Bizarre day

Today was just one of those days where you keep asking yourself whether it is really happening or not. It all started with me waking up from weird dreams, and feeling a little out of it, probably due to going out for drinks with coworkers the night before. I was expecting a package to be delivered before noon, so all morning I was half asleep, just waiting for my intercom to buzz. Finally at 11:15 I really had to start getting ready for work, so I jumped in the shower. At 11:23 I got out of the shower, and to my dismay saw a red slip in the middle of my hallway marking that I had missed my delivery. Of course. Of course. So now I have to wait until tomorrow for it to be delivered at work. But that isn't really what was bizarre today, just some added details.

I went to work a little early today, because my coworker and I were being videotaped "teaching" (more like repeating the same three sentences over and over and over again thinking to yourself-WHEN -smile-WILL-smile- THIS-smile- BE-cheesy laugh- OVER?!!!?) for some Japan advertisement network. Of course no one ever really tells me the details, and even after this was finished, I am still really unclear of the details or how it works, but it has something to do with our videos being sent to cell phones? Possibly on a website?? Who knows. At this point, I feel so pimped out for this stuff I am immune to interest. I just smile and do the work and then get back to what I should have been doing instead of that.

I also found out my coworker called in sick (very rare occurence) so in that retrospect it almost felt like hell froze over. I had to teach one of this classes, which wasn't a big deal. At first I was afraid it was a class that didn't speak English (somewhat low level lesson), but the girls wound of being awesome. In fact, one was so cute and constantly smiling, I just wanted to put her in my pocket or something. Anyway, later in the day we found out my coworker went to the doctor and that he either has ecoli or some other not as serious (ha) virus that will last a few days. But with the way health care works here, they will probably wind up giving him a heart transplant, just in case (they LOVE doing surgeries--a hypochondriacs dreamland). Regardless, he isn't coming into work tomorrow (Sat) which is our busiest day, so that means we all get to teach extra classes!! Yay!! We also have a Christmas party (er more like 4 parties) right after work, so it will be a long day ahead! Oh, and did I mention my staff wanted me to wear this slutty Santa outfit? Not that it was originally intended to be slutty, but I think due to my height, the skirt is much shorter than it should be =) Well, anyway, I opted for some "Christmas accessories" instead..plus I am too broke to go all out for a one day thing. Maybe next year...maybe.

In one of my evening classes, I was expecting one female student, and was surprised to see this old man I had never seen before in my life hanging out in my classroom. He actually goes to a different branch of my school in a city two hours away, but was joining my lesson because of business....yet we had no record of him on the schedule or anything. Go figure. Anyway it wasn't so bad, and he was very friendly, but his skills were.................yeah, so I think my other student started getting annoyed, and it kind of threw the lesson a little off balance.

Ok, so now for the grand finale of my weird Friday. In between my last two lessons, my manager asked me to talk to a man who showed up interested in lessons. I had no time, but sat down anyway and asked him how he was, and he literally used a hand gesture of sending me away (you know, how rich people do to servants in movies), and gave me a dirty look. I tried one more time, thinking I imagined that because after all, who has ever seen a Japanese person be rude directly to your face?--they always do it on the sly instead, but yeah he did it again! So I thought "Fine, come to an English school and refuse to speak to a teacher, Ok." And ran back to my manager who saw the whole thing and we shared a "wtf" moment together. I watched him do the same thing to my coworker, and then taught another lesson and thought nothing more of it. ANYWAY after lessons were finished I was with my head teacher and she told me that after the last lessons started, the man started yelling at my manager and told her we were all idiots, and left. THEN he apparently called about 8 times and yelled at our staff, saying he had a horrible experience at our school and was going to return and hurt us. Yeah, I know, right?? So since something like this has probably happened in all of Japan's history of complaining maybe .00000000000000000000000087 times, everyone freaked out and called the police, and someone from our head office showed up to help manage the problem. We were asked to be out of the office a little earlier in case he came back, so I have no idea what happened with that. I mean, the chances of him "following through" with his threat are low and he is probably just a crazy old man, but at the same time that NEVER happens here, and is a weird situation anywhere to begin with. And these days, people are crazy. My criminology brain couldn't help but think of all the mass murder cases I studied about disgruntled customers, etc. But don't worry, I am sure I will show up to work and have maybe two personal police escorts assigned to me and the rest of our staff at all times tomorrow, based on how things are handled and situations are over handled here =) (kind of joking). All in all, it was just a very BIZARRE day!

But, on the flip side it WAS SNOWING TODAY. Not enough for it to actually stay on the ground, but yes, it was snowing!!! =)