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Lord of the 2cm Flies
Today was easily one of the most fucked-up days I've had since coming to Japan, probably second only to getting hit by a truck.
I guess it started off normal enough. I even went to the grocery store to get more crackers and some other random food, and lunch, and remembered to take out the plastic bottles for this week. I still haven't done laundry, so I took a random pair of pants and dress shirt with me to work. Still normal...
I grab some coffee at the station and go over to GEOS. The door's still locked, but that's actually normal on Tuesdays too, for me to get there first if I arrive at 12:40. No biggie. I go downstairs, unlock the security system, come into my classroom, turn on the lights, throw my stuff on the table... I notice there's a few flies flying around, but that's actually not entirely out of the ordinary either. I go to the manager's office to turn on the computer and all that stuff.
I come back to my classroom and I realize it's not one or two flies, it's more like TEN OR FIFTEEN FLIES.
And they're not LITTLE, they are BIG fucking buzzing flies, around 2cm. I'm really not making that up.
I do what any normal person does in this situation: I scream and run out of my classroom.
I should probably mention at this point that I had a student arriving at 1pm for a class, which isn't normal for Tuesdays, but she was a flex student from Ikebukuro who was going to come to Akabane for 4 classes, sometime Tuesdays and sometime Thursdays.
It seemed like there were no flies in the back half of the school -- Eri's classroom, Duane's classroom, and the copier room, so I went into the copier room and changed clothes into my suit there. I ran into the office and logged into the computer so that would all be done. I ran into my classroom and grabbed my lesson plan for the day, dodging the buzzing flies... and then I noticed they were also flying around the lobby, at which point I started shouting and swearing at them again. Note that we do not have any bug spray in the building for some unknown reason.
Eri arrived at that point and heard my screaming and shouting and was like "What's going on? Is there a rat?"
"No, there are BUGS."
"What? Eww!" she said as she saw one of them buzz around the lobby.
I came out into the entryway and explained that there were MANY large bugs flying around the school, mostly in my classroom, and that I had a student showing up, and that I could not hold class like that. I don't think she believed me until she came into the building and two flies pretty much flew right at her, buzzing. She also screamed and came back outside into the entry.
"I'm going to go to Matsukiyo and get some bug spray. I'll be right back."
"Great, I'll uhh... I'll wait for my student."
I go upstairs -- keep in mind, our school is in the BASEMENT of a building right by the station, which probably explains why it always smells like, well, a basement. So I'm standing by the outside door looking really nervous when my student shows up.
"Uh, hey _____," I greet her. "How are you doing?"
"Fine thanks, and you?" she says as automatically as most Japanese people do. She starts trying to go past me to go downstairs. I stop her.
"Uh... so, uh, there are many bugs flying around the school right now."
"There are what?"
"Bugs," I say. Her eyes indicate she has no idea what I'm talking about. "Insects." Still nothing. "Mushi dakara," I finally say in Japanese.
"EWWWW!" she says, understanding at last. "In the school?"
"Yeah," I explain that Eri's gone to Matsukiyo to get bug spray and will be back really really soon I promise, and that I don't mind one or two bugs but there are MANY. She agrees that she doesn't like bugs either, and asks about Eri, who somehow she has never met, and so on. We talk in English for about 5 minutes at the top of the stairs until Eri returns with bug spray.
I introduce them. The student asks Eri once more in Japanese to explain the situation to make sure she understands. Eri explains. I nod a lot. We all go downstairs.
Now there are about 4-5 bugs flying around the lobby. Eri gets out one bottle of spray, opens the doors, and SPROOOOOOOOOOOOOSH sprays around it... and two bugs fly angrily towards us and we all scream and run backwards. This would be almost comical if it wasn't, you know, my workplace, and with someone who is technically a client. (Yes, students are really clients in a business sense, although I try not to think of them that way.)
Eventually we decide to just brave it. I go in and spray some. Eri goes in and sprays some. We clear the lobby at least; the bugs we sprayed all start falling to the floor and buzzing around madly, in their chemically-induced death throes. I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't, you know, BIG FUCKING FLIES. I go over to my classroom and just aim the spray bottle in and hold down the button for like ten seconds, waving it around, hoping the fans will pick up the chemicals and all.
Eri gets on the phone and calls Head Office to explain what's up. From her end of the conversation I hear her explaining that "yes, it's just the two of us today. No we have no manager, no Duane doesn't come here. Yes, there are like ten bugs flying around." ("Eri," I break in, "THERE ARE MORE LIKE TWENTY.") "Uhh... yes," she says, "Yes, I know," and so on, and eventually she hangs up and says, "They told us to get bug spray."
"Uhh, gee, THANKS. Do you have fumigators in this goddamn country?"
"What?"
"People who treat buildings for insect infestations, with lots of chemicals."
Eri just stares at me. "Like we can afford THAT?"
So, bug spray it is. By now it is around 1:20pm. I take my student into Duane's classroom, which is miraculously free of bugs, and we start the lesson. Ironically, the lesson is on "being a good listener", basically on ways to keep a conversation going, with phrases like "Really?" "And then what happened?" "What did you do next?" and so on, while someone is telling a story. So to demonstrate my point, I pretended I was telling her about my day at work.
Me: "You'll never guess what happened." [I prompt her to reply.]
Her: "What happened?"
Me: "I went to work and there were twenty bugs flying around my room!"
Her: "... Oh! Oh really?"
Me: "Yeah! It was insane! I screamed and ran outside."
Her: "... Oh, then what happened?"
Me: "The other teacher showed up, and..."
Yeah.
From time to time during the lesson, we hear Eri running around spraying bugs, and screaming a few times, but none of the bugs make it into Duane's classroom, so everything else goes well. The funniest part is that at the end of the class, I tell her it was nice having her come to Akabane for the four classes, and I'm so sorry about the bugs and starting late today, and I hope she does well at GEOS in the future, and she says, "Oh, I like your class, so I decided to apply to transfer to Akabane permanently!" "Wow, really? Pretty crazy timing..." but so instead of saying goodbye, we schedule her next two classes. Hopefully I can get clearance from a manager-type for this sometime.
We exit the classroom and there are actually no bugs flying around, which is good. My student says goodbye and leaves. By now Eri is doing her 2pm class, so I look around; in reality there are about 5 dead or semi-dead bugs lying around the lobby floor, and then there's another 7-8 lying/buzzing on the floor in my classroom, so I do what any person would do in this situation: I get out the vaccuum cleaner and suck them all up into it.
Ewwwww.
I figure that I can do my 3pm class in my real classroom though; I look all around it to see if some bugs are hiding, but find none. I throw out a TON of random things, and clean out my trash cans, and then I get out my textbooks for 3pm and just prepare a lesson. There's still this one obnoxious bug that's dying and buzzing under the Coke machine, and there's simply nothing we can do about that, really.
My 3pm goes well. We do about half free talk (oddly, talking about how Japan and America rate vision, like 20/20 or 0.9 or whatever) and half the lesson in the book, and at the end of class, one of the students, who mentioned before she wanted to give me a welcome party, tells the other student, "We're going to take Deanna out and get lunch next week after class, can you come?" The other student's like "Dude! Party!" So uh... yeah, that should be interesting!
I spend the next 3 hours:
- going over computer system stuff with Eri
- whining about the bugs and spraying a few more
- preparing lessons
- going to Matsukiyo and buying a bug bomb
Oh, I should mention at this point that I got a note from Head Office saying I have to go to training in three weeks. They list the teachers who are attending this training. Among them are Carlos and David from my orientation group in Vancouver, and Sara who was in my interview group back in May (she's really cool, it'll be fun to see her again). Wheee. They also want me to give a five-minute presentation about one of the GEOS supplemental books, which would be no problem, except that our school DOESN'T HAVE A COPY of that particular book. I had asked Sachi to order it back in the day and she never got around to it before quitting.
Sigh.
So anyway, I had evening classes, which were also luckily bug free. Mill B was sad because one of my students finished his contract today and isn't coming back. Another student, when trying to define the word "charm" in a travel context, told me "Well, we have a word in Japanese-English called 'charm point'. For example, your 'charm point' is that you have a very nice smile!"
The Sprint 7 lesson was on how to describe people. I was paired to talk with one of my students since we had 3 people in class today, and one of the cards that came up was "your favorite school teacher," and I described Mark Stehlik. My student said "Hmm... she's really tall, and she always smiles and tells jokes, and she is very nice and and has good advice for me." I ask, "What class do they teach?" and they said "English. I am describing you!"
(Awwwwww.)
Anyway, after all of these great classes which should have made me all happy, I had to come back to the reality of the fact that we've got this slight bug problem to deal with in the school (and of course there were two bugs buzzing around on the floor in the lobby yet again then). In the meantime we ALSO get a call saying that my Head Trainer is going to be at our school tomorrow to observe me! This guy is essentially in charge of all teachers in Higashi Kanto.
FUCK.
Normally I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I mean, this is just not the day to tell me that. And of course I'm worried he'll show up and there'll be flies buzzing around everywhere again.
So, Eri helps me start up the bug bomb! Very exciting that. I put some water in the can and drop the bomb thingy in, leave it on my desk near the back of the room, and turn off all the vents in the room and close the door. Yay! We go lock up the school and start to leave the building, when...
BEEEEEEEEEP
BEEEEEEEEEP
[STUFF IN JAPANESE ESSENTIALLY SAYING "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE BUILDING, THERE'S A FIRE"]
"Oh, shit," says Eri.
"What?"
"I think the bug bomb set off the smoke detector."
"Oh you are FUCKING KIDDING ME."
Sure enough, people start running out of the building. Keep in mind that we are in the basement of the "Akabane Ekimae Building", which also is home to:
- a Big Echo karaoke place
- a Za Watami izakaya or whatever the hell it is
- another restaurant or two
- various other things that all have a whole ton of people in them at 10pm
So of course, we end up going into the Karaoke place in order to explain what the hell is going on, and of course they are like "well, fuck," and we have to unlock the building again and show them what's going on, while in the meantime it's still doing the smoke detector beeping and all.
We have to wait by the GEOS door to let another building guy in... so here we are in the entryway, breathing in the fumes that are escaping from the bug bomb... waiting for someone to come back. Eventually someone does, and tells us that we have to call the security guys (which for some reason I thought they said fire department) to have them disable the alarm. Great. Eri's like "GODDAMNIT, MY LAST TRAIN LEAVES IN LIKE 6 MINUTES," so she explains that to the building guys, tells me to call her if there's a translation need, and I end up having to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
In the meantime I get a few emails on my cellphone, including one from Jeff going "goddamnit" about the Giants clinching. I write back "Oh dude, you have no fucking idea. I'm stuck here at my work building waiting for the fire department because I set off the smoke alarm with a bug bomb after our school got attacked over the weekend by a horde of 2cm flies."
It's at about that moment that I realize exactly how ridiculous the entire day has been -- and I also realize that in the entire day, I have literally eaten pretty much only two potato croquettes and a cream bread, back at noon. It's 11pm, and I'm stressed out and starving and my entire mouth tastes like bug spray chemicals.
FINALLY the security guy shows up; I let him into the building, he goes into my classroom, I explain that we had many bugs and so we put out the bug bomb and the smoke set off the alarm, etc. He spends about two minutes examining the smoke alarm and then says "Ok, no problem. You can lock up and go home."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
I lock up and go home. In a desperate attempt to get the taste of bug bomb chemicals out of my mouth, I go up to Tonden, the Japanese-style place I'd investigated a few weeks ago, and I get an exorbitant dinner combo which has tempura and sushi and zaru udon and some other things. As usual I remind myself that it's no big deal, since such a dinner would never ever cost only $12 total in the US.
I arrive back at home around 12:45am, and Jeff IMs me to ask if I watched the sports highlights at all and had to deal with all of the Giants clinching crap.
"Why no," I tell him. "I was off at Tonden trying to get the taste of bug bomb fumes out of my mouth."
"Oh right," he says. "You're probably better off that way."
I guess it started off normal enough. I even went to the grocery store to get more crackers and some other random food, and lunch, and remembered to take out the plastic bottles for this week. I still haven't done laundry, so I took a random pair of pants and dress shirt with me to work. Still normal...
I grab some coffee at the station and go over to GEOS. The door's still locked, but that's actually normal on Tuesdays too, for me to get there first if I arrive at 12:40. No biggie. I go downstairs, unlock the security system, come into my classroom, turn on the lights, throw my stuff on the table... I notice there's a few flies flying around, but that's actually not entirely out of the ordinary either. I go to the manager's office to turn on the computer and all that stuff.
I come back to my classroom and I realize it's not one or two flies, it's more like TEN OR FIFTEEN FLIES.
And they're not LITTLE, they are BIG fucking buzzing flies, around 2cm. I'm really not making that up.
I do what any normal person does in this situation: I scream and run out of my classroom.
I should probably mention at this point that I had a student arriving at 1pm for a class, which isn't normal for Tuesdays, but she was a flex student from Ikebukuro who was going to come to Akabane for 4 classes, sometime Tuesdays and sometime Thursdays.
It seemed like there were no flies in the back half of the school -- Eri's classroom, Duane's classroom, and the copier room, so I went into the copier room and changed clothes into my suit there. I ran into the office and logged into the computer so that would all be done. I ran into my classroom and grabbed my lesson plan for the day, dodging the buzzing flies... and then I noticed they were also flying around the lobby, at which point I started shouting and swearing at them again. Note that we do not have any bug spray in the building for some unknown reason.
Eri arrived at that point and heard my screaming and shouting and was like "What's going on? Is there a rat?"
"No, there are BUGS."
"What? Eww!" she said as she saw one of them buzz around the lobby.
I came out into the entryway and explained that there were MANY large bugs flying around the school, mostly in my classroom, and that I had a student showing up, and that I could not hold class like that. I don't think she believed me until she came into the building and two flies pretty much flew right at her, buzzing. She also screamed and came back outside into the entry.
"I'm going to go to Matsukiyo and get some bug spray. I'll be right back."
"Great, I'll uhh... I'll wait for my student."
I go upstairs -- keep in mind, our school is in the BASEMENT of a building right by the station, which probably explains why it always smells like, well, a basement. So I'm standing by the outside door looking really nervous when my student shows up.
"Uh, hey _____," I greet her. "How are you doing?"
"Fine thanks, and you?" she says as automatically as most Japanese people do. She starts trying to go past me to go downstairs. I stop her.
"Uh... so, uh, there are many bugs flying around the school right now."
"There are what?"
"Bugs," I say. Her eyes indicate she has no idea what I'm talking about. "Insects." Still nothing. "Mushi dakara," I finally say in Japanese.
"EWWWW!" she says, understanding at last. "In the school?"
"Yeah," I explain that Eri's gone to Matsukiyo to get bug spray and will be back really really soon I promise, and that I don't mind one or two bugs but there are MANY. She agrees that she doesn't like bugs either, and asks about Eri, who somehow she has never met, and so on. We talk in English for about 5 minutes at the top of the stairs until Eri returns with bug spray.
I introduce them. The student asks Eri once more in Japanese to explain the situation to make sure she understands. Eri explains. I nod a lot. We all go downstairs.
Now there are about 4-5 bugs flying around the lobby. Eri gets out one bottle of spray, opens the doors, and SPROOOOOOOOOOOOOSH sprays around it... and two bugs fly angrily towards us and we all scream and run backwards. This would be almost comical if it wasn't, you know, my workplace, and with someone who is technically a client. (Yes, students are really clients in a business sense, although I try not to think of them that way.)
Eventually we decide to just brave it. I go in and spray some. Eri goes in and sprays some. We clear the lobby at least; the bugs we sprayed all start falling to the floor and buzzing around madly, in their chemically-induced death throes. I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't, you know, BIG FUCKING FLIES. I go over to my classroom and just aim the spray bottle in and hold down the button for like ten seconds, waving it around, hoping the fans will pick up the chemicals and all.
Eri gets on the phone and calls Head Office to explain what's up. From her end of the conversation I hear her explaining that "yes, it's just the two of us today. No we have no manager, no Duane doesn't come here. Yes, there are like ten bugs flying around." ("Eri," I break in, "THERE ARE MORE LIKE TWENTY.") "Uhh... yes," she says, "Yes, I know," and so on, and eventually she hangs up and says, "They told us to get bug spray."
"Uhh, gee, THANKS. Do you have fumigators in this goddamn country?"
"What?"
"People who treat buildings for insect infestations, with lots of chemicals."
Eri just stares at me. "Like we can afford THAT?"
So, bug spray it is. By now it is around 1:20pm. I take my student into Duane's classroom, which is miraculously free of bugs, and we start the lesson. Ironically, the lesson is on "being a good listener", basically on ways to keep a conversation going, with phrases like "Really?" "And then what happened?" "What did you do next?" and so on, while someone is telling a story. So to demonstrate my point, I pretended I was telling her about my day at work.
Me: "You'll never guess what happened." [I prompt her to reply.]
Her: "What happened?"
Me: "I went to work and there were twenty bugs flying around my room!"
Her: "... Oh! Oh really?"
Me: "Yeah! It was insane! I screamed and ran outside."
Her: "... Oh, then what happened?"
Me: "The other teacher showed up, and..."
Yeah.
From time to time during the lesson, we hear Eri running around spraying bugs, and screaming a few times, but none of the bugs make it into Duane's classroom, so everything else goes well. The funniest part is that at the end of the class, I tell her it was nice having her come to Akabane for the four classes, and I'm so sorry about the bugs and starting late today, and I hope she does well at GEOS in the future, and she says, "Oh, I like your class, so I decided to apply to transfer to Akabane permanently!" "Wow, really? Pretty crazy timing..." but so instead of saying goodbye, we schedule her next two classes. Hopefully I can get clearance from a manager-type for this sometime.
We exit the classroom and there are actually no bugs flying around, which is good. My student says goodbye and leaves. By now Eri is doing her 2pm class, so I look around; in reality there are about 5 dead or semi-dead bugs lying around the lobby floor, and then there's another 7-8 lying/buzzing on the floor in my classroom, so I do what any person would do in this situation: I get out the vaccuum cleaner and suck them all up into it.
Ewwwww.
I figure that I can do my 3pm class in my real classroom though; I look all around it to see if some bugs are hiding, but find none. I throw out a TON of random things, and clean out my trash cans, and then I get out my textbooks for 3pm and just prepare a lesson. There's still this one obnoxious bug that's dying and buzzing under the Coke machine, and there's simply nothing we can do about that, really.
My 3pm goes well. We do about half free talk (oddly, talking about how Japan and America rate vision, like 20/20 or 0.9 or whatever) and half the lesson in the book, and at the end of class, one of the students, who mentioned before she wanted to give me a welcome party, tells the other student, "We're going to take Deanna out and get lunch next week after class, can you come?" The other student's like "Dude! Party!" So uh... yeah, that should be interesting!
I spend the next 3 hours:
- going over computer system stuff with Eri
- whining about the bugs and spraying a few more
- preparing lessons
- going to Matsukiyo and buying a bug bomb
Oh, I should mention at this point that I got a note from Head Office saying I have to go to training in three weeks. They list the teachers who are attending this training. Among them are Carlos and David from my orientation group in Vancouver, and Sara who was in my interview group back in May (she's really cool, it'll be fun to see her again). Wheee. They also want me to give a five-minute presentation about one of the GEOS supplemental books, which would be no problem, except that our school DOESN'T HAVE A COPY of that particular book. I had asked Sachi to order it back in the day and she never got around to it before quitting.
Sigh.
So anyway, I had evening classes, which were also luckily bug free. Mill B was sad because one of my students finished his contract today and isn't coming back. Another student, when trying to define the word "charm" in a travel context, told me "Well, we have a word in Japanese-English called 'charm point'. For example, your 'charm point' is that you have a very nice smile!"
The Sprint 7 lesson was on how to describe people. I was paired to talk with one of my students since we had 3 people in class today, and one of the cards that came up was "your favorite school teacher," and I described Mark Stehlik. My student said "Hmm... she's really tall, and she always smiles and tells jokes, and she is very nice and and has good advice for me." I ask, "What class do they teach?" and they said "English. I am describing you!"
(Awwwwww.)
Anyway, after all of these great classes which should have made me all happy, I had to come back to the reality of the fact that we've got this slight bug problem to deal with in the school (and of course there were two bugs buzzing around on the floor in the lobby yet again then). In the meantime we ALSO get a call saying that my Head Trainer is going to be at our school tomorrow to observe me! This guy is essentially in charge of all teachers in Higashi Kanto.
FUCK.
Normally I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I mean, this is just not the day to tell me that. And of course I'm worried he'll show up and there'll be flies buzzing around everywhere again.
So, Eri helps me start up the bug bomb! Very exciting that. I put some water in the can and drop the bomb thingy in, leave it on my desk near the back of the room, and turn off all the vents in the room and close the door. Yay! We go lock up the school and start to leave the building, when...
BEEEEEEEEEP
BEEEEEEEEEP
[STUFF IN JAPANESE ESSENTIALLY SAYING "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE BUILDING, THERE'S A FIRE"]
"Oh, shit," says Eri.
"What?"
"I think the bug bomb set off the smoke detector."
"Oh you are FUCKING KIDDING ME."
Sure enough, people start running out of the building. Keep in mind that we are in the basement of the "Akabane Ekimae Building", which also is home to:
- a Big Echo karaoke place
- a Za Watami izakaya or whatever the hell it is
- another restaurant or two
- various other things that all have a whole ton of people in them at 10pm
So of course, we end up going into the Karaoke place in order to explain what the hell is going on, and of course they are like "well, fuck," and we have to unlock the building again and show them what's going on, while in the meantime it's still doing the smoke detector beeping and all.
We have to wait by the GEOS door to let another building guy in... so here we are in the entryway, breathing in the fumes that are escaping from the bug bomb... waiting for someone to come back. Eventually someone does, and tells us that we have to call the security guys (which for some reason I thought they said fire department) to have them disable the alarm. Great. Eri's like "GODDAMNIT, MY LAST TRAIN LEAVES IN LIKE 6 MINUTES," so she explains that to the building guys, tells me to call her if there's a translation need, and I end up having to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
In the meantime I get a few emails on my cellphone, including one from Jeff going "goddamnit" about the Giants clinching. I write back "Oh dude, you have no fucking idea. I'm stuck here at my work building waiting for the fire department because I set off the smoke alarm with a bug bomb after our school got attacked over the weekend by a horde of 2cm flies."
It's at about that moment that I realize exactly how ridiculous the entire day has been -- and I also realize that in the entire day, I have literally eaten pretty much only two potato croquettes and a cream bread, back at noon. It's 11pm, and I'm stressed out and starving and my entire mouth tastes like bug spray chemicals.
FINALLY the security guy shows up; I let him into the building, he goes into my classroom, I explain that we had many bugs and so we put out the bug bomb and the smoke set off the alarm, etc. He spends about two minutes examining the smoke alarm and then says "Ok, no problem. You can lock up and go home."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
I lock up and go home. In a desperate attempt to get the taste of bug bomb chemicals out of my mouth, I go up to Tonden, the Japanese-style place I'd investigated a few weeks ago, and I get an exorbitant dinner combo which has tempura and sushi and zaru udon and some other things. As usual I remind myself that it's no big deal, since such a dinner would never ever cost only $12 total in the US.
I arrive back at home around 12:45am, and Jeff IMs me to ask if I watched the sports highlights at all and had to deal with all of the Giants clinching crap.
"Why no," I tell him. "I was off at Tonden trying to get the taste of bug bomb fumes out of my mouth."
"Oh right," he says. "You're probably better off that way."
no subject
But yeah, we're gonna miss your presence too. Hope you're enjoying yourself over there (Beelzebub's spawn notwithstanding...) :)