Surreal

Today’s posting went though many variations in my mind as a the day progressed.  Surreal is how, taken all together, the day is best described.

Today was the first day back at a vocational school that I have taught at for a number of years now.  They moved to a brand new building in a completely different part of Tokyo in time for the 2020 school year.  The building was not yet complete when we started classes late though this was not why we started late.  Covid was the cause of the late start.  The building is still not complete.  What makes this so strange is that it is the bottom corner of the building that is incomplete.  A whole corner of the building for several floors from below street level to several stories above is still missing with many floors above the huge hole in use.

But the weirdness began before even leaving for school today.  Having not been down to the school since June last year, I was not certain which, if any of the not so many places to eat in the area were still in business and I needed to eat near the school as classes start at 1pm.   Finding a place to eat is always of concern when starting at a new location, but it is strange to be concerned upon returning to a known location.  Many restaurants, cafes, coffee houses and bars have gone under these past three years thanks to the “recommended” covid mitigation protocols.   I have attempted several times in the past to express this but have yet to my satisfaction, it’s is beyond bizarre to go to a well known area of a city I have worked in for over 20 years and be filled with more uncertainty that I have ever felt when going to a completely new place.  Going to a new place, this uncertainly is adventurous.  Uncertainty upon returning is anything but adventurous.  Whatever it is, it is not a good feeling.

So I left extra early to give myself time if needed to search for lunch and if not needed, to explore and see what has changed.  Some of the restaurants were still operating, but many that had been were gone.  However, unlike the past two years, new businesses took their spots.  There were only two empty stores in the station building.  I no longer recall how many I counted last time, but they numbered more then than now.   

It has been a long while since I have been on such a packed train with as much baggage as I need for class.  I have lost my edge in securing room and time to put these in the over head luggage rack.  I have not been the only unmasked aboard the train for a few weeks and I was not today.  However, most are still masked.  Unlike the school I was at on Thursday, I was not the only unmasked person today.  Several of my students were unmasked.  All employees, apart from myself, were masked.  The partitions on the student lounge tables separating students are gone with the placed filled with chatting people.  Only a few were masked.

These students are second year biomedical engineering students and are traditionally the closest to myself in terms of our lives while in higher education.  Most have jobs to help pay their way through school as I did.  This is rare with my medical students.  However, with all the places that employed students closed for most of the past 3 years, they have undergone unnecessary hardship.  Generally, there are several students that keep it lively, a like number that are have perfected the art of appearing completely indistinguishable from mannequins and the rest are in between.  Today was quite unusual as almost the entire class was engaged.  Never so much of a single class even on the first day.   My first day of class is usually the same regardless who my students are.  I have used the same opening lessons for years and, as I have always had classes start at various times of the year this has been polished to almost perfection.  But it only works in its entirety in person and I now have had only two in person classes starting each year of the panic.  Rusty does not quite hit the mark in describing my performance today.

To get the students through their English requirement as quickly as possible, this school has them take it for two consecutive 90 minute class periods.  It is a slog for teacher and students alike but the course designer (not myself) created great materials for the course.  He even incorporated “The Far Side” cartoons.  The, “Testing whether laughter is the best medicine.”, elicits laughs from many, shock from others who find it distasteful to laugh at patients but most are just clueless.  Humor really does not translate well in many cases but we have fun anyway.

The first day is used for various introductory activities.   About half way through the first of the 90 minute classes a student got up, ran towards me gesturing as if her throat was dry, turned away from me and ran out the door.  She never returned.  After the completion of the second of our class periods, her purse and cellphone remained on her desk.  Not wanting to leave these unattended afterwards, I asked the staff member who looks after my needs at the school what to do.  Turns out, the poor young lady has had some sort of traumatic experience associated with talking with a foreigner and something triggered her and she fled.  Have never had that happen.  Do not know the nature of the traumatizing event and it is doubtful anyone other than she knows.   

The trip home was smoother than usual.  I usually have to wait at the station I change trains at as there used to be three trains in a row that did not go as far as I need to go.  Either the train schedule has changed again or I got an earlier than usual train from the first station.  This allowed me to get home a bit earlier than I was expecting. I used this extra time getting better prepared for a new Zoom class that starts at 6pm.  Yes, starting the 4th year of Zoom lessons.  And there was much rejoicing…NOT.   Stranger still, this is a class for young women who work in food service.  They face customers at work but for reasons I might be able to guess, we are still on Zoom.  The classes for this company have always been the exception to the usual complaints teachers usually have of their Japanese students.  I suspect this is due to the circumstances.  These students are paid to take the lessons and immediately get to use what they just learned and practiced on the floor after class.  Tonight though, they were so unresponsive that I had to verify that my mic was working several times during the class.  Never have I experienced this with students from this company.  The opening lesson I developed for Zoom lessons fell flat as it requires the students to respond and they just weren’t.  I am wondering if I somehow put them off.   I triggered another young lady earlier today, so…..  Worse, the person who organizes these classes asked for a copy of the recording from the class.  Of all the classes to have to share a video of, it’s the one and only one of their students that just were not participating.   Good ole’ Murphy has long taken an unnatural interest in me.

After the zoom class, I come down stairs and discovered that this arrived in today’s mail.

It is from City Hall.  They are still pushing the clot shot.   This is the third such I have received.  With the QR code am I to take it that there are attempting to implement a covid vaccine tracking system?  Well, whether or not I am to do so, I am.  My remaining med school as “offered” to maintain the covid shot records of those of us who get the shot elsewhere.  Nice of ‘em.  I declined to even acknowledge the offer.  The government keeps putting out that it is discriminatory to request anyone’s vaccine status, yet, they keep asking for it.