Huzzah! Exams are Done! Right, Back to Work You Lazy Good-for-nothings!

So these poor students just finished a gruelling set of exams stretched over four days and cruelly including a Saturday. I felt the cruelty myself as I crawled out of bed to answer my keitai at quarter to 9 only to have my supervisor ask me without a hint of irritation, frustration or anything nasty if I could come to school soon because there was work for me. I guess working all those essentially unpaid over-time hours "for the children" pay off in that I don't get crucified for sleeping in accidentally. Nice. I had expected something else, but this place continues to surprise me.

All the first and second years are outside playing soccer or badminton depending on the genitals they happened to grow some 17 or 18 years prior. There's no grass here, so they played in the sandy mud. Pretty cool really. You can tell people were really working at it when they walk past, covered in yellow grey sand-mud up to their eye-brows. Youth is something to be treasured here as the third and fourth years had no break, they just went straight back into classes today. Poor buggers. Me, I just have to mark 368 written exams. Much of this will have to be done outside of work hours in order to get the exams back to the students before Christmas. Fortunately I still have a fair bit of scotch left and sitting at my kotatsu watching NHK and marking into the wee hours carries some strange appeal for me. Who want's to meet up with friends or go to sleep when you could do that?!!?

Anyhoo, the sun is shining, the leaves have turned some very pleasant colours and I'm really enjoying my walks now that I don't get drenched in sweat. As a matter of fact, I find it pretty difficult to get out of bed in the morning now because my apartment is essentially open to the elements and there is now the occasional frost to contend with. Luckily I have a REALLY big duvet. I like to pronounce that "dove-ette". Others disagree. Apparently though, it's not really a matter of tomato, tomato, but more along the lines of facade and fakade. Still, with people teasing me about the way I say my 'ou' combos, I've taken to grabbing people by the nose when they tell me that's not how ya says it.

This picture is of the short-cut up the hill I climb to school every morning. I've got to say, Japan likes it's stairs. This may be yet another reason they don't tend to die of heart disease so early.