Mushi Atsui!!!

Amongst the cries of "Atsui!" ("it's hot!") from my students and teachers, I can sometimes hear "Mushi Atsui!" ("it's humid/muggy"). The humidity has been high ever since the weekend, when the third typhoon of the season passed north enough to affect the rest of Japan. It's been rain today too, which has only made things worse.

And when the humidity and temperature are high, work becomes pretty uncomfortable. Lesson planning takes twice as long because one of your hands is constantly wafting a fan. Last-minute dashes to the photocopier are punished by a river of sweat down your back. Bringing extra shirts to change into after each lesson becomes a good idea.

Maybe the worst consquence of this heat is that the students stop. Literally. During those fun activities that used to have them running up to the board to write answers become sessions where the students practise "Mushi Atsui" ("humid") and "Yada" ("don't wanna"). They're not even bothered to learn the English for "Mushi Atsui" and "Yada".

But one of my schools has got around this problem by installing air conditioning into each classroom. The English Teacher's room is still air con free, so Monday's three lesson's were a nice change to sweating in the office.

From the looks of the weather reports, this weather is likely to stay for the next few weeks. Coming home to England for two weeks (brother's graduation) seems like and even better idea now!