Buying chalk

I ran out of climbing chalk on Sunday and had to pay to borrow a bag. Besides being a bit expensive to do, it was hard not to think about other people’s sweaty hands using the bag. It’s probably not a lot worse than sticking one’s hands in the holds, but it definitely felt worse in my head. So I planned on Monday to cycle to Matsumoto and buy a chalk ball and extra chalk. At the end of the day though, I ended up eating soba and lots of fried shrimp and beans. It was too big a dinner, so instead of vigorous exercise I did some reading and went to sleep.

On Tuesday I had a good but slightly tiring day at Seba Elementary School. It seems that they want to accept my willingness to teach five classes a day, and have set me up with that schedule. But all the classes went well and the children behaved themselves. I was approached by the mother of two of my students from last year at Narakawa. She thanked me for teaching them and told me that they missed me. I didn’t really know what to say, but I appreciated her effort.

There was supposed to be an Active meeting, but I was the only one who showed up. I talked about our supposed hour-long breaks with my boss. For working 8 hours we are required by law to get an hour-long break, but for some reason ALTs are considered to be slightly under this time limit. Even so, we supposedly get a break, but it’s a bit difficult to clearly distinguish the break because we are expected to be on call anytime someone wants to talk to us. Given this fact, I think it’s a bit strange to even say that we have any break at all. It is nice that because of this we are sometimes allowed to go home early instead of sitting through staff meetings.

I didn’t really want to go to Matsumoto, but I told two people that I would go so I went. It ended up being a solid 50 minute journey each way, and since I didn’t get started until 5:30, it kept me rather late. I was very hungry by the time I got back home. The store was nice though, and the prices were very reasonable, and I bought more or less exactly what I wanted.

I made overnight oats again last night. They’re quite nice, but this time I made it without sweet yogurt, and didn’t add quite enough honey to compensate. Even so, I enjoyed it. Tonight’s dinner is a bit of a concern to me because I have some beef that I need to use but I don’t really have time to cook it.