Yobancho Day
Today is another Yobancho day! Man, what a nice school. How nice? They have heaters. That's how nice.
So, there's a kerosene heater sitting about a foot and a half away from my desk in the teachers' room. It's glorious, I'm telling you. Actually, kerosene heaters are kinda interesting. At least if, like me, you really haven't seen many of them, before. Those who live in the country of Japan (all of them) put a kettle full of water (and it's a traditional gold-colored kettle, too) on top of the heater so it becomes a makeshift humidifier as well. And the one next to my desk has a little window so you can watch the flame slowly float about inside.
Now, at my other schools, they usually have heaters - either kerosene ones, or the air-conditioners can be set to heat - but they don't really use them. We don't use them because the kids don't get heaters, and if when they walked into the teachers' room they were greated with wafts of warm air, there'd be mutiny. It's an uneasy peace we share. So they only turn them on after 5:00, when most kids are at club practice or home.
Yobancho, though? They're not worried about kids crying foul over the teachers' exclusive kerosene-heater rights because... there is a kerosene heater in their classrooms, too! It's some kind of hypothetical ideal school I'm at, over here.
Also, a teacher was filling up the heater this morning. I finally realize now what those weird tubes I kept seeing are for. I always see these odd plastic tubes... they have a short (foot-point-five-long) straight section, then a longer (three feet?) flexible section that comes off of that at a right angle. At the join, there's a little pump thing. Well, of course, it's a siphon tube. And those huge plastic tanks? Those are filled with kerosene.
Good to know.
I'll stop lighting my cigarettes above those, now.
So, there's a kerosene heater sitting about a foot and a half away from my desk in the teachers' room. It's glorious, I'm telling you. Actually, kerosene heaters are kinda interesting. At least if, like me, you really haven't seen many of them, before. Those who live in the country of Japan (all of them) put a kettle full of water (and it's a traditional gold-colored kettle, too) on top of the heater so it becomes a makeshift humidifier as well. And the one next to my desk has a little window so you can watch the flame slowly float about inside.
Now, at my other schools, they usually have heaters - either kerosene ones, or the air-conditioners can be set to heat - but they don't really use them. We don't use them because the kids don't get heaters, and if when they walked into the teachers' room they were greated with wafts of warm air, there'd be mutiny. It's an uneasy peace we share. So they only turn them on after 5:00, when most kids are at club practice or home.
Yobancho, though? They're not worried about kids crying foul over the teachers' exclusive kerosene-heater rights because... there is a kerosene heater in their classrooms, too! It's some kind of hypothetical ideal school I'm at, over here.
Also, a teacher was filling up the heater this morning. I finally realize now what those weird tubes I kept seeing are for. I always see these odd plastic tubes... they have a short (foot-point-five-long) straight section, then a longer (three feet?) flexible section that comes off of that at a right angle. At the join, there's a little pump thing. Well, of course, it's a siphon tube. And those huge plastic tanks? Those are filled with kerosene.
Good to know.
I'll stop lighting my cigarettes above those, now.