Monday

Monday is a day of sanity because I only teach one class and have plenty of time to sit around the office, fire up the coffee maker, and prepare for the coming week. It's the best of times and the worst of times at work. Yes, the junior college is closing in April of 2006 and I'll be out of job, but a 2-year notice sure beats one of the 2-week variety. The reduction in meetings and the end of student recruitment activities has also reduced my work load. No longer do I sit through meetings on how to publicize the school or when to upgrade the school network. When the board of directors announced the closing back in May there was initial panic and a lot of activity that was equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. No icebergs in this part of Japan; the school just ran into a rapidly falling birthrate and a trend toward schools that specialize in vocational training. Majoring in English in Japan has become the equivalent of saying I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I graduate.