Breakfast Companion

The early light flitering through the rice papers of my bedroom window this morning pulled me into wakefulness, and for a moment I thought I was in Boulder again, nestled in the foothills of the Rockies and not my futon cacoon on the hard tatami of my Utsunomiya flat. Again, too much sleep drugged my conciousness today; I slept for nearly 12 hours last night, worrying me for strange African illnesses I may have brought with me as unwanted omiyage. As comfort and breakfast companion, I wrote postcards home as I sipped madagascar vanilla red rooibos tea (a popular African tea left behind, unopened, by my predecessor), getting up every now and then to stir the sauteeing green beans and egg on my small gas range. All of yesterday I went without speaking, and broke the stretch only for a moment this morning when greeting the only other teacher who came to my school today. The school, like my still and quiet apartment, was empty all day long, and I was left to sit at my desk and look busy for the offchance that someone might actually walk through the sliding doors to the teachers' office and notice me.
My time at work today allowed me to be productive in overviewing my predecessors' teaching materials and lesson plans, which was interesting and gave me a good perspective of what I can expect to be doing in the coming year.
I also took some time in the morning to slip away from my desk and do some exploring. As I mentioned, the school was nearly empty, but after a bit of searching I did come across a few other individuals.

Two girls giggle and throw erasers at eachother in the chemistry lab, postponing the study they have met to conduct.

A small man with heavy glasses shuffles along the shadowy third-floor cooridor, busy reading from a stack of papers he carries with him.

A lone girl sits in the back row of an empty classroom, her headphones on and her nose in a textbook. On the board someone has written in English "Why postpone for tomorrow what can be done today?"

I sneak back to my desk and hold the images like a secret, opening my books and pretending I have been working hard all morning.

And so, like this, all day I sat at my desk and tried not to look at the big schoolroom clock hanging on the wall above the exit. Four o'clock came, and with it, the end of my first full day at Utsunomiya Girls Senior High. One down. A few hundred to go. I think I can manage. The silence of the empty hallways makes a most wonderful work companion.