling. And drinking. Of course now I feel like a big bucket of warm vom, but at least I'm incapable of doing any work - that'll show them.
I got a little confused on the train this morning. I was trying not to look up, as in above knee level - I just couldn't handle that kind of stimulus so early. This combined with the reeling fact that it was Saturday at 8.30am and I was going to work. This and the pounding headache. And the shaky hands. Oh, and the cold. Anyway - I got on the wrong train. Not in the "oh dear I've ended up in Newport" kind of wrong train but the wrong train; the train that's going to the railroad yard. This is what happened: I humphed down the stairs to the platform and humphed on the train and humphed down in my seat and buried my face into my collar. Being a weekend the train was empty. Ah well, I thought, at least I can sit by myself for five minutes until the train leaves.
Then all the doors closed.
Then they turned the lights off.
Hang on, I thought. I tried the door to find it totally and firmly closed. I looked up and down the train: nobody. Ah. I half-jogged, in that I-don't-want-to-look-like-I'm-panicking kind of way, up and down the bloody thing trying every door hoping to god that I don't end up spending the day in the yard in a locked train. Finally I saw a man in uniform at the end of the train. He started to wave me away, saying something in Japanese. I thought he meant to go to the other end of the train where there must be an open door. But no, too late I remembered that in Japan what we do to shoo somebody away they do to say come here. After ten minutes of me vacilating between carriages he finally walked down to me, ushered me to his end of the train and pushed me out of the tiny tiny door that the drivers use. Ah bugger, I thought, now I actually have to go to work.
Marking exams. Listen to the dialogue and fill in the blanks.
"Sometimes I'm the only westerner for miles around. I really am a _________ here"
One student's answer: taxnorage
Tell you what - why don't you keep your little day off and let me have my weekend, hmm?
Ah well. I prepared myself for this hell in the only way I know how - last night I went bowling. And drinking. Of course now I feel like a big bucket of warm vom, but at least I'm incapable of doing any work - that'll show them.
I got a little confused on the train this morning. I was trying not to look up, as in above knee level - I just couldn't handle that kind of stimulus so early. This combined with the reeling fact that it was Saturday at 8.30am and I was going to work. This and the pounding headache. And the shaky hands. Oh, and the cold. Anyway - I got on the wrong train. Not in the "oh dear I've ended up in Newport" kind of wrong train but the wrong train; the train that's going to the railroad yard. This is what happened: I humphed down the stairs to the platform and humphed on the train and humphed down in my seat and buried my face into my collar. Being a weekend the train was empty. Ah well, I thought, at least I can sit by myself for five minutes until the train leaves.
Then all the doors closed.
Then they turned the lights off.
Hang on, I thought. I tried the door to find it totally and firmly closed. I looked up and down the train: nobody. Ah. I half-jogged, in that I-don't-want-to-look-like-I'm-panicking kind of way, up and down the bloody thing trying every door hoping to god that I don't end up spending the day in the yard in a locked train. Finally I saw a man in uniform at the end of the train. He started to wave me away, saying something in Japanese. I thought he meant to go to the other end of the train where there must be an open door. But no, too late I remembered that in Japan what we do to shoo somebody away they do to say come here. After ten minutes of me vacilating between carriages he finally walked down to me, ushered me to his end of the train and pushed me out of the tiny tiny door that the drivers use. Ah bugger, I thought, now I actually have to go to work.
Marking exams. Listen to the dialogue and fill in the blanks.
"Sometimes I'm the only westerner for miles around. I really am a _________ here"
One student's answer: taxnorage
posted by Geoff at 12:02 AM
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