The Sixth Day

On the sixth day, a Friday, I was able to have my first real day at school! After getting dressed and ready (still didn'’t have any food other than what I had carefully rationed for breakfast from my late night dinner the day before, and I had to use the face wash I brought for the whole shower routine since I didn'’t have any soap either!), I met my supervisor outside my apartment and she walked me to school. My apartment is extremely conveniently located. It’s directly next to the subway station and only a 10-minute walk from my school. I was very lucky as many ALTs have to commute for 40 minutes to an hour just to get to school. Once I was at school I was subjected to so. many. introductions. I had practiced a few short phrases to introduce myself and found I was using them about every 30 seconds. Felt a little bit like a show horse, but everyone could not have been more id or more welcoming. I was shown my desk in the main teachers’ room, and my other desk in the English Teachers’ office. My supervisor had a meeting so she plopped me down in the library for a bit with a “baby’s first Kanji’ book (no joke) so that I could study Japanese while she was away. After she came back we went out to lunch with one of the other English teachers. While I had just a normal person’s sandwich with fried pork and veggies, the teachers both had some abomination of egg salad sandwich with pizza topping and cheese melted on top. I won’t lie, it looked delicious, but it was no something I would have ever thought to put together myself.
After lunch I spent the day at my desk, pretending to be very hard at work as I read through English text books and stared at Japanese writing I couldn'’t possibly read. At one point a travelling yogurt saleswoman came in the office (this was such a week of firsts!) and the Kyoto-sensei (vice-principal) bought me some blueberry yoghurt as a welcoming gift. Don’t know how he guessed it, but he found the perfect way to win me over!
All throughout the day I also came across students who would stare at me with wide eyes. If it were a group of girls, I would say hello and they would all jump and scream “"kawaiiiiiii"” (cute!). If it were a group of boys, I would say hello and they would immediately go into a crazy deep bow and say whatever was the appropriate Japanese greeting for that time of day. If any girl ever wants to feel like a princess, go to Japan. I even had one brave girl run up to me and say “"You-…look-…like-…a-doll!"”. They were all very sweet.
After school I was given the sweet sweet time I needed to go shopping for the necessities- shampoo, some food, dish soap, glasses, plates, chop sticks, and a hand fan (the tradition of Japanese fans lives on- Japan is damn hot and just about everyone has one). For the first time I was able to breathe a little bit, and I went to bed finally letting it sink in that I was really here.