I've got to get caught up with this thing. The more I fall behind the less likely I am to write about things. Too daunting a task.

Anyway, schools are going ok. After last Tuesday when I couldn't make it to Shizen Gakuen I was, indeed, able to make to Yuda on Wednesday, the academy on Thursday and Yamanashi Gakuen on Friday. All went well and it was nice to see everyone again. I took photos of the St. Kitts trip and basically talked about that, asked them about their summer vacations, etc. Was easy.
This week I had Tokai on Monday. Tokai is the new school, as of April, and requires a lot of patience from me. I'm pretty patient by nature, I think, so it's usually not too hard but this last Monday's morning didn't go so well. My first class consists of 31 students and a teacher who, although very nice, has no ability to disipline the little shits and therefore, I think, gets no respect from her students. They talk, they sleep, they don't answer questions when asked, they don't participate, etc. It really is a crap class. At one point on Monday, while the teacher was telling them something in Japanese, I counted 14 students with their heads down apparently sleeping. 14 out of 31! This is something you never find in the States, at least not where I went to high school. Sure the students may be disrepectful in other ways, but I don't really remember sleeping at all and certainly not the amount of noise that I find with this class. 14 out of 31 leaves 17 students, right? But that does not mean that the other 17 were paying attention. Most of them were gathered in small groups and were talking. I'd say perhaps three students were really listening to what was going on. At one point when I had to say something and they just kept talking I raised my voice and said, "Hey! Shutup!" to which they looked a little surprised and then listened.....for about 10 seconds.
Then my third class also sucked. I won't get into it but it's essentially more of the same. A meek female teacher who gets no respect, a bunch of students who don't speak English and don't care to try, kids who talk to each other and don't pay attention, kids who sleep, etc. It's amazing to me. If some class had tried that on one of my high school teacher I can assure you it wouldn't have lasted long. In America there is a sterotype of Asian students being bookish, smart, respectful, and interested in everything. Well, I am here to tell you that it ain't always true. In fact, it's much more the exception rather than the rule at Tokai.
So by lunchtime on Monday I had made my decision that this would be my last year in Japan. But hell, after good day yesterday at Yuda, I don't know. We'll see.

Tuesday I didn't go to school due to feeling terrible. A cold and headache. Still had it yesterday but felt much better and today, besides the cough, I am doing fine.

Fuji was a no-go. Rain rain and more rain. And lightning too.
We got up to the fifth station where you stop driving and start walking at about 645pm. It was raining but not too hard, and as we had a couple hours to kill until we were to start hiking we figured it might pass and waited.
If you are going to attempt to see the sunrise from atop the mountain you are supposed to start around 10pm. You don't want to get up there too early as there is no where to take shelter from the temperature and any wind you might encounter. Most people aiming to see the sunrise leave the fifth station around 930 to 1030pm, get to the top around 4am, watch the sunrise around 430 to 5am and then head down.
So at 645pm we had plenty of time.
But the rain never stopped. In fact, it got it got much much harder. By 730pm when the building at the station closed it was raining fairly hard. At this point we took refuge in our cars with Peter, the organizer of this event, and me agreeing that we'd meet back up at the building entrance in an hour to decide what to do. There were four cars and 14 of us so we settled in to wait out the hour.
But the rain got harder and harder. And the lightning became even more frequent. I was counting the seconds and came up with everything from 25 seconds to 3 seconds. And there seemed to be no pattern to it. It didn't appear as if the storm was coming and then going. First I'd count 20 seconds, then 10 seconds, then 17, then 5, etc. There was no pattern, which, to me, meant that the storm was just basically all around us. At one point I had to relieve myself and stepped out into the rain to do so. I was out there for possibly two minutes at most and when I got back to the car was soaked. And I don't mean that I was just wet. I could have lathered, rinsed and repeated if I'd had a bottle of shampoo. There was more water pressure out there than I have in my own shower!
It was about this point that I figured it might not happen. I was thinking way back to the time of my glorious and innocent childhood when my father decided that, together with his two sons, he would climb Fuji in similar conditions, minus the lightning. I don't remember details (you tend to block out the tramatic events in your life from what I understand) but we climbed for a long time before Rigel's and my complaining finally made sense to the old man and we turned back for shelter. That had also been a night climb and had also been in the heavy and cold rain and I was not going to do it again on this night. And especially not with Amy (you can figure out the reasons for that on your own).
So at 825pm I stepped back out in the conditions and went to the two other cars near ours and asked them what they thought so that I could have a general consensus for Peter. No one was willing to go at this point but we all agreed that we were willing to wait until about 10pm to see if the storm would blow over.
Then I ran up to the building entrance to find Peter. We had a quick discussion during which I told him of the group's thoughts to which he answered, "Ok, but here's the deal. The gates down the hill close at 9pm and if we don't leave now we are stuck up here till 5am no matter if we ever get to climb or not."
"Ok," I said and he agreed, "Let's leave now then." It didn't look as though the storm was going to blow over anytime soon and I did not want to be stuck in a car for the next eight hours. So I ran back down the hill and told all the cars what was going on. By this time it was 835pm and the drive back to the gate was roughly half an hour. Would be close.
So we took off in the hazardous conditions and made it to the gate as the guards were pulling it shut.
Close one.
And then we drove back to Kofu where it rained for much of the night.
We might try it this coming weekend but if we don't or if the conditions don't allow for it, it will be next summer before we can try it again.
Damn!