i guess today is one of those days when i feel completely useless. the second year students are on a class trip to fukushima to go hiking and fishing, so i only had two classes today. and now i have two hours to kill sitting at my desk attempting not to fall asleep, which is pretty hard because today is really hot and all i would like to do right now is lay my head down and take a nice little nap. but it does give me an opportunity to observe interesting things that happen here at the school

1. currently from my desk i can see my principle outside the window with his work clothes on (slacks, short sleeve button down, and tie), a big straw hat and rubber boots wielding a hoe trying to dig something up. this morning he gallivanted around school with a screw driver and a bottle of some WD-40 like product fixing all of the doors. in my few months here, it appears that our principal is our handyman at school. he is always back in our maintenance shed doing "something" with lots of tools. i don't particularly think that this is something that all principals do but rather something that he enjoys doing. because other than that i'm convinced he doesn't really do anything except wear suits to meet with random people that wonder into school for only a few minutes at a time (but who are always served tea)...

2.tea, it is such a ceremonial part of life here. when i first arrived anywhere i would go to meet with someone new i was served either a nice refreshing glass of iced oolong tea or a hot cup of green tea. often i wasn't particularly thirsty but it is ceremonial and you must drink up. here in the teachers office, i am greeted every morning by a nice mug of green tea served by one of the "office ladies" (they are the nurse/receptionists/i don't know what else but always busy ladies). and this is not a special thing because i am the foreigner, every teacher has there own mug and recieves tea in the morning. then if someone comes into the office (that does not work here) they are ushered to a table, and then one of the female teachers (always female, never a male teacher) drops whatever they may be doing to go and prepare tea for the guest and whoever they are supposed to be meeting with. if it is a formal meeting with the principle, after this brief tea offering they are taken into the principles office (with leather couches and all, quite impressive) then they have a more formal tea setting and typically has cookies or crackers as well. following these tea offerings it is then the female teachers/office ladies that will rush to clear all of the dishes away. there is a lot of traditional roles here between males and females.

3.care of the baseball/soccer fields, the teachers office windows look out at the baseball and soccer fields and today i saw all of the first year boys out there with the chalk machines drawing all of the lines on the fields. the field itself is pretty much only dirt and is typically maintained by some men that come in. but i was told that its good for the students to learn how to work the chalk line marking machines, so every once in awhile they have lessons on how to do it. it was pretty hilarious, and the kids were covered in chalk by the end. i really wish i would have had my camera on me today. i think one of the other teachers got some pictures, i'll have to ask him for them!

4.special ed, or the lack thereof...so i have noticed in my classes that there are a few students that seem to have problems, so i finally asked one of my jte's about how it works. i still don't have a clear answer, because it seems like something no one likes to talk about. but it appears that they are just in with regular students, no differences to their school life. the japanese attitude on problems is just to pretend it isn't there, and i kind of feel like this is the attitude with the kids. but she did say that the kids that have extreme problems are kept in a different classroom and are "taught" by the P.E. teachers. i don't really understand this whole system. my curiosity really started when i saw a girl in the hallway crying, and i asked what was wrong and no one would answer me. she is evidently a kid with special needs, but everyone just pretends like nothing is happening, one of the teachers merely escorted her into an empty room to let her calm down. i'm going to try and figure it out more, i hope there is a more established system then what there appears to be of ignoring the kids...

well schools about out, and there are some chorus practices going on for a competition in november so i think i'll go check that out.