Tests

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday. I am looking forward to a nice meal with Christina. I don’t know what she has in store for us, although she did promise me an apple pie. She will have to bake it though, because Costco was sold out of them last night. She only has a microwave/oven to work with. It is the size of a small microwave in the states. What ever she makes, it will be one of the greatest holidays, one I will long remember.

This week is test week at school. We have Friday off for Labor Thanksgiving. It is essentially “labor day.” Monday was the only day of classes this week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have all been scheduled for tests. I have had very little contact with the students this week, just a couple of quick hellos before or after school. While the students are testing, I have been diligently working on putting together three hour long DVDs, one from each grade level. Monday night, I bought a 300-gigabyte hard drive. There was no way I could put all of those videos together without more storage.

Tuesday, I downloaded most of one DVD, but I nearly froze doing it. The temperature has been topping out in the upper 50s. It sounds warm, but neither the school nor our house has any real heat. Our apartment has a small space heater, which Chrissy uses most of the time. I have noticed little radiators in the classes, but they haven’t turned them on yet. In the teachers’ room I didn’t notice any heaters any heaters until yesterday.

During the tests in the morning, the first couple of hours wasn’t that bad. Yet the longer I would sit and work in the office, the colder I became. By about 11:00 am it was almost unbearable. The only source of heat that I had was a warm cup of coffee. I would hold it, almost hugging it until it was gone. By noon, I had downed three cups trying to stay warm.

At lunch, Katsumoto and I sat in the faculty kitchen. I threw my peanut butter sandwich in the microwave and buzzed it. Katsumoto thought I was crazy. Then I threw my tangerine in there, too. It was quick, just long enough to warm it up. It was tasty. Katsumoto really didn’t understand until he saw me wrap both of my hands around it before I ate it.

After lunch, one of the teachers brought out some old kerosene heaters. They reminded me of old camping heaters. In the center of the floor, they uncovered two gas outlets and plugged the heaters in. For the next couple of hours, teachers gathered around one heater holding their hands above it and chatting. By about three the office was warm enough to work on the computer again without hugging my mug or blowing on my hands.

Wednesday, it was the same story. While the teachers were in their classes, the heaters sat idle. The classrooms heat up much better than the faculty room. The classroom windows face south and any little sun takes the chill off of the class. When the teachers return to the office after lunch, they turn the heaters on. This afternoon, though they shut them off as all of them left for a meeting. For the next two hours I sat alone in the cold working on the last video. Occasionally, I would lay my hands on the computer or the new hard drive and just try to draw some of the heat into my fingers.

Tonight, I came home. Our house was warm and it smelled of pumpkin muffins. Chrissy was busy baking this afternoon. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I will be able to share pumpkin muffins with all of the teachers. Friday, we have off. It is going to be a great Thanksgiving.