Women confuse me. Japanese women confuse me more. Individual Japanese women confuse me the most.
I have one co-worker, we’ll call her Yuki (Not her real name), who confuses me greatly.
She’s about 25 and is somewhat new to teaching. Shortly after she came to this school a year and a half ago I heard her say she enjoyed foreigners and liked to experience foreigner culture in Japan. So, last year I invited her to a foreigner/Japanese Halloween party my company was having. It was a bust, but it seemed to be OK. We had dinner a few times as well last fall/winter. Everything was strictly platonic and it seemed we meshed fairly well. I bought her a CD for Christmas as I thought we were friends.
Things got kind of weird sometime in December and have stayed odd since. She became fairly distant, always coming up with excuses not to do something if I’d ask to go snowboarding or eating. She also went from being pretty friendly at work to being rather distant. I used to get an おはよう “ohayou” (good morning in a casual/close manner. Maybe ‘mornin’) from her but recently I don’t even get the full on おはようございます (GOOD MORNING), which is verbotten in Japan. I only get a grumpy look.
Today I have no class and was searching for a class to go watch to fill up an hour. Yuki had a class in her 5th hour block that would have been perfect to join. So, I asked her if I could come in and watch. Here’s a bit how the conversation went:
Me: “What are you doing for 5th hour?”
Yuki: “Umm.. why?”
Me: “Oh, I just want to come and watch class if that’s ok.”
Yuki: “We have a test. A test.”
Me: (hint: I had already asked the kids and KNEW they didn’t have a test) “Whaaa? No you don’t. You’re lyin’ aren’t you, tease.”
Yuki: “Test. We have a test.”
Me: “Really? Are you sure?”
Yuki: “Test. We have a test.”
Some kid somewhere behind me: “Teacher, we don’t have a test.”
Yuki: “SHHH! Shut up.”
I left the room after that. Now is it just me or is this just plain bizarre? I used to think the issue was the old “a girl liked you, you didn’t reciprocate feelings, and now she’s going to treat you like ass” routine. But now I’m starting to think Yuki is simply a crabby, unstable person. I keep wondering if it’s something I did or should have done differently. I don’t know any more.
So, that’s my Friday. Other than that I caught a cold last night, my first one this year. I had 1 or 2 very minor ones before which disappeared before they even really began.
Have a good weekend. I will have a new drama review coming soon. Hopefully I’ll get a little more blogging done starting in December once graduate school application season is over.
roaminsticka 