Today was a supremely brutal Monday. I knew last Monday was too good to be true. Tom & I woke up long before the crack of dawn so I could take him to the train station for the very first train. Don't expect to ever see the first train again. Every car moving in Misato at 6am this morning was heading to the train station. Then all of us "drivers" pulled U-turns and headed back home in our cold pajamas. Got home and couldn't get ahold of Mom & Dad at the pre-established (well I thought so, anyhow) time. What is a well-known non-morning person up at 6am to do? NOTHING. Total bummer.

Once I got to school, I could barely keep my eyes open and was only scheduled for a single class, the last hour of the day. I decided to finally go check if I was clear to be gone during spring break (spring break here is equivilent to summer vacation at home... it is the end and beginning of school years). When I started in August, my supervisor told me I was not required to be at school during vacations nor did I need to take vacation time to stay away. Imagine my surprise to see the Vice Principal's surprise at me asking if I had to be at school! "Why, of course you do!", he says. I don't want to do the whole play by play, but I'm now very dissappointed and very stuck. I am not sure how many days they need me to be at school, but it will make a dent in my plan to spend 2 weeks traveling through Japan with my parents. A trip planned on the knowledge that I would-not-have-to-be-in-school. Sigh. On top of that, I discovered that the day I stayed home sick in January ended up coming out of my paid days and not my sick days. I calmly explained again that I was sick and have sick days... but no, in my school you can only use sick days if you end up in the hospital and are out for weeks and weeks ("Like that teacher with the brain blood clot", my supervisor explained). After being depressed and frustrated all day at the unfairness of it all... I went home and dug out my contract. There in black and white (English and Japanese), I have 20 sick days to be used for days when I am too ill to work and may not be taken more than 20 days in a row. This is completely out of sync with the line I was fed at work. I really don't want to make a scene, but I am going to have to push a bit on this one... and it is really stressing me out. Things have been so good and so smooth this year. Too easy, I guess.

I am going to bed at 9pm. Goodnight. (send me some warm fuzzies...ok?)