Banished To Siberia？ Bring Plenty Of Wood..

(Above) A woodworker keeps a fire going to keep warm at his outdoor jobsite near one of my schools. I feel your pain, brah.

I can't remember the last time I was this cold <i>inside</i> a building that had functioning heat.

Now don't misunderstand; I lived in the midwest US for 8 years, so I am no stranger to cold. (You ever try to fall asleep when you're camping in a tent and its -15℃ outside？ Even the water you put <i>inside</i> your 10° sleeping bag freezes.)

I've also worked a lot of jobs where I've had to be cold all day:

Making Christmas wreaths outside in an unheated, wooden shed; in the middle of a Wisconsin winter..with my bare hands..with boughs freshly hemmed and covered in frost.

Delivering furniture up slippery driveways in winter.

Delivering books up slippery driveways in winter.

You know seeing it in print like that makes me realize that I've had much worse jobs than this and shouldn't really complain..

..but the facts remain:

I'm walking down the hall at school and seeing my breath, the only warm room is the staff room and all the teachers wear their winter jackets <i>inside</i>.

Now it's not that the building <i>doesn't</i> have heat, its just that the school doesn't turn it on unless its <i>absolutely necessary</i>.
Define <i>absolutely necessary</i>？

Ok. If 7 or 8 一年先生 (first year students) were found huddled together, dead in a classroom, a meeting might be called to discuss turning the heat on.

I mean I bought a wool sweater to wear when I'm <i>inside</i> the school. I'm wearing it now and I'm <i>still</i> cold.

In the school's defence they are "poor" though.
"Poor" is the word the teachers use. We native English speakers might say that they have a "small budget".
The administrative unit(けん" ken") I work in has smaller schools which basically receive less money whereas, just next door, the ken containing Yokohama gets considerably more money (or so I hear).

Another problem is the Japanese obsession with "changing the air" to let the bad air (warm and full of germs) out, and the good air (germ-free but cold as hell) in. The result is at least three windows being open during any given lesson (and in the hallways), and the ironic situation arising wherein a classroom is nice and warm until teachers and students come in, open the windows and start using it.

I would buy into this "change the air" thing that everyone does so religously a bit more if there were fewer sick people around but that simply is not the case; Japan has more people walking around with the flu than anywhere I've ever been. No matter where you are there's always somebody coughing up what sounds like the most, viscous green phlem.

I actually quit smoking cold turkey just so <i>I</i> wouldn't sound like that.

(Sick people in Japan are also easily identified by their facemasks (which stuck around a long time after SARS left). I call people who wear such facemasks <i>ninjas</i> (myself included)..but that's for a different entry.)

And its so easy to see how so many people get sick here.

Firstly hats (especially my faux beaverpelt midwestern yuuper earflap trapper-in-a-blizzard monstrosity) are not popular; not even in winter.

Secondly, Japanese schnol uniforms are not of the warmest design.

Thirdly, trains. Its not uncommon to have someone on a crowded train <i>cough directly in your face</i> (a salaryman literally <i>oozing</i> disease once coughed in my <i>eye</i>. (I felt like digging my eyeball out with my dirty fingernail and gave serious thought to wearing my snowboarding googles on the train.)

Anyways. I'm gonna try to get warm.