I was really confused about my lunch money during the last three months at the Japanese Junior High School I work at.

For April, I paid 3825 yen for a total of 9 lunches. The rest of the teachers had 10 (I was sick one day), as there was ten working days from the day the lunches started being served. So that worked out to 425 yen per meal. I thought that was a little expensive, being nearly twice the price of school lunches at Kasugai, but if that’s what I have to pay in Inazawa then I trust them.

For May, when I was absent for 8 days (I received a total of 12 lunches during the month; the other teachers 20), the school lunch money collector asked me to pay 5100 yen, which at the time made sense, as 12 x 425 = 5100.

Last month (June) I had a total of 21 lunches (every day), but the total was only 5355 yen, which put each meal’s price down to 255 yen, approximately what I thought I should originally be paying. I asked a teacher at the beginning of June how much the lunches cost, and he said around 250 yen. Why did the cost of the lunches suddenly change?

I asked the lunch money collector about the difference in money, and he explained in Japanese to one of the English teachers that if students give advance warning in the case of illness, they don’t have to pay for their missed lunch. Every time I was sick I phoned up my supervisor to let them know I couldn’t make it to school. Surely they told the school that I wouldn’t be attending, and that information passed onto the Chefs?

He also explained that apparently, teachers always have to pay for the school lunch. For example, if I was sick (or for some reason or another had to leave school before lunch) for say 20 days of the month, and there were only 21 working days, then instead of paying 255 yen I would have to pay the full month’s worth, 5355 yen, of which 5100 yen would be for nothing. Of course this would be in addition to unpaid holidays for not worknig, as there are no sick or paid holidays in the first six months of working for a company in Japan (Japanese Law).

Isn’t this a bit unfair? If I had to pay the difference (which I did), then where did my lunch go? Couldn’t they have kept it in a fridge for me to collect later? Was it thrown in the rubbish? If I paid for the lunches, I wouldn’t have asked for it to be thrown away, as that would be a waste of food, a waste of the Chef’s energy, the farmer’s energy, and a waste of the money that I am working so hard to save up (and failing to save up).

Turns out this is all due to an outdated ordering system in which the school orders a whole month’s meals for the teachers in advance (they ask teachers beforehand how many lunches they need in advance). For the students however, I’m still confused as to why the system is different for them. Superman is from a different planet.

Wow! Can’t believe nearly three full months have passed since my last post here.

With the Japanese school year starting in April, I’m now working at a single Junior High School, about an hour and twenty minutes away (by walk, train, train, and bike). As a result I’ve had to wake up earlier and am getting home later, so haven’t had much time for long blog updates.

Soon after starting at the new school, I got sick, and was actually sick for over a month, but the absurd amounts of medicine the Japanese Doctor gave me kept me feeling normal and able to work. However after 3-4 weeks I was finding myself breathing strangely and ultra fatigued, and had to spend around two weeks straight in bed. The one Japanese Doc I went to first (early April) said it was acute bronchitis, then the next week still acute bronchitis, then the next week said it had changed into asthma (?!), then the next week back into bronchitis. I saw a different Doctor (same age as me…) at a hospital this time (with my boss). He took a blood test, x-ray, and gave me a drip. He said my blood was normal, as were my lungs. His diagnosis - ‘I don’t know what you have, sorry’. WTF!!!
In the blood test result sheet, I forget which (copy is at work), but either the white blood cell count or lymph was higher than normal, and the other was lower than normal. From some research online, I think this meant that my body was combating a virus and not a bacterium. The first doctor gave me in total three lots of antibiotics (that’s ~3 weeks; I was sceptical). I guess I had something like post viral fatigue. I thought perhaps it could be caused by an oldish futon that I was sleeping on, so I put that out and slept on my sofa.

So I got better two weeks ago. Yay!!! I’ll post about those two weeks soon and the fun I had. Now this week I’m coughing again (no fever or other symptoms signifying an infection). I realised on Wednesday that during my first three months as an Assistant Language Teacher from January, all the schools I were at had whiteboards, or I didn’t have to use the blackboard (in the case of an elementary school). Now, this current school only has whiteboards in the teachers’ room. The Classrooms are chocablock full of blackboards. There’s a big one at the front of the classroom, and a smaller one at the back (not sure why they use that, but they do). Being a JHS, the students also read and write, so words and pictures makes the communication of teaching more efficient. So my teaching style is fast, joyous and entertaining. When I write or draw on the blackboard, chalk dust naturally goes everywhere. Even if I don’t use the blackboards there is always chalk dust on the floor, and if I stay away from the front of the room where the big blackboard is, there’s a smaller blackboard waiting at the back. Apparently chalk dust can set off asthma attacks (not that I’ve ever had one), and

Just thinking back to the last time I was near a blackboard in Australia… They had them in the lecture theatres at Uni, but the seats were 4+m away. Before that, I think I’d last been near a blackboard in Primary School.

Perhaps I’d better start teaching from the window!

I decided to try a new photographic technique in Tsurumai Park last night - using a fisheye (ie my peleng [lens]) with a longish exposure with an external flash manually fired. I tried many various combinations of exposure, aperture and ISO settings so many of the photos have a very different mood. Unfortunately many were overexposed on the flashed area. Of the 40 photos that were taken, 30 came out fairly alright, with a few major standouts.

Click the above photos to see more, or look on Facebook.

In January, I had a short Japanese Calligraphy lesson with a teacher at one of the schools I worked at.

This was my first attempt - which is mine, and which is the teachers - the left one or the right one? Comment in your answer!!

Here’s some other angles…

Photos at Flickr - Photos in my gallery

A few days ago my blog spat the dummy and decided it wouldn’t work properly. Upgrading was the solution apparently, and everything’s back in perfect working order… except unfortunately I’ve somehow lost all my categories that all the blog posts were in. Oh well, no big loss. The search function still works better perhaps

If you missed it, here is my downtime page (yes that’s a photo of me)

Oh, and if you click on one of the random photos now, it actually goes to the photo’s page in my gallery! Yay!