Tuesday October 5, 6:47 p.m.
Peaceful interlude right now although it's gone back to humid. Went up to about 25 or 26 today. Not exactly the blistering temps we were getting a month ago but there's still a bit of
Summer that's kicking about.
Sent off my niece's birthday card and present this morning. Apparently, she's into little white mice so my brother belatedly advised me to get something of that sort for her present but I'd already gotten her a
Miffy book...not quite mice but still little and white.
We had the 2nd Beehive class in our new home of the nearby community centre to
Tsudanuma Station. Instead of the small
tatami room, we got the bigger room with table, chairs and blackboard. It reminded me of our old home at
the Ace Lanes Bowling Alley that we had had to vacate a few years ago. Mrs. Travel, as is her nature, did a bit of downright civic traveling via the English-language
Hato Bus tour in
Tokyo. She had been so impressed with it that she suggested going on a similar metropolitan jaunt for one of our final lessons of the year as a field trip. Sounds nice to them but since the only tours available are either all-day or evening, I'm pretty much out of the loop. Mrs. Jade had a gripe...a very rare one and not too violent, although it was obvious she was consternated...about her other English teacher, a middle-aged British woman who also has a side business as a
gaijin tarento in commercials. According to Jade, her teacher of 4 years is very self-possessed but tends to look down upon (at least to her) her students, and especially Japanese women apparently, since they seemingly come off as being shallow and too obedient (obviously, this British woman hasn't been to
Shibuya although some of the young folk there are probably as shallow as they come). In any case, Jade and a few of her classmates felt that their teacher crossed the line when she assigned them the homework assignment of show n' tell; Jade felt insulted in getting a children's activity. I suggested to her that she and her classmates should make it clear to her about their feelings but Jade said that they will demur and endure for the remaining lessons in the year since their teacher will be leaving for home permanently after
Xmas. After hearing that, I kinda wondered if the teacher had a point.
Then I was off to
Urayasu City Hall to help out my old friend who wants to get a divorce. That website wasn't too helpful in telling me exactly where
the Foreign Assistance Desk was. I first ended up at
Shin-Urayasu Station, in the heart of
Chiba's trendiest neighbourhood, where the nearest government building only had an
International Friendship Association but nothing to help me about my friend. However, it was evident that
Shopper's Plaza or
MONA had gotten some major upgrading to match the surrounding area's rise to
Aoyama-dom.
Nope, in actual fact, I had to take the bus for a couple of kilometres to reach my intended destination of
City Hall where a kind lady from
Poland took me down to the relevant desk and the staffer there hashed things out amongst the three of us. Basically, it ended up that my friend and I will be doing some correspondence tag with various documents unless
the Canadian Embassy in Malaysia gets its act together.
My main gripe with
Urayasu City Hall is that it's a devil to get to...although maybe that was the intent. Buses heading back to
Urayasu Station come only once every 30 minutes and it's probably a 40-minute trek on foot. Most likely, I'll be making another trip there next week to follow up on my friend's request.
At the
juku, I've had Mr. White. He's got a rather fragile constitution but was all smiles for today at least. The Milds will be here in less than an hour.
For tomorrow, I found out that Grandma Enka won't be making it for her monthly chat session with me. Speedy informed me that her husband had collapsed and was rushed to hospital. That doesn't sound good at all. So, she'll be away for the rest of the month. I kinda wonder how that might affect her sister, Grandma Dynamite, although unless things get really bad, I think she will still come for her lessons. Therefore, my first lesson tomorrow will be with The Overachiever at 4 followed by Miss Sony at 8:30. Yup, 001 will be away for one more week. My most senior student at Speedy's is coming perilously close to the end of her contract, and methinks that she's dragging it out. I think she may have two more left but I'm frankly doubtful that she would want to continue after 5 years.
On the nice front, Speedy also told me that Mr. TOEFL will be coming back for just two more lessons after his 3-month stint in
North Carolina. He's actually supposed to be heading to
Toronto in 2 weeks for another multi-month session so it's very likely that he and I could meet for lunch or dinner. Would love to introduce him to some of the folks back at home.
And after an absence of several weeks, The Satyr and MB have called in. The Satyr is planning a little BBQ at their apartment sometime in mid-October. And MB has asked me to do the usual DVD Night beforehand although I do have Yajima on that Sunday morning. In any case, it'll be great to see them again.
Anyways, I got a lot off my chest today.