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God dammit. It’s my first day back at work, a day on which I have been told several times, once before the holidays and once again this morning, that there would be no lessons. But they’ve found one for me from fucking somewhere. It’s not a lesson that’s on my regular timetable for Mondays so it’s not just a case of the exams today finishing early. It appears that one of the JTEs has had one of her lessons for tomorrow brought forward to today, a lesson which I would not usually participate in, but she’s decided to rope me in to it anyway. I cannot express how annoying this is, I really can’t.

It’s the look they give you when you tell them you were under the impression there would be no lessons today. They look as if you’ve just told them you smear shit on yourself and go by the name Lord Pooface of Stevenson at the weekends; one of complete incomprehension. They can’t grasp, even though I’ve been told today that I have no lesson, that one appearing out of nowhere should be a surprise. And the gap they gave me between telling about the lesson and the lesson itself? 10 minutes. For God’s sake. It’s my first lesson in almost 2 months as well. I’d been building myself up to go to the lesson tomorrow; I was a bit nervous as it’s been so long. Of course, all that’s been thrown to the wind now. 10 fucking minutes notice. God dammit I’m pissed off. I’m not even needed! It’s a plain old boring repeat after the teacher lesson that is simple for both teacher and student. But for some reason in 5 minutes time I’ve got to get up in front of a class and pretend I’m happy to be teaching them. This had better be a one off…

Over

The holiday’s are over it seems. My actual holiday, the last week, have been Ok. I decided to go to a few places on Kyushu, Kagoshima and Fukuoka mainly, and my trips were nice. It was quite odd going on holiday alone, the first time I’ve ever done so, and I must say that I prefer travelling with others. Not that I was lonely, but there’s only so long you can go without having anyone to talk to.

I decided to invest in a new camera too. I figured I’d treat myself as I hadn’t really spent any money on the trips (or at least no serious amounts of money) so I opted for the new Canon Digital SLR (one of the big chunky ones for the uninitiated, as I was last week). Through the local host family, who own a camera shop, I was able to order it for a great deal less than the street price and I’ll get it two days before it’s officially released on the 8^th. Score. I’ll put up any and all photos I take that are any good. Not many then.

Let’s see, what else has happened? Well I’ve met the new guys properly. They’re all great as far as I can see. Lien (or Lynne as she prefers) is very lively and happy and easy to talk to. The married couple are cool too, Nathan being the more talkative of the two. Rachael is possibly the quietest person I’ve ever met but she’s lovely. There’s a few I haven’t met yet, Carlo down in Toyo village and Geoffrey and Aashima who are in Yats. I’ve heard various things about them all, ranging from the good to the not so good. We’ll see.

As lovely as they are, it seems that none of them are really party people. I didn’t expect them all to be Shaun Ryder’s but they don’t really seem the sort of people who will join you for a casual drink on a Saturday night. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, it’s still very much a hectic period for all of them, but as nice as they all are they don’t seem to be that sort of people. And that’s fine, they obviously came to Japan for other, perhaps more admirable reason than to go out drinking with other gaijins but it does make me realise how much I miss the old guys and the fun I was having this time last year.