I sometimes wonder if I am just a bit unlucky, or actually completely uncoordinated, and only just able to maintain a bare illusion of professionalism .
I say this because just last week, I thought I had my life pretty much under control.
The day was going along fine. It was massively busy, the schedule was a bit tight, there was some rushing around, but overall, I was on top of things.
Then, I had to work through lunch. No problemo! I found some chocolate in my desk. Looking up at the clock, it was 22seconds to the bell. I surveyed the size of the chocolate. Hmmm, not really big enough for two bites, best shove it all in my gob now, and by the time I walk down the hall to my classroom, it'll be the perfect crime.
Fast forward to three hours later, my two classes and lecture are now finished, and I am about knackered from a long day.
While I am cleaning the board, a student comes up to hit me with grammar questions. I stick out my tongue when I have to think hard. Then I taste chocolate. I turn surreptitiously around to face the board. My tongue does a little more searching, and I taste more chocolate. Uh oh. I turn my back to the students, and face the window, and do a full tongue-sweep of my lips and mouth.
Oh. Dear.
I have had it on my face for THE WHOLE THREE HOURS. I taught a lecture and two classes like that. Not one person said a word. Christ.
At the end of winter here, for three months I was sent off to Kashiwa, in Chiba. The classes were twice a week. I have to be on the 5:37 train to be there just before 8am. It's alarmingly early. I am not naturally an early riser, but I really need the money, and it's a lovely place (pity it's more than two hours away, three trains and a bus).
I live in a tiny Japanese apartment, where everyone sleeps in the same room. Getting up at 5, I don't want to wake them. So I get dressed in the dark, I don't use the hair dryer, I sneak out and close the door softly. It's priceless to see the faces of sleeping Boy and Duck, up to no mischief.
The real price of not waking them up is getting dressed in the dark, though. It's really not a good look to travel all that way, on all that very PUBLIC transport, looking like you were dressed by blind circus clowns with only one hand.
SEVERAL times I have just glanced down at the LAST SECOND before entering the lecture hall to see my shirt done up crooked, and inside out. I had apparently been dressed like that all morning. Thank goodness for long trench coats in cold weather, allowing me to do the magic trick of getting my shirt off, turned right side out, and buttoned up, all without showing the public my underwear.
Not that the general public on the way to Kashiwa hasn't seen my underwear.....
My Nanna always said "Wear clean underwear, you never know when you might be hit by a bus!"
I puzzled for years over the wisdom of this.
I finally decided it means you would be really embarrassed if you were dead or injured and the ambulance men said,
"My God, what ratty drawers she had."
So apart from making sure I am wearing clean undies at ALL times, I also make extra sure I wear the NICE under wear when I travel to work. Just to be on the safe side, because you never know.
It was almost my last class, and so my last morning dragging my white arse out of the futon before dawn. I miraculously get a seat on the third train. I am listening to the soothing tones of Gorillaz on the way to KashiwaNohaCampus via the Tsukuba Express. Very Luxe train.
I look up to see people staring. Not the usual Stare Bears, this is really hard staring, and it's EVERYBODY.
I turn my head to the side, crank up my ipod and mouth the words to FeelGood Inc. and feel a strange breeze. The train is sealed, and the heaters are on, so why does my décolletage feel draughty??
I look up to see a smarmy smirky old Salary man, and he is blowing into the hole in my shirt, between the first and the third buttons.
Seems about one or two trains ago, I lost a shirt button, RIGHT in the middle of my cleavage. Usually I am wearing an undershirt, so it's no big whoop, but today was a little warmer, and I felt I could go to work with only three layers instead of my usual four.
It got worse, as there was a flash storm, I had no umbrella , and I was soaking wet, freezing cold, my shirt went see-through and my headlights were on for the rest of the commute.
Lucky for me, apart from being the unwitting burlesque and peep show performer on two morning trains (I did my trench coat up to my neck on the bus) I was saved by the fact that most of my students are some one's Mum. Thank goodness for old ladies in Chiba.
When I got to University, they whisked me away to the tea room, where I was clad in aprons and towels (My boobs are waaay too big to go into just one apron and not look porn) , while one of them sewed on a button for me , one of them made me a cup of tea, biscuits were found and arranged prettily on a plate, and at the end I got an Easter egg.
My class of Mums and families are now safely living in California USA, probably talking to people in Torrence with my broad Australian accent.
I say this because just last week, I thought I had my life pretty much under control.
The day was going along fine. It was massively busy, the schedule was a bit tight, there was some rushing around, but overall, I was on top of things.
Then, I had to work through lunch. No problemo! I found some chocolate in my desk. Looking up at the clock, it was 22seconds to the bell. I surveyed the size of the chocolate. Hmmm, not really big enough for two bites, best shove it all in my gob now, and by the time I walk down the hall to my classroom, it'll be the perfect crime.
Fast forward to three hours later, my two classes and lecture are now finished, and I am about knackered from a long day.
While I am cleaning the board, a student comes up to hit me with grammar questions. I stick out my tongue when I have to think hard. Then I taste chocolate. I turn surreptitiously around to face the board. My tongue does a little more searching, and I taste more chocolate. Uh oh. I turn my back to the students, and face the window, and do a full tongue-sweep of my lips and mouth.
Oh. Dear.
I have had it on my face for THE WHOLE THREE HOURS. I taught a lecture and two classes like that. Not one person said a word. Christ.
At the end of winter here, for three months I was sent off to Kashiwa, in Chiba. The classes were twice a week. I have to be on the 5:37 train to be there just before 8am. It's alarmingly early. I am not naturally an early riser, but I really need the money, and it's a lovely place (pity it's more than two hours away, three trains and a bus).
I live in a tiny Japanese apartment, where everyone sleeps in the same room. Getting up at 5, I don't want to wake them. So I get dressed in the dark, I don't use the hair dryer, I sneak out and close the door softly. It's priceless to see the faces of sleeping Boy and Duck, up to no mischief.
The real price of not waking them up is getting dressed in the dark, though. It's really not a good look to travel all that way, on all that very PUBLIC transport, looking like you were dressed by blind circus clowns with only one hand.
SEVERAL times I have just glanced down at the LAST SECOND before entering the lecture hall to see my shirt done up crooked, and inside out. I had apparently been dressed like that all morning. Thank goodness for long trench coats in cold weather, allowing me to do the magic trick of getting my shirt off, turned right side out, and buttoned up, all without showing the public my underwear.
Not that the general public on the way to Kashiwa hasn't seen my underwear.....
My Nanna always said "Wear clean underwear, you never know when you might be hit by a bus!"
I puzzled for years over the wisdom of this.
I finally decided it means you would be really embarrassed if you were dead or injured and the ambulance men said,
"My God, what ratty drawers she had."
So apart from making sure I am wearing clean undies at ALL times, I also make extra sure I wear the NICE under wear when I travel to work. Just to be on the safe side, because you never know.
It was almost my last class, and so my last morning dragging my white arse out of the futon before dawn. I miraculously get a seat on the third train. I am listening to the soothing tones of Gorillaz on the way to KashiwaNohaCampus via the Tsukuba Express. Very Luxe train.
I look up to see people staring. Not the usual Stare Bears, this is really hard staring, and it's EVERYBODY.
I turn my head to the side, crank up my ipod and mouth the words to FeelGood Inc. and feel a strange breeze. The train is sealed, and the heaters are on, so why does my décolletage feel draughty??
I look up to see a smarmy smirky old Salary man, and he is blowing into the hole in my shirt, between the first and the third buttons.
Seems about one or two trains ago, I lost a shirt button, RIGHT in the middle of my cleavage. Usually I am wearing an undershirt, so it's no big whoop, but today was a little warmer, and I felt I could go to work with only three layers instead of my usual four.
It got worse, as there was a flash storm, I had no umbrella , and I was soaking wet, freezing cold, my shirt went see-through and my headlights were on for the rest of the commute.
Lucky for me, apart from being the unwitting burlesque and peep show performer on two morning trains (I did my trench coat up to my neck on the bus) I was saved by the fact that most of my students are some one's Mum. Thank goodness for old ladies in Chiba.
When I got to University, they whisked me away to the tea room, where I was clad in aprons and towels (My boobs are waaay too big to go into just one apron and not look porn) , while one of them sewed on a button for me , one of them made me a cup of tea, biscuits were found and arranged prettily on a plate, and at the end I got an Easter egg.
My class of Mums and families are now safely living in California USA, probably talking to people in Torrence with my broad Australian accent.
