So much for the holidays...

For all I`ve ever told people about teachers getting great holidays, Shane are doing their best to refute that. Today was a national holiday and most Shane teachers had yesterday off too, but myself, Karen, Steven, Erica and a couple of others had to spent our time in follow-up training. It`s been quite useful, but having to switch to a regular 9 to 5.30 schedule is a strain now we`re used to 12 - 1 o`clock arrival times. It was also quite painful spending time with one of the newer recruits who couldn`t help trying to bond by bitching while the trainer was speaking. She hasn`t done much to win herself over: on top of grumbling over the senior management of central Tokyo`s main office; she has also snubbed other teachers knocking on her door to introduce themselves, but giving herself away by huffing at the inconvenience; and, having been introduced to George as one of Pamela`s new friends, sent back a bowl of chips as too measly a portion and demanded more. Karen, a master of diplomacy, has put her general gripes and unpleasantness down to naivity: I think Karen is too generous.

The romance with Cherry Boy is going well. Or at least, is amusing. Having remembered him trying to decipher a cigarette packet health warning during our meal, I am praying we can find a film to go to this Saturday evening. I might even sit through something Japanese if it looks pretty. His text messages are inspired. If there is no other reason to date a native, this is good enough for me. His `Thursday was generated by a meeting at 5am`, he `is a bottle baby and his parents` house is a sake shop` and, having spent yesterday evening drinking with a friend until 4am, `today is a hangover... [he] is unpleasant`. Sean, a fellow Shane employee who is also dating a low-level English speaker, got the best `I sleep but I do not gain knowledge`. Utterly profound, Mai.

I can feel the tentative prickles of homesickness coming on. Takashi-san warned me on Sunday that it would be three months after arriving that it really hit home and I think he`s right. I am really enjoying it here. Everything is great, I am enjoying work and feel quite settled, but I miss having close friends around me and people to confide in. I`ve met some nice people and one or two that I would genuinely like in the real world, but it is hard to live up to what I left behind and conversation is still sometimes stilted or censored, rather than being ramblingly natural as it was at home. I have a sense of impending doom as I think this feeling will get starker soon.