Typhoon Nabi

Or, as the ever creative meteorological department here in Nippon likes to call it, Typhoon no. 14. Well, at least they aren't blaming it all on the women...

DATELINE: Monday, September 5, 2:37pm...

Emergency meeting to discuss the possibility of cancelling school entirely Tuesday, or at least for a half day. Maps and meterological charts are photocopied and handed out, however colour maps have never translated well into black and white photocopies, thus causing me to lose out on some of the sense of urgency. This meeting follows a day where the principal and vice-principal have been disappearing down the hall to watch TV news weather reports... or are they??? A half day is decided upon after much angst amongst the teachers about the severe shortening of sports day practice time. CAN IT BE DONE IN ONLY 2 DAYS!?! I ditch out as early as possible, deciding the rain is not conducive to work.

DATELINE: Tuesday, September 6, 8:26am...

Emergency meeting to annouce that school will be closed on Wednesday, however teachers are still expected to come. The fear is palpable as sports day organizers start to sweat, teachers haggling over practice times and locations. Lists are handed out of which teachers will be expected to drive students home at the end of the day, due to the late bus times and short notice to have them rearranged as needed. 9:51am Kato-san from the BOE calls to leave me an urgent message to remove the bamboo screen hanging on the outside of my windows,a s well as to take down my laundry pole on the back porch. 12:17pm I return home for lunch and a frantic 20 minutes removing screens and laundry poles and hiding anything that might possibly fly into my 30 feet of windows and break something. 12:53pm Return to school and spend the afternoon preparing for next Tuesday's newbies seminar on elementary school English activities. Also make sure to remove anything valuable or made of paper that hapens to rest under the windows, as they ALL LEAK. Especially in typhoons. And move stuff away from the exterior door, which also leaks. Quality construction, through and through.

DATELINE: Tuesday, September 6, 4:00pm...

Despite everyone being in the building all day, we are forced to wait until 4:00 for another meeting. Very little that I paid attention to is discussed, other than the principal and vice principal telling everyone to please leave early. I return home after hunting down the vice-principal in order to ask for Wednesday off. Only to leave in search of some videos to occupy my time during the typhoon. Around 7:30pm the wind starts to kick in. 8:34pm Still windy and raining. 9:52pm Rain, wind. 10:23pm Wind, rain. 11:46pm Rain, wind. What more do you want from me? 12:05pm Sleep.

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 1:34am...

Still windy. Still rainy.

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 4:22am...

More rain, more wind.

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 7:56am...

More wind, little rain

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 8:55am...

Wind, no rain, and for this, school is canceled. Not that I mind, I slept in. Then I read books, played the drums, baked brownies, watched a video or two, made tzatziki dip, cooked fajitas, went jogging, and read some more. All in all, a very decent typhoon day. Today, upon returning home, I plan to rehang my bamboo screens to keep out this blazing sun.