Let’s Confusing

Once a month, the board of education holds a meeting where ALTs and representatives from the schools meet to plan for the next month. The elementary schools are supposed to send a representative or at least send a list of days that would be best for an English lesson. For me, this never happens so the junior high school teacher and me just look at the calendar and pick which four days out of the month that they probably wouldn’t need me at the junior high school. The board of education contacts the elementary school, and they usually respond in a timely fashion if there is a problem with the schedule. Since neither I nor said junior high school teacher can read minds, sometimes the elementary schools ask for a different day. Usually, not a problem.

This is just to explain that about three weeks ago, I was told that I needed to come to S elementary school today instead of the first of this month. Not a problem. I was given (a relative amount of) ample notification and someone did actually tell me.

However, someone didn’t tell the school lunch centre that brings the food, so they brought my lunch to the junior high today. This sounds like a big deal, but it’s not. School lunch is all brought together and the tea lady just doles out portions. At this elementary school, the tea lady herself doesn’t actually eat the school lunch most days, so there’s always way too much. The only thing that isn’t brought all together is the milk, which is packaged individually. I avoid the milk, so this isn’t a problem.

Of course, this turned into a huge deal and the tea lady called half of the city’s official phone numbers trying to figure out how to best deal with the issue at hand. I told her that, if need be, I could just go home and make something for lunch, but she wouldn’t have that. She was very determined to find out who didn’t tell who what and when. I was utterly confused and to make matters worse, she was explaining this all to me in a language I can only imagine cousin Eddie’s Japanese twin speaks.

Long story short, I ended up with plenty of food and a pound a spinach.

The tea lady also went on this tirade about one of the paraprofessionals that is apparently lazy, worthless, disrespectful, rude, foul and receives a better salary. The paraprofessional can’t not know about this, since the tea lady usually makes up her food early (to get cold faster) and shoots her the evil eye every time she makes eye contact.

P.S. Rent a goat