In a strange turn of events…
14 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
I have been off work for a week with bronchitis. I spent the week doing almost nothing – other than catching up on crappy tv and even crappier games online. I have been a sad sack, and picked a few fights with friends, and been feeling rather sorry for myself. I had to go to the clinic – just to prove to the Board of Ed (BOE) that I was indeed out sick, since no one is making the 30km trek to check on me for themselves. I actually had to go twice. The first time, on Monday, only the bone doc was in, and he gave me some pills without checking my lungs, looking at my throat or even glancing at me. The pills of course were useless.
I went back on Wednesday (2 days off is the max on 1 visit, I guess) as requested by the BOE, and this time an ear, nose and throat doc was visiting the clinic. He actually got the stethoscope going and listened to my raspy lungs, asked some questions and told me I had bronchitis. I was given a “get out of work free” note for the rest of the week, and a shot to help stop the coughing a bit. Ouch.
Anyway, I had a week off, and it was uneventful and boring.
However, it is Monday morning now on my side of the planet – and that means back at Junior High School. JHS Mondays usually suck. I only have 3 classes so it is my quietest morning, and my Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) lets me do nothing other than the boring ass read repeat of the super lame JHS text. It sucks. My eyes glaze over faster than the students – although they are not far behind me once he starts droning on in Japanese. The 5 minutes of their class where anyone actually speaks English, they are so bored, they soak nothing in and all of them (except for maybe 5%) are failing.
It makes me insane.
This morning though, I got here to find the usually super quiet staffroom in a buzz. I usually get in at 8, grab a coffee, settle in for an email/blog catch up, then toodle off to class with no info. Today, we had a super important staff meeting – where I noticed we waited for everyone to assemble except my JTE. The kocho sense came out of his closed door office – also unusual – with my JTE in a suit behind him. Super serious for small town JHS – everyone wears track suits. I panicked a moment as I thought this might mean a surpise demo lesson (I am wearing cotton pants and a smoking lily sweater – above a track suit, but about a mile below the formal demo class attire required), but realized that the attitude was very somber.
A bit of info on my JTE. He is 30, and has a child who is about 2. She was born deaf, and with some serious birth defects. She was missing her esophagus and it had to be reconstructed. Plus a variety of other difficulties. Super cute, but they only got to take her home from the hospital a few months ago. Anyway, it turns out that she is not well, and he has to take an extended leave of absence to be with her and help his wife take care of her.
I feel awful for him, and their little family. It means I have no classes this week, and am anxiously awaiting who the BOE will find to be his replacement. Could it get better? will it get worse…
What did you say??