Free Day

I pulled into the school car park today to find it deserted except for two other cars parked in the visitors spaces. I was puzzled. Unless it was national walk to school day it looked like the school definitely wasn't open and that I had made a mistake (again) and had not looked at my schedule before leaving home.

I parked in my spot in the teachers car park and rang Chris to get him to check my schedule for me. Last time I got my schools mixed up one of the English teachers I worked with ended up going round to my house to check that I hadn't died in a car crash. And when the head teacher of the school that I should have been at managed to get in contact with me I argued that he was wrong and that there was no way I had got mixed up with where I should be- I was in the wrong... of course. But this time, I wasn't mistaken.

I got out of my car and made my way into the building feeling somewhat confused and a tad angry that I had driven all the way there for no reason. The lights in the office that is by the entrance hall were on but nobody was there. I tried the staff room and that was locked. It was quite creepy to be in the school with no-one around. At this point I started to feel less confused and more embarrassed that I had come all the way here- though, it really wasn't my fault this time- but swallowed this feeling and decided to go on a search for the people that were in the school. I wandered down the corridors calling "suuuuuumimasen?", "Ohaaaaaaaaayo?" until I came to the door of the school kitchens. I had found life- indicated by the slippers that had been left outside the door. Luckily, just as I was about to knock, one of the lunch staff opened the door and looked very surprised to see me.

Lunch man: "Oh, good morning"

Me: "Morning. Where is everyone?!"

Lunch man: "The school is closed today so they are all off" (As he says this he is giving me a face which says 'silly gaijin')

Me: "Ahhh, no-one told me this"

(His face changes to one of understanding and then he laughs at me. I join in.)

Lunch man: "Would you like me to call the deputy head for you? Let's go to the office."

Me: "Thank you! Typical me coming to work when school is closed" *Sigh*

He was really nice and saved me from having to call my supervisor to find out the head teachers number (and also have to go into the BOE to work). When I spoke to the head teacher he was extremely apologetic and told me to take the day off and to not bother telling my supervisor since it was his fault that I hadn't been told. As I was leaving , lunch man gave me a sweet because he felt bad for me and told me to have a nice relaxing day off. I don't think I have spoken to him much before but will make more of an effort to go and hang out in the office when he is around from now on.

Now I am back at home and feeling lucky about my free day off. I will use it wisely and do some bits and bobs which I didn't manage to get done over the weekend like buy birthday cards and take photos for my new blog.