Sunday, October 31, 2010

Communication

Living in Japan has its fair share of communication highs and lows. This week has been a very low week at one of the schools I work at. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but I'll let you be the judge.

On Tuesday, I headed to one of my classes to teach when I was informed that from this week classrooms would change and I would be teaching in a different room. Gee, wouldn't that have been nice to know when I arrived at school, rather than right before class. Especially since there was a printed sheet that had been handed out (to other teachers, just not me) with all of the pertinent information on it. I headed to the room... which was empty! Nice. Tired of the run around and needing to get class started, I found the closest member of the English staff that I could and explained the problem. He told me to wait in the designated room... and then found out that my students were in the English conversation room (not the room that was actually assigned).

Argh! I took a few deep breaths and managed class just fine after that.

Then there was today. There is a typhoon passing by the Tokyo/Yokohama area today. The junior high students had classes in the morning while I taught a class (had a Halloween party) of elementary schoolers. After class, I checked my desk - no messages - and headed out to get ready for an afternoon class with my junior high school kids. I returned from the brief shopping mission to find a notice about classes being canceled in the afternoon and hoping I wouldn't be inconvenienced.

I confronted the author of the note and asked why I hadn't been told sooner since I'd already spent my own money on getting ready for a party that wouldn't actually be taking place. I came to find out that the decision to cancel classes had been made at 11am (my elementary class ended at noon, so there was ample time to leave some sort of notice on my desk!) and he just apologized.

Apologize only go so far. And in my way of thinking an apology means that the person will try not to repeat a mistake. This is not the first or even the second time that a situation like this has arisen. I'm just less willing to nicely nod my head and say "oh, it's alright" than I used to be.

Sorry for the vent!

Friday, October 22, 2010

things that happen when you run...

Well, I have officially begun running again. I've managed 4 days this week (including last Sunday), which I figure is pretty good. :-) Now we all know that there are a lot of weird things that can happen when running.

Today I had the privilege of aiding a toad. Yup, that's right a toad. He was smack in the middle of the zebra stripes of a side road that I was running past. I nearly smooshed him actually. Well, I looked back to see what might happen to him and he nearly got run over by a bike!! (I think it actually ran over one of his legs!)

I just couldn't let Mr. Toad get run over... and as he was pointed directly at the main road and all it's busy traffic I decided he needed a little help. So, I picked him up behind his head and began looking for a bit of green to put him on. Now, in Japan it's a bit difficult sometimes. People don't have big gardens and yards to put a stray toad into. So... I went around the corner and saw some planters (they looked like they were just growing weeds) along the side of a house. I deposited the toad into the planter and continued on my run.

Since my run was an out and back, I ran past to see how the toad was doing. He had hunkered down and seemed quite pleased with his new surroundings.

Yay for random animal rescue opportunities!!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Lately...

Fall is upon us. The weather finally has a cool feel to it (not crisp yet, but still nice) and we're losing daylight to indicate that the seasons are changing.

I love fall. The food (chestnut rice, "sanma"- fall fish, and hearty soups!) in Japan is wonderful! It really adds to the feeling of fall.

This year I've been feeling "strange." This feeling didn't start with fall, but I finally decided to go to the hospital to see about what might be the problem. My mom seemed to think that it might be a thyroid problem as she and my grandmother both have thyroid issues.

I went to the hospital on Friday. Had a thorough talk with a doctor, she ordered blood work and a urine test too. Did it, waited for about an hour and saw another doctor. She went over the results of the test. I'm healthy! Nothing is strange at all as far as the tests showed. But she suspects that I'm perhaps suffering from mild depression.

I was a bit shocked. So, instead of heading to the doctors for a consultation (I was in general medicine), I said that I would try to change some things (diet, exercise among other things), but if nothing changed I would come back in December.

I'm searching for ideas about how to get motivated to re-start a regular exercise routine. I know that once I start I'll be much happier and have more energy, but I'm hard pressed to find the motivation to BEGIN. I know there are some runners out there that might have some advice. I'd love to hear anything!!

Hope everyone is well!

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Busy Kitty weekend!

I have a cat. Her name is Suzu. She is a bit of a mommy's girl. She prefers women to men. And she rarely has visitors... until this past weekend. It was a busy weekend and I think that Suzu made some strides towards being a more amiable cat. :-)

Friday of last week was Tokyo Day! It really means very little, except that teachers at private schools often get the day off. Luckily I was one of those teachers and my friend and co-worker Michelle was one as well. So, we made plans for her to come down to Yokohama (where I live and she'd never visited before!), where we would do a bit of exploring and also do a bit of relaxing at my house and of course she would meet the kitty.

As mentioned above, Suzu prefers women. Even though she was cautious, eventually Suzu made friends with Michelle's feet (her first sign of intimacy) and there was very little in the way of hissing or hiding under the bed. Yay, Suzu!! Well done.

Saturday, I worked most of the day while Shimon helped fix a rotatiller and did a bit of shopping at a local outlet (he even bought me a fuzzy fall jacket!! love it!!). After the shopping, he and his friend Kato came over and we all had dinner together. Though Suzu's favored gender is not male, she did a great job. Kato was good with her (ignoring her most of the time - perfect!)) and playing a bit at the end once she knew that he wasn't going to do anything. Again another good encounter! Yay Suzu!!

The big challenge was Sunday. TWO people, my friend Sunaho and her husband, came over. Satoru is a cat person. He was so excited to meet Suzu that he had his wife email and ask what kind of snacks Suzu likes!! (Very endearing!) They came over and brought out the goodies... but Suzu was not as comfortable with TWO new people at once. So she hid for a bit... under the bed... and really hated it when I tried to get her. Once we ignored her, she came out and started to make friends. And once the goodies were opened she was very keen on getting some, even if mom wasn't the one handing them out. By the end, Suzu had proven she could even be around 4 people at once and not do a total freak out!! Yay!!

I don't have any good pictures of any of the fun, but there's lot's of Suzu pics already. Now, I may seem a bit obsessed with my kitty... I assure you, in a country where people are seriously obsessed with their pets, I look mild in comparison!

Hope everyone is having a lovely day!

Friday, October 01, 2010

Rain

It's been raining a WHOLE lot here in Tokyo. We get two solidly rainy days and then maybe a cloudy day (we're on our cloudy day today!). As a result of far too many wet feet days (otherwise known as "Alisha's a big grump" days), I figured it was finally time to invest in some appropriate footwear.

The result?? Cool yellow boots!! Well, they might not be "cool" in the conventional sense of the word, but to me they are cool because I have dry feet!!

Plus, I think I'm one of the only people to buy them... so it means I get to be an individual to boot!!

Hope you're enjoying nice weather wherever you are!!