Pushing Softly

It's the middle of spring break for Japanese students. They get about two weeks off before their new school year kicks in. But teachers and staff get nothing off. You'd think maybe just one week, or even a long weekend. But no. Every day.

I guess in Japan, it almost makes sense. They only get two weeks to get ready for a new school year, a crop of new students, changes to the curriculum, new responsibilities. For the most part, we ALTs do not have anything to do. We could clean our desks (will do this week) plan lessons (tricky because we don't know our schedule) or come up with games for the occasional free day (not a bad idea). But overall there is very little to do.

Usually, to kill time we sit at our desks and browse the Web or study Japanese. Often we do this with our own laptops brought from home. But I have grown tired of bringing it, and today I am starting a spring break experiment.

After checking in down at the staff room and stamping the attendance book, I quietly moved to the third floor of the international building, a computer lab. Here, I can study or surf in peace and quiet and relative freedom.

I have done this without asking, because I feel in this case asking would only shift responsibility to someone else, who would in turn have to ask someone else, and pretty soon there would be a mini-conference about whether or not I can be here.

If someone comes to use this room, I'll leave. If someone needs me for something, I'll find out as I check in occasionally throughout the day.

This is the plan.

---

Another plan was to visit the gym for a workout after school, but I have been thrown a curve ball. My main bike has a flat tire which I have yet to fix, so I am using our Backup Auxiliary Bike, which is old and crappy and falling apart.

Well this morning, the Backup Auxiliary Bike decided to make a tremendous whaling sound for each revolution of the pedals. This means anyone from rice farmers to toddlers playing in the front yard can here me coming from meters away.

I am not sure I can handle the 20-minute ride to the gym with the bike making all this noise. I could try another experiment -- seeking out the use of the school's workout equipment ... but can I really break that much new ground in one day?