A cloudy sunday

Sunday mornings in Japan are quiet. Japan doesnt open for business early anyway, but even less so on Sundays. Its the middle of tsuyu, the rainy season right now, and althuogh my students tell me "there is not many rains" this season, the humidity is thick and heavy in your lungs, the moisture feeling like an extra pound being gained and lost in rapid succession, like a college freshman with an eating disorder.
And I have to wear a suit to work.
I walked deliberately and slowly to the stairs leading up to the school leaning on my general-issue 500 yen black umbrella. A burst of static electricity finishes the job my 2 cups of morning coffee and black-black chewing gum (high-technical taste and flavour! Which I later discovered had not only caffiene, but nicotine, calcium and a mysterious "vitamin P". High technical indeed) could not, and a wave of unnatural contrast hits me as I breathe in the air conditioned atmosphere of the school.

"Ohayou!" I call to the Japanese staff, and she parrots it back to me. We exchange morning pleasantries and I leave the 2nd floor, braving the humidity until I reach the 4th, where the classrooms are (its common to see businesses here the take up several non-consecutive floors). I plan my first lesson in about 3 minutes, wait. about 5 minutes before the first class begins, the teacher room phone rings.
"Moshi moshi", I say, and one of the Japanese staff replies with a worried staccatto: "Yesu, anou... Please... Nandakke, planning help teacher lesson. Help teacher still come. Wakatta no?".
"Gotcha, no problem".

The overtime teacher scheduled to teach that day from open to close had not yet arrived, so I pulled the files for his first class, arrayed them on the table, and found of the 50 that comprise level 6, a lesson that neither student had yet done (D1, "living abroad"), folded the files placing them on top of the lesson plan book along with a sheet of scrap paper, patting myself on the back for being such a thoughtful guy.
At exactly 9:58 (my watch is set to Japan Rail time, which may in fact be more accurate than the atomic clock back home) a man in his 40s rushes through the door, sweat beading off his forehead, wearing a short sleeved button down shirt that clearly was never intended to be worn with a necktie. The vomit-stain hues of the shirt collide with a tie of a brownish grey color with red stripes, tied in a sloppy, uneven half-windsor knot. The collar was wearing was unbottoned and not long enough to fold back over the tie, giving the vague impression that he was wearing a noose affixed by a hung over executioner.
"Hi. Uh, I picked a lesson for you, your files are there on the table. Hope you dont mind D1"
In between the ragged gasps of one whose interests center around activites that emphasise remaining stationary, he replied "Living abroad. No problem"
"Yeah, well, its wide open, Hiromi's new and Ikuko just leveled up, so do whatever floats your boat. I'm Quinn, by the way"
"Harry". More gasping, but it's beginning to subside. "Kanda branch". More gasping.
The class bell rings, a 12-chime doorbell style ring, and I go to talk about crime and punishment with a trio of deprived housewives in their 50s. Sundays are short, the usual 15 minute breaks in between lessons cut down to 10, but I can tell already this is going to be a long day.

His second lesson is with an eleven year old kid who lived in Massachussets for part of his earlier childhood, and speaks English more or less like any normal 11 year old. He also has a photographic memory. My second lesson is with Mariko, a young teenage girl in the apex of adolescent awkwardness. She has a discomfortingly high voice that I have yet to get used to even after five months of teaching her. Today we are talking about ordering fast food.
Harry, two rooms down, meanwhile, is clearly unprepared to deal with the fact that his 11 year old student may in fact be more intelligent than he is:
"What... I... Want to know... Is... Where... Did.. You... Learn... English?"
"Well, I grew up in near the great lakes, my dad used to work there, but we moved back to Japan a couple years ago"
"Wow... You... Are... A... Very... Smart... Little.... Boy!..." He says with awkward deliberation. Mariko, meanwhile, is wrestling with the fact that we do not, in fact call french fries "poteto furai". We're roleplaying a fast food ordering situation, with me as the McMonkey and her as the honourable customer-san.
"Hi, what can I get you?"
"Anou... Cheeseburger setto... poteto furai"
From room 6 I hear Harry and his student: "Wow, ok... Whats 2 plus 2?"
"Haha, thats too easy, its 4. What 35 divided by 3 and a half?"
"Youre a very smart boy! Ok, whats the hippo doing in this picture?"
"Ten! Its ten, you know?"
"No, its yawning. Y-a-w-n-i-n-g. The Hippo is yawning. Whats the hippo doing?" Harry asked.
"Well, yeah, but 35 divided by 3 and a half is 10"

My company is generally thought to be the cheapest English school in the country, and as such, attracts a lot of interesting clients, such as the mentally ill. Psychiatric help is rare in Japan, and those psychiatrists and psychologists who do practice are about on par with the skills of the average Japanese physician, which is to say, they are frighteningly underqualified. Consider, entrance exams are the most difficult part of entering universities here, after that, it is universally recognized that graduation is simply a matter of going to class a couple times a semester. But that is neither here nor there, I suppose. Anyway, it is often the case that psychiatric patients will be directed to English conversation schools as part of their therapy. There appears to be no solid logical foundation for this, but its not my country, and I don't make the rules. It certainly doesn't make the teachers any more normal though.