This day feels long enough to have been two days–I actually thought it was Tuesday night already, but alas, no; my Double-Length Class of Doom is tomorrow, and I still haven’t planned for it. In my defense, I only just got home from Tokushima City about an hour ago.
After my first elementary class this morning (I love my Monday-morning school; even though I was a little rusty and didn’t quite have as good control of the class as usual, the teacher was totally cool, and the kids were asking me a ton of questions to fill my awkward oops-I’ve-forgotten-how-to-teach-shougakusei gaps), I came back to my BOE because I had no junior high classes today, and then I realized, wait, if I have nothing going on, why don’t I go to the city and get this car title/insurance transfer taken care of? And so I did–after scrambling to get all my papers together, not being able to find Katie’s inkan shoumeisho (a certificate proving that her inkan/personal stamp is indeed hers–in Japan, personal stamps are used in place of signatures for official documents) and then having it turn up on my BOE desk of all places, and then nearly getting lost trying to find the not-easily-pedestrian-or-train-station-accessible Land Transport Bureau, and then having the guys agonize over Katie’s inkan for 5 minutes because they thought it looked a millimeter too slim to match up with the stamps in the documents…oy.
At any rate, it’s done. It’s actually done! All I have to do is apply for the secondary insurance, to make sure my passengers are insured, which I’m fairly sure I can do this week itself (probably Thursday afternoon), and then I can drive! All these weeks and months of stressful agony will be OVER!
I also bought my rail pass and roundtrip Ikeda/Fukuoka ticket today, since I went into the city after I finished all this. It’s nice to finally have those in hand–it makes this trip seem more real and more immediate (NEXT WEDNESDAY). There’s a lot I have to do–I’m still not sure if I should take a backpack or work with the shoulder bag I have, and if I should try to borrow a big backpack or buy one of my own.
I also picked up some gifts for my BOE–a box of cinnamon shortbread butter cookies for the BOE staff to show my thanks to them for…well, okay, besides my former boss, they didn’t do much on the whole besides “give me moral support” and sign off on the paid vacation I took to do all this, but you know, it’s a nice gesture (plus, these cookies look really delicious, and by giving them to the BOE, I’ll get to try them as well!). I also bought a small box of chocolates for the BOE lady who drove over a half-hour out of her way to pick up Katie’s inkan for me last week, and a big box of cookies in a beautiful tin for my supervisor, who’s had to deal with so much crap on my behalf. (Oh, I forgot to get something for Katie’s supervisor, who’s also done a lot, and who I’ll be meeting when I go to return Katie’s inkan…whoops. Oh well, I have time to get something.) I have no idea how my boss could remain so patient and friendly with me, considering how stressful this has been, since she ended up doing most of the research and fact-finding on my behalf. I’ll be getting her something really nice from Kyushu as well–she’s totally gone above and beyond, and I’m so grateful to her. She’s warm enough towards me that if it weren’t a supervisor-employee situation, I would definitely refer to her as and consider her to be a friend (especially because I found out that she’s only around 3 years older than I am!). She already is, really. I wish we could hang out outside of work sometime.
Crap, I really need to go plan for my Double-Length Class of Doom, but I want to throw in this conversation I just had with Moshe:
Jehsom: what’s a sumimasen??
Jehsom: curse word?
jediAndorus: Sumimasen = excuse me.
Jehsom: oh
jediAndorus: Why? Where’d you see it? ;o)
Jehsom: in your blog!!
jediAndorus: LOL–which entry?
Jehsom: the latest???? Do you not remember what you write? lol
jediAndorus: It’s been a really long day. ;o)
jediAndorus: Oh–hahaha!
jediAndorus: Yeah, sorry. I just politely excused myself since he was sort of standing there. I wouldn’t curse out some old man just for staring at me, dude. 😛 😉
Jehsom: lol, it would have been cooler though
Yep, that’s me, cursing out hapless, thunder-struck, ojiisans who aren’t used to foreigners. You know it!