Last Day of Swine Flu Closings
After a few days hiatus, I'm back at work again today and things are returning to some semblance of normal. We had a really long all-staff meeting this morning and then another long speech from the principal later this afternoon and it has now been officially decided that schools will re-open for business next week. My home school has exams Monday - Wednesday, however, so it'll be about a week until regular classes begin again.
Despite the hysteria (and trust me, people were freaking out), the swine flu hasn't been as bad as expected. Some stores are sold out of mask because there is such high demand and the number of cases in Kobe continues to climb, but I think people are starting to calm down a bit. On of my coworkers told me a bunch of restaurants in the Mosaic Building on the Kobe Wharf (sort of the main shopping area in that part of Kobe) were closed, but I also read that Kobe city isn't testing for swine flu if not specifically requested to do it now. They realize life needs to go on.
Another really funny thing happened this week - I made my first Japanese friend in Boston (where I will probably be moving ... but more on that when I have made a final decision)! Nozaki Sensei (my "twin" at work) came to the dentist with me to discuss pulling my wisdom teeth and some other stuff, but she decided to bring along her friend Mika, who is visiting from Boston at the moment. She's told me stories about Mika before, but Mika also used to be a school nurse and knows a lot of medical terminology in English, so she thought she might be better for helping at the dentist. Well, other than the dental stuff, it turned out to be a super fun day of just talking with Nozaki and Mika. After the appointment, we were going to go to a cafe, but ended up just going to the grocery store and making smoothies at my house so we could talk there. It was a lot of fun and it'll be nice to know someone from this area of Japan if I do moving closer to where Mika lives. Goes to show you really never know who you're going to meet!
The dentist visit itself was another story, but for as messed up as teeth can be here (seriously... it's considered cute when they point different directions sometimes because it adds character), the one I found is seriously amazing. He took x-rays in minutes, replaced a filling (with the new, clear type) in 15 minutes and was really good about keeping me informed about what was going on. The place is also really modern, and I cannot believe how cheap dental stuff is here. I'm going back for another cleaning before I go!
Yeah, so not a ton to report right now. It's rainy, I'm sick and it's been a slow week. At the moment, I'm just working on my volunteer stuff (catching up on emails, writing an article, making a PowerPoint for our presentation in Tokyo and then starting to clean stuff up for my hand off in 2 weeks), but all of my coworkers are busy calling all the students in their homerooms. I didn't realize earlier that they are expected to call on their cell phones (and aren't reimbursed!)... both the level of expectations and the workplace milieu of teaching here seem so different from America. Makes me wonder what other differences lie below the surface in other countries.
Gotta get back to the article but have an excellent weekend... and watch out for the pigs ;-p
Despite the hysteria (and trust me, people were freaking out), the swine flu hasn't been as bad as expected. Some stores are sold out of mask because there is such high demand and the number of cases in Kobe continues to climb, but I think people are starting to calm down a bit. On of my coworkers told me a bunch of restaurants in the Mosaic Building on the Kobe Wharf (sort of the main shopping area in that part of Kobe) were closed, but I also read that Kobe city isn't testing for swine flu if not specifically requested to do it now. They realize life needs to go on.
Another really funny thing happened this week - I made my first Japanese friend in Boston (where I will probably be moving ... but more on that when I have made a final decision)! Nozaki Sensei (my "twin" at work) came to the dentist with me to discuss pulling my wisdom teeth and some other stuff, but she decided to bring along her friend Mika, who is visiting from Boston at the moment. She's told me stories about Mika before, but Mika also used to be a school nurse and knows a lot of medical terminology in English, so she thought she might be better for helping at the dentist. Well, other than the dental stuff, it turned out to be a super fun day of just talking with Nozaki and Mika. After the appointment, we were going to go to a cafe, but ended up just going to the grocery store and making smoothies at my house so we could talk there. It was a lot of fun and it'll be nice to know someone from this area of Japan if I do moving closer to where Mika lives. Goes to show you really never know who you're going to meet!
The dentist visit itself was another story, but for as messed up as teeth can be here (seriously... it's considered cute when they point different directions sometimes because it adds character), the one I found is seriously amazing. He took x-rays in minutes, replaced a filling (with the new, clear type) in 15 minutes and was really good about keeping me informed about what was going on. The place is also really modern, and I cannot believe how cheap dental stuff is here. I'm going back for another cleaning before I go!
Yeah, so not a ton to report right now. It's rainy, I'm sick and it's been a slow week. At the moment, I'm just working on my volunteer stuff (catching up on emails, writing an article, making a PowerPoint for our presentation in Tokyo and then starting to clean stuff up for my hand off in 2 weeks), but all of my coworkers are busy calling all the students in their homerooms. I didn't realize earlier that they are expected to call on their cell phones (and aren't reimbursed!)... both the level of expectations and the workplace milieu of teaching here seem so different from America. Makes me wonder what other differences lie below the surface in other countries.
Gotta get back to the article but have an excellent weekend... and watch out for the pigs ;-p
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 6:28 PM
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