I feel content right now. I'm sitting at school, it's just past noon. In a little while, they will serve the school lunch, which I am looking forward to eating. Some JETs absolutely hate school lunches, but on the whole, I rather like them. Sometimes they're not so great, but they're a hot, nutritious meal, and that's enough to please me!

A typical school lunch is a bowl or rice or a bread roll, something on a plate (like stir-fried veggies, meat, or scalloped potatoes, etc), someting in a bowl (like cream stew or vegetable soup), and a small bottle of milk. Sometimes there is a dessert, like a cup of ice cream or yogurt. The rice and bread are served on alternating days. I prefer the bread days, being the Westerner that I am. The lunch doesn't sound like a very big meal, but somehow it is! I can never finish all my rice, but sometimes I feel compelled to do so because we're not supposed to waste food here, and all the other teachers finish the whole meal. I don't want to be the only wasteful one, so I end up overeating. Fortunately, most schools have a plastic bag where we can discard our extra rice. I hate having to overeat.

Throwing things away in Japan is a really tricky business... you have to seperate your trash carefully, so you can't just dump your extra rice in with the discarded soup. It's a pain sometimes! One day, I was even told that they couldn't throw away bread, so I had to eat every last bite. I mean, come on... they can't throw away bread?! I usually eat all my bread, but that day's bread was sort of disgusting, and I was full already, so I felt I couldn't finish it. But I ended up eating it anyway, to avoid making a fuss about it. *shakes head* Can't throw away bread... oh well... that's Japan!

Anyway. The school lunch is served by students in their classrooms, or by teachers in the teachers' room. There is no cafeteria. When the students serve lunch, they put on white aprons, three-cornered hats, and surgical masks over their faces. It's very official! Lunchtime lasts for about 20 minutes, and after everyone is done eating, each person takes their own dishes to the front of the room, discards the extra food in a pot (or the aforementioned plastic bag for rice) and stacks their dishes neatly. The dishes are then taken away by the students or teachers to be washed. Then there is a long 50 minute break period where the kids can run around and play or do whatever they want. I think lunch is too short, and the recess is too long, but I don't make the rules.

So, that's basically school lunch in Japan. It's really different from America. I like it though, I find the meals to be more nutritious than American cafeteria food. Also, having the students serve the lunches themselves teaches them some responsibility, which is always a good thing. Japanese schools are big on that.

Today is pretty uneventful, which explains why I am going into such detail explaining about school lunch. It rained heavily this morning, so by the time I arrived at school, I was absollutely soaked, but I dried off by second period, so all is well. I was slightly irritated about having to show up at work so wet... depending on a bicycle for transportation is a real pain sometimes... but it wasn't the end of the world. Anyway, I'll be back in SoCal driving my car in a couple months, so I try to enjoy these little "adventures" while I still can. Heh heh. Ah well... it's lunchtime!

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