(Day 75) Bunkasai Preparation Day and Bus Debacle

Today was kind of a confusing day for me. In the beginning of the week, my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) gave me the weekly schedule and said that "you don't have classes on Friday." I wasn't sure if this mean't that I should go to the BoE office or that I just won't have classes that day and am still expected to go to the school. In hindsight, I should've asked because then it would've prevented this confusing situation I was in today.

Last night, on Thursday, I asked fellow ALTs on what they're doing since Friday is the day that everyone is preparing for Bunkasai (EN: Culture Festival). Bunkasai preparation is the reason why I didn't have any classes, but I also overheard them say, in Japanese, that they won't be serving lunch either. I was told by my ALT senpai (EN: Senior) that I should just go anyway and ask if they need help, so I did just that.

Upon arriving, none of the teachers were in the staff room except for my kyoto-sensei (EN: Vice-Principal). I asked him if there's anything that I can do to help prepare for bunkasai and he simply told me to walk around the halls and see if anyone needed help. At this time, at roughly 8:30-8:40AM, everyone was still in their homerooms doing what I assumed were morning announcement. So I walked around the halls for a bit, then just returned to the staffroom. On the way back, I ran into my 3rd year JTE and asked her if she needed any help. She suggested that since all the students are going to be doing their own thing, I should just return to the BoE office. So, after about an hour, I did.

I talked to my kyoto-sensei and told him that since they are not serving lunch today, and since there's nothing that I can do, I will go back the BoE office. As a rebuttle, he showed me the form where teachers were putting their order in for bento for ~600-700 yen. I decided against it and he said it was fine if I went.

Around 10:00AM I left for the bus stop.

As a side note, busses work differently than in the U.S. In Aomori.

In Aomori, you enter through the door in the back. Just next to the door, on the inside right side is a mini box that dispenses tickets. You need to grab one of these paper stubs because they keep track of which bus stop you got on at. On the front of the bus, you'll see a screen towards the cieling that'll display what stop is next as well as a chart with numbers, telling you how much money you need to pay the driver, depending on what stop you got on at. When you disembark, you walk to the front of the bus, drop your ticket into a receiptical thing, which then automatically tells you how much money you owe.

So. As I was on the bus, I realized I forgot to grab my ticket stub, so when I got off I had to basically say, "Sumimasen, kippu wo totteimasendeshita. nibandeshita." (EN: Sorry, I didn't take a ticket. I was number 2). The bus was crowded with obaachans (EN: Grandmas) too so it was hard getting through. I felt pretty bad.

Hopefully that whole bus debacle won't happen again. I hear that it's quite common for people to forget to grab a ticket, so maybe it will. Also, in regards to the confusion about whether or not I was really supposed to go to school, I'm not sure if I'll figure that out -- it's an issue of communication.

(P.S. Apparently there are enkai (EN: Work party) after bunkasai. Usually the ALT gets invited to that as well, but I wasn't told anything. If they aren't told, they usually get a slip of paper explaining the price, where, and when the enkai  would be taking place, but I didn't receive any sort of slip either.

I'm at the BOE office now. I've got a race tomorrow, and my school's bunkasai through the whole weekend, so I might go to those. We'll see though.

Besides work, I still want to visit Lake Towada to see the leaves change color. The leaves are changing now, so I hope to catch it before the first snow falls.

UNTIL THEN!!!