First Day Back at Work
Don't worry. I am not going to give you a play-by-play of my day, but it is curious sliding back into life here.
I woke up this morning, thinking something was wrong with my refrigerater because of the loud, insessent, humming noise coming from the other room. It took a few minutes to realize the sound was not perpertrating my sliding glass door (leading to the kitchen), but rather the one going outside, to my balcony. A memory came back and suddenly I realized that the sound was the distantly familiar mating call of the cicadas - abundant in Japan during this season.
My walk to the station passes a large shopping complex called Ito Yokado (a 7i holding- yes 711 Corporation - and essentially my next door neighbor) so the concrete sheilded me from the volume of the sound. I got to the station, loaded a handfull of 10yen coins into the ticket machine to buy my ￥290 ticket to work (need to get cash) and boarded a very crowded train to Takasago, 5 stops down, where I was the only non-Japanese person that I could see. On the way back from the airport last night, I was utterly frozen by the air conditioner on the train, pulling the small blanket I traveled with out of my purse to cover up. This morning, however, I counted it a blessings that it was on as I expect it could have gotten pretty sweltering with so many people jammed into one train car.
Once I got to Takasago, I threw my coffee can in the recycling bin (platforms are one of the only places you will find garbage bins and - luckily - also a guarenteed place to find vending machines selling cold, semi-decent coffee at a decent price) and raced down the stairs so I could get to the ticket machines before the crowds.
Takasago is a smaller, yet industrial, seaside town, covered with pine trees and strewn with small, yet elegant backyards and Japanese gardens: the perfect locatio for cicadas. Once again, the drowning, rythmatic, chiming drone of the cicadas started again (it honestly sounds electrical). As I walked the 10 minutes from the station to my school, down the sidestreets through town, the noise got so loud that it was almost defening.
The building doesn't prove much of a refuge from the noise, but already I am getting accustomed to it again. I remember being shocked by the strenth of the sound when I arrived here two years ago, even plugging my ears when I ran through the park. But at some point you get used to it and try to ignore it. It just becomes a daily noise, usually only really bad in the morning, a new normal, and then... it's gone for the year.
Now I am sitting at my desk. I just had to bring my hanko, the stamp/seal that serves as my official signature, to the office to sign a form. Beads of sweat are running down my face, wetting my new bangs. I share a laugh when I see the head office worker - a younger, funny guy - also sweating with the humidity. We exchange greetings, tend to business and I excuse myself to run back to the airconditioned staff room. The room looks like a (now almost empty) police precinct, with eight rows of eight, grey, indusrial-looking desks, stacked tightly together and going from wall-to-wall. The Deputy Principal sits in the center and the room has two, wooden sliding doors on either side and a copy room to the far corner. My desk, like many others, has shelves and binders directly in front of where I sit. My work laptop stays plugged in on top of the felt and plastic desk cover, proudly displaying vintage postcards from my favorite temples in Kyoto, a class schedule, various pictures from my time in Japan and a card with a picture of sushi on it from my best friend in America (the kids think it is hilarious that we think sushi comes with carrots in America and often stop to marvel and laugh at the size of the dallop of wasabi in the picture). My coworkers come in-and-out as take a break from the computer (currently set on the news and Facebook) and greet each with a boisterous "GOOD MORNING!" in Japanese. A few stop to ask me why I have color in my face (some not knowing I was just home... keeping it a secret in an effort to save buying presents for all 60 people) or just to chat and say hi. One teacher stops to show me the tan she has aquired from supervising tennis this week. She's not very happy about it (but I think she looks much better). Soon I'll go to my classroom to hang up some posters and maybe watch a bit of a movie I want to show later while I stamp worksheets I have to hand back at the end of summer. I might meet another expat friend in town for lunch. She'll email my phone when she's coming and I'll either borrow one of the two staff bikes or walk over - past two large shrines - to meet her in the local shopping mall, Seiyu (owned by Walmart Corp.).
Life here is very different, but I'm happy to be back. Just yesterday I was home, riding in the car with my parents and running through Target with a last-minute shopping list. Today I'm sitting with my coworkers, catching up on what's happened over the last week and having multiple conversations about the weather. Both comfortable in a strange way.
I woke up this morning, thinking something was wrong with my refrigerater because of the loud, insessent, humming noise coming from the other room. It took a few minutes to realize the sound was not perpertrating my sliding glass door (leading to the kitchen), but rather the one going outside, to my balcony. A memory came back and suddenly I realized that the sound was the distantly familiar mating call of the cicadas - abundant in Japan during this season.
My walk to the station passes a large shopping complex called Ito Yokado (a 7i holding- yes 711 Corporation - and essentially my next door neighbor) so the concrete sheilded me from the volume of the sound. I got to the station, loaded a handfull of 10yen coins into the ticket machine to buy my ￥290 ticket to work (need to get cash) and boarded a very crowded train to Takasago, 5 stops down, where I was the only non-Japanese person that I could see. On the way back from the airport last night, I was utterly frozen by the air conditioner on the train, pulling the small blanket I traveled with out of my purse to cover up. This morning, however, I counted it a blessings that it was on as I expect it could have gotten pretty sweltering with so many people jammed into one train car.
Once I got to Takasago, I threw my coffee can in the recycling bin (platforms are one of the only places you will find garbage bins and - luckily - also a guarenteed place to find vending machines selling cold, semi-decent coffee at a decent price) and raced down the stairs so I could get to the ticket machines before the crowds.
Takasago is a smaller, yet industrial, seaside town, covered with pine trees and strewn with small, yet elegant backyards and Japanese gardens: the perfect locatio for cicadas. Once again, the drowning, rythmatic, chiming drone of the cicadas started again (it honestly sounds electrical). As I walked the 10 minutes from the station to my school, down the sidestreets through town, the noise got so loud that it was almost defening.
The building doesn't prove much of a refuge from the noise, but already I am getting accustomed to it again. I remember being shocked by the strenth of the sound when I arrived here two years ago, even plugging my ears when I ran through the park. But at some point you get used to it and try to ignore it. It just becomes a daily noise, usually only really bad in the morning, a new normal, and then... it's gone for the year.
Now I am sitting at my desk. I just had to bring my hanko, the stamp/seal that serves as my official signature, to the office to sign a form. Beads of sweat are running down my face, wetting my new bangs. I share a laugh when I see the head office worker - a younger, funny guy - also sweating with the humidity. We exchange greetings, tend to business and I excuse myself to run back to the airconditioned staff room. The room looks like a (now almost empty) police precinct, with eight rows of eight, grey, indusrial-looking desks, stacked tightly together and going from wall-to-wall. The Deputy Principal sits in the center and the room has two, wooden sliding doors on either side and a copy room to the far corner. My desk, like many others, has shelves and binders directly in front of where I sit. My work laptop stays plugged in on top of the felt and plastic desk cover, proudly displaying vintage postcards from my favorite temples in Kyoto, a class schedule, various pictures from my time in Japan and a card with a picture of sushi on it from my best friend in America (the kids think it is hilarious that we think sushi comes with carrots in America and often stop to marvel and laugh at the size of the dallop of wasabi in the picture). My coworkers come in-and-out as take a break from the computer (currently set on the news and Facebook) and greet each with a boisterous "GOOD MORNING!" in Japanese. A few stop to ask me why I have color in my face (some not knowing I was just home... keeping it a secret in an effort to save buying presents for all 60 people) or just to chat and say hi. One teacher stops to show me the tan she has aquired from supervising tennis this week. She's not very happy about it (but I think she looks much better). Soon I'll go to my classroom to hang up some posters and maybe watch a bit of a movie I want to show later while I stamp worksheets I have to hand back at the end of summer. I might meet another expat friend in town for lunch. She'll email my phone when she's coming and I'll either borrow one of the two staff bikes or walk over - past two large shrines - to meet her in the local shopping mall, Seiyu (owned by Walmart Corp.).
Life here is very different, but I'm happy to be back. Just yesterday I was home, riding in the car with my parents and running through Target with a last-minute shopping list. Today I'm sitting with my coworkers, catching up on what's happened over the last week and having multiple conversations about the weather. Both comfortable in a strange way.
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 1:28 PM
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