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akujunkanBoy howdy, here we go:
Two weeks ago, I was told to come to Yoshino on Friday - the day when I usually go to Komadori. Being jetlagged at the time, I made sure to start asking my supervisors if this was indeed the case daily for about a week leading up to the Friday in question. Which, incidentally, was Friday the 13th. Hmm.
Anyway, I was repeatedly told by everyone from the vice principals on down, to come to Yoshino. Which I did, thinking all the while, there's going to be an irate phonecall asking why I'm not at Komadori. Sure enough, I'm at school for about thirty minutes when the vice principal gets a phonecall from the VP at Komadori, asking ever-so-politely where the fuck their ALT was.
This causes massive consternation on the part of the Yoshino VPs. After all, I'm the star player in the several demonstration classes planned during the day, including one for the parents of the Brazilian kids. The Brazilian kids have more fun at this school than I did during high school, so the school brass was really hoping to trot me out and make the situation look pretty for these kids' parents.
But, say the VPs at Komadori, if she doesn't come here, she doesn't eat lunch.
So, a massive scheduling change occurs so that one of my supervisors can drive me to Komadori, as it's about two miles away and I was ::cough:: supposed to be there already. I get to Komadori and teach lessons which I hadn't prepared for because gosh golly I was supposed to be demonstration teaching at Yoshino.
New problems arise when it's discovered that I don't know when I'm supposed to be back at Yoshino for my remaining demonstration classes. At Yoshino, each day has a different time schedule, and since I've never been there on Friday before, I have no idea as to the Friday time schedule. Then it's discovered that the time schedule has been rearranged for the demonstration classes so that no one has any idea when I should get there. And gee, the Yoshino VPs are no longer taking phone calls, so we can't find out either.
So the lunch ladies are contacted and convinced to prepare my lunch early so that I can leave extra-special early, since I'm walking the two miles back to Yoshino, there being no one available to drive me.
I eat lunch and set out. I arrive at Yoshino panting and sweaty (you try running two miles with a full stomach, and a laptop and a whole bunch of class materials on your back) just in time to help with the thirty-minute-long cleaning period. I discover that my day has been cleverly arranged so that I receive neither breaks at Komadori or Yoshino. I teach my demonstration classes and prepare to leave. Get downstairs, can't find my wallet. Must be in my desk. Go back upstairs, no wallet.
Run home, no wallet. Run back to Yoshino, no wallet. Komadori is called. No wallet. The police are alerted. I tear my apartment apart, no wallet. It's too dark to retrace the two miles I ran, but my supervisor attempts it by automobile anyway. No wallet, yo.
Oh, and for all interested parties, the contents of my wallet: approximately $90.00
My visa cash card
My Japanese bank card
Banking information with my account number, SSN, routing number, and account balance
My American driver's license
My State ID
My Alien Registration Card
My Yamada Denki card (currently worth about $50.00)
My video rental card
My bookoff card
My Tower Records points (currently worth about $20.00)
I wake up early on Saturday and retrace my route. Twice. No wallet. I make a statement at the police box. No wallet. I have been assured by eight other people who've lost their wallets in Japan that Japanese are very good about turning them in. And it isn't as though any Japanese could show up at a store claiming to be [My Very Obviously Not Japanese Name] and can you max out this card for me?
Still, long distance minutes are purchased with a portion of my remaining $50 from a friend, so that I can call my family and tell them to cancel my Visa.
No news on Sunday.
On Monday, I go to the bank, and ask them to cancel my card. Problems ensue because I need identification to do this. I reiterate that all my identification was lost with my wallet. This is, incidentally, the first time the bank has ever not taken my hanko as proof of ID. (One time I literally showed them five independent pieces of ID, but they wouldn't withdraw any money without my hanko.)
Finally, a compromise is reached. They will render my card inactive until Wednesday, at which time they will cancel it if no other [My Very Obviously Not Japanese Name]s step out of the woodwork to claim that they are in fact really me and that there's no reason to cancel the card.
Realising that it might appear shady to say, "Could you please give me 30,000 yen now?" I tromp back across town to a different branch office where I withdraw some money to live on. (I've eaten about three meals total since Friday; I am crippled with hunger.) All in all, I walk about another 2-3 miles.
I return to Yoshino, where I immeditately receive two phonecalls from the gas company, asking when I plan on paying my utility bills for the past three months. (I had only recently become aware of these bills when someone from the company came to my door and asked whether I wanted my gas turned off. Remember how someone's been stealing all of my mail? Yeah, they've been taking the utility bills too. Hah, hah, fuckers.) I answer that I've paid. They say they have no records. I say, I do! And then, oh wait, 'cause the receipts are - you guessed it - in my wallet. The gas people say they'll call back.
I am then immediately shipped out with another supervisor to go to the police so that I can receive paperwork documenting that my wallet is missing, without which the city hall cannot verify that my ARC has truly gone missing and thus make me a new one. Perceptive readers will notice that this begs the question as to how the police know that my ARC truly gone missing, but I digress.
We arrive at the city hall (after making a brief stop for my passport and a new photo for ID purposes), and then have to wait the better part of an hour to get my paperwork processed. During this time my supervisor regails me with stories as to how inept the VPs are, and apologises for both the fact that I'm going through this and the fact that the VPs haven't apologised. Finally, we're called back to the window. It has been discovered that the previous supervisor gave the police an incorrect address, and there is some concern that I am not who I claim to be.
We get that settled (the clerk believes me because I can write kanji, of all things), and are then informed that we will have to wait until Wednesday for the paperwork to be processed. As the city hall has informed me that it will take them the better part of a week to make my new ARC, I'm looking at half a month of violating one of the most dearly-held Japanese laws - always have your ARC, or we won't let you buy anything of value.
しょうがない, so we head back home. My supervisor performs a hit and run on an unoccupied automobile (sure hope they don't have video surveillance in the freakin' police station parking lot), and we make a brief stop at Komadori to look for my wallet again. No dice.
We make our reports back at Yoshino. It doesn't add up. If someone had found it, they would have turned it into the cops. So the gears start turning. Where has nobody looked yet?
How 'bout the area between the genkan and my supervisor's car. And there it was.
So I trot back upstairs to inform my VP that it's been found. I think I was bitched at, but I don't know for sure because I couldn't catch what he was saying to me and he wouldn't rephrase.
At any rate, I now have a whole bunch of cancelled Japanese ID cards, and one useless American Visa.
And a fucking huge lj post. And it could all have been avoided if my VPs had, you know, decided to communicate with one another. Thanks guys!
That will be all.
Two weeks ago, I was told to come to Yoshino on Friday - the day when I usually go to Komadori. Being jetlagged at the time, I made sure to start asking my supervisors if this was indeed the case daily for about a week leading up to the Friday in question. Which, incidentally, was Friday the 13th. Hmm.
Anyway, I was repeatedly told by everyone from the vice principals on down, to come to Yoshino. Which I did, thinking all the while, there's going to be an irate phonecall asking why I'm not at Komadori. Sure enough, I'm at school for about thirty minutes when the vice principal gets a phonecall from the VP at Komadori, asking ever-so-politely where the fuck their ALT was.
This causes massive consternation on the part of the Yoshino VPs. After all, I'm the star player in the several demonstration classes planned during the day, including one for the parents of the Brazilian kids. The Brazilian kids have more fun at this school than I did during high school, so the school brass was really hoping to trot me out and make the situation look pretty for these kids' parents.
But, say the VPs at Komadori, if she doesn't come here, she doesn't eat lunch.
So, a massive scheduling change occurs so that one of my supervisors can drive me to Komadori, as it's about two miles away and I was ::cough:: supposed to be there already. I get to Komadori and teach lessons which I hadn't prepared for because gosh golly I was supposed to be demonstration teaching at Yoshino.
New problems arise when it's discovered that I don't know when I'm supposed to be back at Yoshino for my remaining demonstration classes. At Yoshino, each day has a different time schedule, and since I've never been there on Friday before, I have no idea as to the Friday time schedule. Then it's discovered that the time schedule has been rearranged for the demonstration classes so that no one has any idea when I should get there. And gee, the Yoshino VPs are no longer taking phone calls, so we can't find out either.
So the lunch ladies are contacted and convinced to prepare my lunch early so that I can leave extra-special early, since I'm walking the two miles back to Yoshino, there being no one available to drive me.
I eat lunch and set out. I arrive at Yoshino panting and sweaty (you try running two miles with a full stomach, and a laptop and a whole bunch of class materials on your back) just in time to help with the thirty-minute-long cleaning period. I discover that my day has been cleverly arranged so that I receive neither breaks at Komadori or Yoshino. I teach my demonstration classes and prepare to leave. Get downstairs, can't find my wallet. Must be in my desk. Go back upstairs, no wallet.
Run home, no wallet. Run back to Yoshino, no wallet. Komadori is called. No wallet. The police are alerted. I tear my apartment apart, no wallet. It's too dark to retrace the two miles I ran, but my supervisor attempts it by automobile anyway. No wallet, yo.
Oh, and for all interested parties, the contents of my wallet: approximately $90.00
My visa cash card
My Japanese bank card
Banking information with my account number, SSN, routing number, and account balance
My American driver's license
My State ID
My Alien Registration Card
My Yamada Denki card (currently worth about $50.00)
My video rental card
My bookoff card
My Tower Records points (currently worth about $20.00)
I wake up early on Saturday and retrace my route. Twice. No wallet. I make a statement at the police box. No wallet. I have been assured by eight other people who've lost their wallets in Japan that Japanese are very good about turning them in. And it isn't as though any Japanese could show up at a store claiming to be [My Very Obviously Not Japanese Name] and can you max out this card for me?
Still, long distance minutes are purchased with a portion of my remaining $50 from a friend, so that I can call my family and tell them to cancel my Visa.
No news on Sunday.
On Monday, I go to the bank, and ask them to cancel my card. Problems ensue because I need identification to do this. I reiterate that all my identification was lost with my wallet. This is, incidentally, the first time the bank has ever not taken my hanko as proof of ID. (One time I literally showed them five independent pieces of ID, but they wouldn't withdraw any money without my hanko.)
Finally, a compromise is reached. They will render my card inactive until Wednesday, at which time they will cancel it if no other [My Very Obviously Not Japanese Name]s step out of the woodwork to claim that they are in fact really me and that there's no reason to cancel the card.
Realising that it might appear shady to say, "Could you please give me 30,000 yen now?" I tromp back across town to a different branch office where I withdraw some money to live on. (I've eaten about three meals total since Friday; I am crippled with hunger.) All in all, I walk about another 2-3 miles.
I return to Yoshino, where I immeditately receive two phonecalls from the gas company, asking when I plan on paying my utility bills for the past three months. (I had only recently become aware of these bills when someone from the company came to my door and asked whether I wanted my gas turned off. Remember how someone's been stealing all of my mail? Yeah, they've been taking the utility bills too. Hah, hah, fuckers.) I answer that I've paid. They say they have no records. I say, I do! And then, oh wait, 'cause the receipts are - you guessed it - in my wallet. The gas people say they'll call back.
I am then immediately shipped out with another supervisor to go to the police so that I can receive paperwork documenting that my wallet is missing, without which the city hall cannot verify that my ARC has truly gone missing and thus make me a new one. Perceptive readers will notice that this begs the question as to how the police know that my ARC truly gone missing, but I digress.
We arrive at the city hall (after making a brief stop for my passport and a new photo for ID purposes), and then have to wait the better part of an hour to get my paperwork processed. During this time my supervisor regails me with stories as to how inept the VPs are, and apologises for both the fact that I'm going through this and the fact that the VPs haven't apologised. Finally, we're called back to the window. It has been discovered that the previous supervisor gave the police an incorrect address, and there is some concern that I am not who I claim to be.
We get that settled (the clerk believes me because I can write kanji, of all things), and are then informed that we will have to wait until Wednesday for the paperwork to be processed. As the city hall has informed me that it will take them the better part of a week to make my new ARC, I'm looking at half a month of violating one of the most dearly-held Japanese laws - always have your ARC, or we won't let you buy anything of value.
しょうがない, so we head back home. My supervisor performs a hit and run on an unoccupied automobile (sure hope they don't have video surveillance in the freakin' police station parking lot), and we make a brief stop at Komadori to look for my wallet again. No dice.
We make our reports back at Yoshino. It doesn't add up. If someone had found it, they would have turned it into the cops. So the gears start turning. Where has nobody looked yet?
How 'bout the area between the genkan and my supervisor's car. And there it was.
So I trot back upstairs to inform my VP that it's been found. I think I was bitched at, but I don't know for sure because I couldn't catch what he was saying to me and he wouldn't rephrase.
At any rate, I now have a whole bunch of cancelled Japanese ID cards, and one useless American Visa.
And a fucking huge lj post. And it could all have been avoided if my VPs had, you know, decided to communicate with one another. Thanks guys!
That will be all.
