Back to school

Changes for 2007:
1. New flat.
2. New job.
3. New boyfriend. Actually he's not that new, but I realised I've not given him a proper introduction. His name's Damien, he's Australian, 28, and fairly well behaved most of the time. Except when he talks during films and I want to poke him with a sharp stick (the correct punishment for talking during films). On the other hand, he volunteered to help me move house and did most of the heavy lifting without a word of complaint, so he may in fact be worth his weight in gold.

I moved into my new flat last sunday and started my new job on tuesday. The flat is great, I'm living with Nozomi and Kumiko, they're nice chilled out Japanese girls, both 28. I've got the internet here, there's lots of food in the kitchen (Kumiko's friend's dad's a baker, so we've got tonnes of free bread and eggs) and a good selection of DVDs. I am now addicted to Lost.

The new job's pretty cool too, I'm the assistant English teacher in a junior high school. There's about 400 kids aged 12 to 15. They are scarily well behaved. The school seems to be in a good area. We start at 8.50 and finish at 3.30, then they pretty much all do an hour of sports or music after school before going to their cram school classes. There's about 40 kids in each class (except in 1st year, where they're in 2 groups of 20 for English; and the handicapped class where there are about 20 kids with various learning disabilities all together). In the classes I do games and try to get the kids speaking English (instead of just reading and writing, which is all they have to do to pass the exam).

The other English teachers are an interesting mix. Takeuchi sensei is the head of the English department and looks very scared of everything. Her shoulders are permanently hunched up around her ears and she looks terrified when the students talk to her in the corridor. Watanabe sensei teaches first years, and she seems pretty sound. Shibata sensei teaches the second years, is the youngest of the English teachers, and speaks enough English to have a fluent conversation. She's cottoned on that the ALT (me) has lots of free time, and she's doing her best to fill it. At the moment I think that's a good thing. There's a male teacher who's name escapes me, but he's a nice guy and the students seem to like him.
It's weird sitting with all the other teachers and trying to a, look busy; b, understand what's going on around me; and c, understand the way the Japanese workplace works. I'm the only foreigner there, it's interesting trying to figure it all out. No-one ever says "I want you to do this." it's all just dropped hints. "Oh, there is a lot of marking to do." "Would you like some help?" "yes, please." I have to try to remember to do that myself, it seems to be gauche to just come out with what you want.

School dinners are pretty groovy. For 250 yen (about £1.20) I get a bowl of noodles or soup, rice, salad, some fish or meat, and maybe a little bit of fruit. And a little glass bottle of milk, which sent me on the biggest nostalgia trip back to primary 3. There's no choice, so when faced with udon with liver (liver- yuk) and a little fried fish (the one full of bones and with eggs in its stomach - double yuk) you just have to grin and bear it. Mmm. Crunchy.