Monday, May 17, 2010

Hazukashii I

The word hazukashii means both shy and embarrassed. I realized that I hum when trying to stop thinking about something embarrassing. Every so often there are things I can't get out of my brain (the humming intensifies), so I'll set them free here. This is the first installment from an incident over two years ago.

One day at Chiyokawa Elementary I needed some sturdy cardstock for the students to use. I didn't know how to describe that to the staff in the office, so I went into the supply room and did some searching. The closest thing to cardstock was some smooth, thick, cream-colored paper. It was a little big for my purposes, but Ifigured that if I cut it in half It would be perfect.

I took a stack of the paper back to the teacher's office, to the back table where the paper cutter was located. The vice-principal, the secretary, and the office guy just watched me for a bit as I cut this paper in half. They started talking amongst themselves, so I went about my business of preparing for class.

When I was about halfway through the office guy stopped me. He asked me what sized paper I needed, so I explained the lesson and what I wanted. He took me back to the supply room and showed me where the printer paper was kept. He pulled out a stack of B5 sized paper, which happened to be the exact size I needed. He took back the paper I had cut/been about to cut, I thanked him again, and that was the end of it.

Not much later I was at another school, watching some sort of awards ceremony. Imagine my dismay when I recognized the paper on which these official, sealed and stamped awards were printed as the exact same stuff that I had cut up at Chiyokawa. I had taken the most expensive paper in that supply room and rendered it completely unuseable.

P.S. I, too, look forward to being able to put pictures in my posts again. Text alone is boring for the eyes.

P.P.S. Apologies for my occasional spelling errors. I'm writing from my iPod and the application I use doesn't use portrait mode. So sometimes my thick thumbs just hit the wrong key.

2 comments:

  1. Bah! Phbbbt! Loud noises! You're cool, man.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh no! At least you didn't realize that when you were with the office guy.

    ReplyDelete