Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Bad news and not-so-bad news

So Dad's missed his flight.
Highly uncharacteristic, I know, but I guess he misread his departure time.
Fortunately, he was able to re-book for the same time the following day. In fact, his entire flight itinerary has been shifted one day into the future, so he will also be leaving Japan one day later.

The bad news: I'd planned on having Dad visit Yokota JHS next Wednesday, and then taking that Thursday off so I could drive him back to Osaka. Now that he's leaving on Friday, I need to take that day off to drive him, but Thursday is still up in the air. I've e-mailed Ikeda-sensei to ask if it would be possible for Dad to come in again on Thursday—this will allow me not to use up an extra day's nenkyu (paid personal leave). She will tell me to talk to Kyoto-sensei (vice-principal), which I know is the proper way to go about it, but what I really want to find out from her is whether this change will inconvenience her and Watanabe-sensei; if it will, there's no point in me asking Kyoto-sensei, as far as I'm concerned. The last time I explained this reasoning to her, either I didn't communicate it very well, or she was being purposefully obtuse about it, cos she only reiterated the necessity of talking to Kyoto-sensei first. Anyway, Dad has volunteered to "walk around town" for a few hours if I need to work on Thursday, so that's another option; the third option is for me to take both Thursday and Friday off, which again leads me to the problem of inconvenience. Ikeda's suggestion that I not come in on Friday leads me to think that this won't be much of an inconvenience, though.

The not-so-bad news: The changed flight itinerary doesn't change my plans for the weekend, which was to go to Hiroshima City with Dad and some other JETs on Saturday and maybe stay the night. I had planned to just lay low on Friday to let Dad acclimate somewhat to the time zone, so all we have to do is skip that part. Dad has no problem with this.
Last week I requested nenkyu for today (I guess it is today now, isn't it?). For about ten minutes after I got off the phone with Dad, I actually considered going in to school (Nita JHS) tomorrow. But my apartment still looks like a disaster relief zone (umm, except without the death toll), so a full day to clean in a non-panicked state will be nice.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

W00t on Hiroshima! I'll be here ALL day on Friday (I guess that is today) if you want to hang out. Signe is leaving this morning.