catching up part II

Last Monday:

Usually, I go to the elementary school on Wednesdays, but I had to go last Monday instead because there was a demonstration. I think I’ve explained it before, but a demonstration is when people higher up in the educational system sit in on your classes and give feedback. My demonstration was the last class period of the day. My English teacher seemed very anxious about it. Normally, lesson plans come straight from the book and are in half Japanese/half English. When I got to school, there was a lesson plan written entirely in English sitting on my desk. I’m guessing she didn’t want any slip-ups. Also, I had to go to her classroom and practice with the students the class period before the demonstration. We went over EVERYTHING down to the last detail. I’m pretty sure that even who was going to “volunteer” to answer questions when asked was planned. The demonstration lesson was about countries, so each student had print outs of what country they wanted to go to, its flag, what they wanted to see there, what they wanted to eat there, etc. Since I’m the only foreigner here, apparently I’m the EXPERT on ALL things international. One kid selected India. He had a picture of some questionable looking rice and noodle dish swimming in an orange-red sauce. He asked me what it was called in English. I said “ummmmmmm……….currry?” I had no idea what that was! Another kid wanted to go to Thailand and had a picture of ancient ruins resembling Angkor Wat. He asked me what the name was in English. I said Angkor Wat at first, but then I remembered that that is in Cambodia. Once again, I said “uuummmmmmmm……temple?” Yep, apparently I’m supposed to know everything about everything outside of Japan, lol.

I felt a little bad on Monday, and after a whole day of shouting at kids and trying to be as excited as possible, I was drained by the end of the day. I could tell that I was losing my voice. I tried to prevent it—Ian made hot soup for supper, and I drank tea, but nothing could have prevented Tuesday morning.

Last Tuesday:

As soon as I woke up, I knew I couldn’t go to work. I didn’t have a voice at all, and I was very congested. Since the main part of my job is to SPEAK and PRONOUNCE, it wasn’t possible. I text my supervisor to ask if she would take me to the hospital. She picked me up, and we went to the “hospital” in Yunomae (which is nothing more than a walk-in clinic). I saw the doctor, walked across the street to the pharmacy, and got multiple medicines for only about $25. I love universal health care! The Japanese treat each symptom instead of having an all-in-one pill or cough syrup, so I had five different medicines. My supervisor translated how I needed to take each medicine, and when I got home, Ian looked up online what each medicine did. One of them was a strong antibiotic. I’m not sure why I got that (maybe they were scared of their token foreigner being sick ). One was for cough, one was for the throat, one was to loosen the mucus, and one was like a candy that I needed to suck on to kill germs in the mouth.

Regardless of feeling like an old person and taking six different pills each time I ate, I had the rest of the day off. When I got back from the doctor, I took a nap, and the rest of the day was spent lazily in bed.

Wednesday:

I kind of knew on Tuesday night that I couldn’t go to work on Wednesday, but I waited until Wednesday morning to give it a fair shot. I felt like crap when I woke up, so I text my supervisor and told her that I couldn’t go to work. She told me to go back to the doctor. In Japan, you can’t just “call in” sick. The Japanese way of thinking is that if you’re sick enough to stay home, you’re sick enough to go to the doctor. In order to take a sick day, I HAVE to go to the doctor. She asked me to get a medical certificate. It’s basically a note from the doctor that cost 2,000 yen and states: yep, she’s sick.

Ian drove me to the hospital, and it was interesting to try to explain to the receptionist that I needed a medical certificate. Finally, she gave up and called the BOE to see what the crazy foreigner was wanting. The doctor checked me out again and gave me the medical certificate. I couldn’t read it since it was all in kanji, but when I took it to my supervisor and she read it, she cringed away from me. It said that I needed to stay at home and rest for the next five days. That made things difficult because I was supposed to go to a JET conference on Thursday and Friday in Kumamoto. She told me to not go and stay at home.

People have been asking me what I had. I have absolutely no idea. They could have told me that I have AIDS, and I wouldn’t have understood. It seemed like a bad cold, but since I was on the antibiotic and I got the medical certificate to stay home, I’m not sure what it was. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were wonderful. Despite the fact that I didn’t feel so great, I didn’t have to do anything except take medicine, so Ian and I got caught up on TV shows and started movie marathons. I basically had a six day weekend! I called it my sick-cation. I can’t even count how many movies we watched. We never picked up our futon, and for that full time, I never left the house. If we needed something at the grocery, Ian would get it. It was fabulous.

I’m not sure if it was the sickness, medicine, or just me being me, but Ian said I talked in my sleep on Friday night. He stayed up later than I did, so when he crawled into bed, he thought I was still awake. He said that I mumbled something, but he couldn’t understand, so he asked me to repeat it. I did but mumbled again. He asked me to repeat it again. I said, “The Crisco is on the counter under the eggs” or something like that. He realized what was going on and said, “You’re talking in your sleep. You’re being ridiculous.” I then sat upright and said, “Your mom’s ridiculous.” Ah yes, the “your mom” come back. Very original. I have ABSOLUTELY no recollection of this happening, which makes this story that much better!

Sunday:

I finally went outside on Sunday. After being inside for so long, it was really nice to just be out in public. We met some friends in Hitoyoshi for lunch at the same delicious Indian restaurant that we always go to, did a little Christmas shopping, and went to a discount grocery store. I know this is very silly to blog about, but I found bread there for 60 yen!! Considering that I usually pay 138-168 for bread, that was a great deal, and I was happy!! That night, I dreaded going back to work on Monday. After my long sick-cation and spending all day every day in bed watching movies, it wasn’t going to be fun going back to work.

Monday:

I expected that students would have been much more curious about where I had been. Plus, I know that people saw me at the hospital, and I assumed that word would have spread about the foreigner being sick. However, not one student asked. A lot of the teachers asked if I was okay.

Since I was sick last week, I didn’t get to get together with my friends to check answers for our mail in Japanese test that had to be in the mail this week. I found a perfect solution to this. I took it to some of my students during break time and asked them to look over it. They were very helpful. While they couldn’t explain WHY I got something wrong, they could at least tell me that I had gotten something wrong. I think it helped that they saw that I was trying to learn Japanese and struggling just like they’re trying to learn English and struggling. It put me more on their playing field.