I feel imprisoned inside the school because of this culture’s attitude on shoes. I’m at work from around 8:15am until 4:30pm every weekday. I teach anywhere from 2 to 4 classes a day. This means that I have nothing to do for up to 6 ¼ hrs a day. The weather is getting beautiful and I’d love to spend it outside. I’d also like to spend less time on my ass in the teacher’s room losing muscle and gaining flub. I’d also like to spend more time outside of class meeting the students. The logical thing to do would be to go play some games with them, stop fretting and just go out and do it. Oh… but it’s not that easy because of shoes.
Since I am required by my company to wear business attire to work, I wear my nice, vaguely formal, vaguely causal Earth Shoes. They’re very orthopedic and comfortable and yet respectable. They don’t look stupid with a suit. Stylish and practical for the professional life. Black leather, with a strap. I could get away with my more durable Doc Martens but they are way too difficult to get and on and off, and this is extremely important in Japan.

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