Mr. Hunter's No Good, Very Bad Day

I'm sure we'll all have those days, you don't want to get out of bed, you feel sluggish, and nothing seems to go your way. One Friday morning I was having exactly that kind of day. 

I woke up about 30 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, disappointed I only had a little while left to sleep. I rolled over and tried to get a few more precious moments of sleep, but my alarm went off too soon. 

I knew better than to do this, but I turned off my alarm and waited for the next one just 5 minutes later to hopefully rouse me from my bed. 

This was a mistake I made just yesterday and ended being a minute or two late getting to my desk. While some jobs you can quietly sneak into when you’re running a little late, that isn't really the case here. 

The bell rings promptly at 8:30, and kicks off a morning meeting in the teacher’s room. If you’re running a bit late, suddenly you’re trying to sneak in during a very quiet time when everyone is looking up from what they’re doing. 

I’ve always had a bit of a problem with getting to things on time. My family doesn't usually run late, but we do like to cut things close, so it's a bit of an ingrained habit. 

There are plenty of jobs where no one would comment if I was sneaking in right under the wire. Or even slinking to my desk just a minute or two late. It feels a bit different here in Japan though.

Most teachers seem to get here well before the first bell, already hard at work. Anytime I cut things close they always seem to ask with genuine worry if everything is okay. It almost always is, I just have poor time management skills. 

Today was the same, I was a little too laissez faire while I ate some breakfast in bed. Slowly I got dressed, brushed my teeth and got my hair in order. Remembering to take out the trash took an extra few minutes, something I probably should have gotten ready the night before. Finally I put everything in my bag and headed out to my car.

I turned the key and checked the clock. 8:00AM. The first bell would ring in just 30 minutes. And wouldn't ya know it, that's exactly how long it takes to get to my Friday school. 

Back home, I became a bit of an expert at beating whatever time my GPS gave me. This was a skill developed thanks to my aforementioned bad habit of running late. 

Here in Japan though, that skill has a long way to go, if it's even possible to acquire in the first place. I live in a rather small, rural area, and the roads here in Japan seem to be narrow at the best of times. 

Every road on the way to any of my schools is one lane each way, if there's even a lane at all. This means there's no passing a slow driver, or a fast lane to push the speed limit in. If there's a slow diver ahead of you, tough luck. 

So, already late, I'm in the car trying not to stress too much about my arrival time, while also trying to drive as quickly and safely as I can to claw back a few precious minutes. 

As I begin to approach the school, I try to get everything ready so I can dart to the staff room as quickly as I can. I sling my bag back over my shoulder, slip my coffee back in my bag, and reach for my computer. But instead of grabbing my laptop, I clutch only air. 

I forgot my laptop at home today, realizing this as I was just 5 minutes away from work. 

I couldn’t help but let out groans and screams while banging on my steering wheel. What was I going to do? I use my laptop both for classes, and to do work at my desk. 

If I went back home to get my computer it would be over an hour round trip. I resigned myself to my fate, and began to practice apologizing in my head. 

If I could swing it, perhaps I could use my phone to access lessons from my Google drive and present directly from my phone. 

I snuck my way into the school, greeting students while trying to hide my panic. I slid open the staff room door as quietly as I could and ducked inside. 

I made my way to my desk, making sheepish nods at my co-workers who were in the middle of discussing today's affairs with their colleges. 

I tried to unpack my bag and set things up like normal. I had remembered my charger, but not my laptop, but nevertheless I plugged in the cord and attached it to my phone, my only hope for salvaging the day. 

After the meeting, two English teachers approached, checking in after I had been sick last week and couldn’t make it to work. There was even a get well present left on my desk, the guilt coursing through me was hard to stomach. 

I assured them I was feeling much better, and while I had them I explained I had forgotten my laptop today, but I would use my phone as a substitute. 

I had yet to figure out the actual mechanics of this, but I was already trying to save face. Might as well sound confident even when you’re not. 

They seemed a little surprised, but accepted that I should be able to manage using my phone. This made me feel a bit better about the situation, but only if I could actually make it happen. 

I tried to pull any possible lessons I would need from Google drive, making them available offline on my phone. Unfortunately, this was one of 2 schools that has avoided giving me their wifi. 

So with spotty data, I anxiously tried to get my lessons to cooperate and load correctly. After fiddling with some settings, it seemed like they would work as long as I loaded them a few minutes prior to trying to present. 

I had 3 lessons that day, 1 self introduction, and 2 with another teacher who often has her own lesson ideas where I simply act as a helper. I sure hoped that would be the case today. 

Now that I was here and had a makeshift planned I was committing to, the adrenaline left my body leaving me already tired so early in the morning. 

The rush that comes from being late may be part of why I've always had this habit, it gets me out of bed and wakes me up in the morning better than caffeine ever could. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of making me late, likely to the chagrin of employers, co-workers, and friends alike. 

While I hope I've made a good impression on all my peers at my various schools, I also worry that Japanese culture would be too polite to let me know if I was slipping into bad habits. Unless those habits become really unacceptable, I may not get any criticism, even when deserved. 

Back home, if there was something I thought was a problem with my work performance odds were my employer would bring it up before long. 

Although I've confirmed my intent to extend my contract another year, I can't help but feel I should be going the extra mile to be on my best behavior, at least until I get confirmation. 

Perhaps I'm being hard on myself, and I do hope that’s the case here. I have no clue how my ALT predecessors performed this same role. Were they pro English teachers? Social butterflies that made quick friends with students and teachers alike?

Or were they taking things easy, creating simple lesson plans or letting the Japanese English teachers take the lead? 

Lacking context and clarity, these thoughts spun around and around in my head, exacerbated by the fact that without my laptop, I would spend all day being on my phone in the staff room. 

Regardless of what I was doing, I worried how it might look to the other teachers. Even if I was working on a lesson plan, it might look as though I'm just slacking off looking at my phone. 

I tried to shake these thoughts off, and resolved to get here early next Friday, fully prepared for the day ahead. 

My first class was second period, and sure enough the teacher I was working with had a lesson already planned. We would play Taboo, a fun word game, all I had to do was guess words based on clues given by my students. 

This was a really fun class, the students were excited to play, and clapped when I got a word right. After a few rounds of just me guessing, the students formed groups and sent a representative to guess for their team. 

I continued to play against students from the various teams, only guessing when they seemed to be stumped or the pace of the game started to slow. 

It was exactly the kind of class that I needed, fun, light, and requiring very little on my part. 

After the class was finished the teacher reaffirmed that we would have the same lesson for the final period of the day. That means 2 of my 3 classes would go nice and smoothly. 

I returned to my desk and began to work on this very article, hoping the constant typing would give the appearance of work. My next class wasn’t until 5th period, which was after lunch. 

This meant I had plenty of time to kill at my desk, and I hoped writing about my mess of a morning would help relieve some of the stress I had built up. 

When 5th period came around I made sure my presentation was fully loaded on my phone, adapter and HDMI cord in hand. The teacher had wanted me to show up to class a few minutes after the bell rings for a dramatic entrance. Who was I to refuse a chance at the spotlight? 

A few minutes after the bell I slid open the door and walked into the class while the teacher feigned surprise and the students murmured to each other. Technically things went off without a hitch, I hooked up the HDMI to the smart TV present at all of my schools, plugged it into a USB-C adapter and voila! My presentation was nicely displayed and ready to go. 

Sadly, this was one of the teacher’s that doesn’t translate my presentation, meaning I just talk for around 40 minutes, in English, and students typically drop like flies. 

Originally, I wanted to play a game or have an activity after a much shorter presentation. I had been advised that a game would take too long, so I tried to make my info dump about Canada as interesting as I could, while easy to understand. 

I never know exactly how well I've accomplished that, students already interested in English listen intently, while some students work on other subjects or opt for a nap. I can’t blame them, especially without a translation every few sentences, it’s difficult to listen to a foreign language for that long. 

In this case, even the Japanese teacher was nodding off in the back of the room, probably having heard this spiel once or twice already. I tried to keep things moving, which ultimately left us with around 15 minutes for questions. 

We found ways to fill the time by having them brainstorm and write out questions, then having me walk around and ask students to read their questions. 

All in all it was a fine class, and hopefully a good introduction for the students. Although one student asked if I remembered him, I just drew a blank. 

Possibly we had a short conversation in the halls or when I bumped into him during cleaning time. Though between the hundreds of students at my 4 different schools, I’m lucky if I can remember any faces let alone names. 

My final period was a second round of taboo with the third years. This was one of the schools where I end up in classes for every grade of students, which is kind of fun. The third years are a lot more outgoing, and have more developed English skills. 

While the lesson was fun, I was doing my best to stifle yawns that I couldn’t help. My hectic day had left me feeling pretty tired, and it was a Friday afterall. 

At the end of the class some of my students wanted to take a picture with me. Before winter break some students even recruited me to join their tik tok video. Out of all my schools this one easily makes me feel the most popular. 

Wrapping up my day, I returned to my desk, and was notified there was to be a teacher's meeting, which meant I got to leave a few minutes earlier than normal. I feel a little bad leaving before everyone, but I wouldn't be able to understand or participate in the meeting, so it does make sense. 

I felt better about my no good, very bad day, hoping none of the other teachers were thinking about it even half as much as I was. 

I really do like my Friday school, and I care about this job. I want to do my best. So when a day like today rolls around, it can really throw off your rhythm. 

People are often kinder to others than we are to ourselves, and I certainly hoped that was true today. I can always resolve to do better for my next visit, but for today, I was just happy that my day actually wasn't all that bad.