Like I said during the Tea Wars, I always have to wonder if people are trying to tell me something. I can’t speak Japanese so it’s difficult to say anything to me anyway, but the Japanese are renowned for avoiding direct confrontation.

For the past week, there has been no toilet paper in the one stall in the teachers’ bathroom that has a Western toilet. Everyday the kids are supposed to restock the toilet paper during soji. They’ve been doing it for all of the squat toilets, but not for the Western toilet. I always forget that there’s no TP, so I end up making a dash for another stall in the middle of my business. I just hope that nobody happens to walk in while I’m holding my pants up with one hand and hobbling around.

Probably they just forgot because I’m pretty much the only one that uses that stall. But I still can’t help but wonder if there’s another message. OK, gaijin. We’ve been coddling you for over three months. Now grow some thigh muscles and learn how to squat like the rest of us.

Anyway, today was the last day of work before summer break. I don’t have to worry about any of this until the end of August.

On this last day, my shy Japanese students finally worked up the nerve to sexually harass me. At the end of the school day I stopped in on a group of boys holding a meeting for the baseball team to say “goodbye.” As I left one of the boys tentatively stepped out the door to call “yummy” at my retreating back. As he turned to flee when I turned around, his friends locked him out of the meeting room. Over three months of probing them to speak English and this is what I get? Come on, boys. Even my elementary students know that word.