A couple of interesting things have happened today, a day of surprises, and its only 10am, so i felt the need to inform all of you.

The first thing was that when I showed up to school today all of the men were wearing ties. This is never a good sign. Also, the kids were cleaning the school at the beginning of the day as opposed to the end. Everything was topsy turvy. I sat down to read the daily paper, just like I always do, except that today, just after I reached the first hysterical anti-Bush diatribe article of the day, and just before the usual solemn doomsday article about global warming shooting the world to hell in a handbasket, my supervisor tapped me on the shoulder.

"Ok so today," he started, "is closing ceremonies-"

Well, that was a quick trip, time to go home. It was fun here in Japan. I met a few people, had a few laughs, and learned some very important lessons about myself...

"-Term closing ceremonies," he continued.

I see.

I quickly buttoned the top button of my collared shirt, straightened out a few wrinkles in my ubercool linen pants, and aligned my buttons with my belt buckle in an attempt to make myself look as formal as possible. I then followed the throngs of kids to the gym to listen to some people talk for a while. With the notable exception that some too-cool-for-school little punk got kicked out for running his teenage mouth when he should have been listening, it was a hell of a lot like the opening cermonies, actually.

The second thing i found out was that apparentlythere are no classes today. Nor are there classes tommorrow. Nor the two days after that. I have no classes for four days. Now, you would think I would be jumping for joy, right? Except that I'm a teacher, now, see, I teach. If I were a kid, I could run home on my vacation and go play with my GI Joes, or my Polly-Pockets, or whatever the hell high-school kids play with nowadays, but since I'm a teacher I have to stay here for these five days and do nothing. I could lesson plan, I suppose, but I feel i do my best lesson planning work when the deadline is fast approaching, not six days away (four plus the weekend). Don't get me wrong, I'm getting paid, and I could be doing a lot worse things for a lot less money, but the chair I sit on makes my ass fall asleep after half an hour, man! Also, I start to fall asleep myself, and in an embarrasing way, not all quaint and practiced like the Japanese. When I fall asleep sitting up I fall asleep awkwardly, my face droops dangerously near the desk, and any limbs i might have elevated fall loudly to the floor. Also, I might drool.

Nonetheless, I could get some reading done, perhaps walk around a bit. Chat it up with students or teachers, or whatever. I'll just have to play with myself. Not in any way that could get me fired, of course.

Also, I laughed out-loud at a Garfield comic strip today for the first time in probably ten years. I told you it was a day of surprises.