Musings of a Drunken Monk: Individual Entry Archive

Today, I am the only teacher on my floor. I am most certainly the only English teacher at school, and one of perhaps a dozen teachers in general. The reason? School trip. Would you believe it if I said that in Japan, a school trip consists of an entire grade of students (and teachers) going to Tokyo, only meeting up in the morning, then going all over the city with no supervision whatsoever? In Litigous America, that just begs for whining parents to come down like sand flies on a stinky, washed-up dead (obviously) Jellyfish.

Ahem. But I digress.

Whilst alone, I had to go through the signing of some papers with one of the two vice principals of my school. Though he has been dubbed "Humpty Dumpty" by some, I find him a very respectable individual. The aforementioned quandary arose when he left the English office. Upon getting my signature, he promptly and very spectacularly tripped out the door and into the hallway in a shower of papers. For a "Humpty Dumpty," damn did he fly and land on his face. Maybe it was some sort of cosmic nickname irony.

Excepting my signature dirty-mouthed "ah shit" comment, all I could muster was "大丈夫？!!" (are you okay?) and some frantic watching while he tried to retain his dignity. The problem for me was I didn't know whether to be light-hearted about it (it was, after all, an awesome display) or mortified. To see a man I really respect splayed out like that bordered on pain. Even thinking about it later I somehow feel bad.

What's up with that?