260107 - 260109

hello world!! it’s been a few days of gradually picking habits back up and picking up my clothes off the ground. kind of… actually i feel like i’ve done everything except that second thing. i’ll get to it ok… i don’t have drawers…

tuesday evening i took the time to individually wrap all the maple cookies and also make separate baggies for the english department. i kinda over-bought stuff… i decided against giving out all the instant tim hortons drinks because it started to feel like a lot LOL idk, i’m just going to hand those out to my friends and get through them on my own. while sorting all that out though i continued watching da pitt. i love da pitt

i did a 5k comeback run trying to catch the sunset on wednesday after school, i do feel a little silly wearing such a nice running vest for a short distance but i’m not gonna lie… who cares… i won’t eventually i hope! lalaport you are lowkey beautiful amidst the farm fields and nothing burgerness of iwata.

thursday was when i MEANT to pick up my clothes but i ended up feeling super accomplished after getting through a 20 minute mobility workout so i kinda just slumped on the floor playing pokemon and watching da pitt for a few hours… but whatever….

friday however was my dear desk-buddy hirano-sensei’s last day! last year i sat next to one of the many suzuki-senseis who was friendly enough but didn’t speak any english, so when asai-sensei asked me if i’d prefer to sit next to one of my co-teachers this year i was really keen to jump on that chance. since i don’t teach 3rd years, i didn’t work directly with hattori-sensei and hirano-sensei last year but in spite of that i still became pretty friendly with hattori-sensei since she was a lot more proactive to chat or more complain to me HAHA, though the point i’m trying to make is that i lowkey thought she didn’t care about ALTs or didn’t want to speak english outside of class since chances to speak to her were slim to none, so yes while i was excited to sit next to an english teacher i didn’t know what to expect!

what followed was honestly a really meaningful and fundamental change in my daily work life… someone to always have small talk with! i did chat with my other co-teachers and even other staff (albeit clumsily) but it was never as easy as just leaning over and asking how their weekend went. like guys i really missed having conversations about nothing. like we had a whole week where we just kept talking about baked potatoes. she’d complain about having to teach certain homerooms to me and i’d tell her we’re doing jeopardy for the 3rd time much to her relief and then we’d spend actual in-class time searching up restaurants and then i’d also complain about having to teach those certain homerooms. she opened up about her pregnancy to me before it was announced to the office and trusted me to keep the secret for months, and would always make sure to correct the japanese flash cards popping up on my screen when i’d written something incorrect or unnatural. we talked about books and about our shared love for paddington. it was a really good two semesters of complaining and talking about food and shrugging at each other in front of students. there will never be another one of u hirano-sensei!!!! i hope that u follow ur childhood dream of opening up a bakery someday!