Tama-ire!?

November 16 Monday

So I`m officially sick. I was already not feeling too good at the Arashi concert, but I shrugged it off and thought that I was just too excited during the time. But when I got up for work today I started feeling the strain of holding back my sickness during the weekend. And, as it is the trend here when you get sick, you wear a mask so you don`t spread it to others, or so the Asians believe. In truth, the mask doesn`t really do too much because it`s not airtight or sealed to your mouth so there are open areas for germs to still spread out; it`s difficult to breathe through the mask causing you a little bit of dizziness, possibly making you more sick; and if you sneeze or anything like that the germs just stick to the mask that you`re wearing and you still have to breathe it in.....Not the most effective in my opinion. But, hey, it does help in the fact that during work if I`m reading something funny I can smile and no one will notice. =P Anyways, if that`s what the Japanese people think will be better for me and for them I will wear the mask because there`s the big influenza scare.

I was ready to go to the nursery, but my BOE peoples were all a little apprehensive of me working because I was sick. I felt well enough to teach, so I just told them I`m fine, no worries. It`s just that I have a runny nose, a little cough, and I`m unable to talk in a normal voice. I don`t have a fever, so I`ll be okay I said. So they let me go to the nursery where I taught my lil loving kiddies and they were so good when they learned that I was sick and couldn`t talk in a loud voice so they were a lot more quiet. Good children. But then one of the head teachers told me that after the class I should just stay in the teacher`s office because she doesn`t want me spreading it to the children. I was actually thinking the same thing, so it`s fine. Later, as I sat there、I received a call from my BOE saying that I should go back because i was sick and shouldn`t go to the elementary. At the elementary the 1st,3rd,4th,and 6th graders are all infected and have been sent home for the week. So only the 2nd and 5th graders are there. They told me it was because they wanted to wait for me to become better and for my voice to come back to me before I go teach, but I know it`s because they don`t want me spreading it to the children. Whatever, to protect the kids it`s fine.

So they told me that this entire week I will just stay at the BOE and chill (do nothing, because there is nothing for me to do) since they will cancel all the classes I`m supposed to teach this week. And that`s bad because this week was supposed to be pronunciation practice with the sounds "th", "v", "r", "l". Mooouuu...I feel bad for being sick, but at least I can rest for this week without straining my voice and stuff. I had bought Omiyage for my elementary and middle school teachers so I wanted to bring it over to them myself personally. So I did, and when I got in there everybody avoided me like the plague...>.< The only person who was normal with me was Ichinoseki-san, the office personnel. So I handed him the stuff and left. The middle school was actually nicer to me as they all worried for my health. I need to sleep earlier.

November 17 Tuesday

I sat at the BOE the whole day today with absolutely nothing to do.....So I just read manga on the internet. Everyone kept telling me to go to the hospital to get checked out, but I was like, "dude, I`m not going to the hospital just beacuse I have a cold. I know it`s not influenza and I know I don`t have a fever so no need for the hospital." But since everyone just kept pestering me, and I mean everyone, I decided to give in to them and go to the hospital. Because I have health insurance (in Japan, it`s social health insurance meaning everyone who lives in Japan has health insurance no matter what. US needs to adopt this system because we f-ing need health insurance for everybody) the bill was pretty cheap including medicine. And as I had already suspected, I only have a cold. So I went back home to prepare for tonight`s activity which is the big Teacher`s gathering. All the teacher`s of all the schools in this town and the staff of the BOE meet up togethher for a recreational activity and then have dinner. It happens once a year and it`s pretty cool to see all the teachers gathered like that so even though I was sick, I still decided to go. I wore my mask.

It took place in the middle school gym and the activity was Tama-ire. I was like wtf is that? Basically it`s just throwing a bunch of little bean bags into a basket on a pole that`s pretty high up. Alright. It was actually harder than I thought. I ended up not getting any into my basket earning nothing for my team. Oh, btw, you play this game in teams. All the teachers were pre-seperated in teams A-F with teachers from every school in each team and one BOE member. Since I`m technically a BOE memebr I was the head for my D team. And so all the team members have to gather around the net with your bean bags and throw them in. And the fastest team to get everything in is the winner. Our team came in 5th place. Mr. WOnderful was there too,a lthough not in my team. But he was the only one of the elementary teachers to say konbanwa to me and I was super happy. But then he just left without saying anything. Well, actually, all the teachers did that. But I felt stupid because all this time as we were watching the other teams compete he was standing there by himself and not talking to anybody and it was my chance to go to talk to him, but what did I do? I just stood there talking with the other female teachers....I lost my chance that night and I felt dumb because of it. I need to be more confident in my flirting ability and go ahead and be agressive and talk to him. =P lol But I don`t even know if he has a gf.

Anyways so after I left I just went home because I decided not to go eat because I wasn`t feeling too well, and plus majority of my fav teachers weren`t going to be there, like Mr. Wonderful. So I just went home to sleep and rest. Oh! It was actually kinda cool at the recreational activity because I knew everyone in there and was able to talk to all my teacher`s easily. And some of the teachers on my team don`t really talk to the other teachers on my team, but would talk to me. So I felt kind of popular because of that. haha. Yay. Anyways, it was fun. Cool.

Otsukare-sama for reading!