Eeeeeeeeh... yeah that's weird.
So here's an interesting little event.
I'm sitting in the staff room at my desk. Our office is an open-air affair. Japanese offices don't have cubicles from what I've seen. About a half-dozen other teachers are in the room -- so it's about half-occupied.
I'm tapping away on my computer when I become aware of a rattling sound. Loud. My first thought is: earthquake. But as the seconds tick by, I realize that none of the windows are shaking. The noise is only coming from one place: the double doors that lead into the hall. Those doors open about a hundred times a day, with students peeking through looking for teachers, with a loud "Irasshaimase!" But this time the doors didn't open. They just kept rattling, loudly, and now all of the teachers were looking up at them, curiously.
As the JTE closest to the doors got up, the shaking stopped. She reached out and opened one of the doors, craning her neck around the corner, and then speaking to a couple of other teachers who were standing in the hall. She turned back to us and said a few words in Japanese, and the teacher next to her put her hand to her chest, taken aback. My mentor, sitting close by, caught my eye. "Poltergeist," he said. Well at least someone got something from my Halloween lesson.
Turns out that the two teachers a few paces from the doors, on the other side in the hall, had heard and seen the shaking, too, but no one had touched the doors from that side. They figured what we did -- that someone on the other side was doing something to the doors for some reason. A tremor is another possibility, but indeed, only those doors to the hall shook. None of the windows or other doors did.
In honour of this event, I have devised a new feature for Mumblings: the ectoplasm scale.
Ok, now I'm creeped out.
I'm sitting in the staff room at my desk. Our office is an open-air affair. Japanese offices don't have cubicles from what I've seen. About a half-dozen other teachers are in the room -- so it's about half-occupied.
I'm tapping away on my computer when I become aware of a rattling sound. Loud. My first thought is: earthquake. But as the seconds tick by, I realize that none of the windows are shaking. The noise is only coming from one place: the double doors that lead into the hall. Those doors open about a hundred times a day, with students peeking through looking for teachers, with a loud "Irasshaimase!" But this time the doors didn't open. They just kept rattling, loudly, and now all of the teachers were looking up at them, curiously.
As the JTE closest to the doors got up, the shaking stopped. She reached out and opened one of the doors, craning her neck around the corner, and then speaking to a couple of other teachers who were standing in the hall. She turned back to us and said a few words in Japanese, and the teacher next to her put her hand to her chest, taken aback. My mentor, sitting close by, caught my eye. "Poltergeist," he said. Well at least someone got something from my Halloween lesson.
Turns out that the two teachers a few paces from the doors, on the other side in the hall, had heard and seen the shaking, too, but no one had touched the doors from that side. They figured what we did -- that someone on the other side was doing something to the doors for some reason. A tremor is another possibility, but indeed, only those doors to the hall shook. None of the windows or other doors did.
In honour of this event, I have devised a new feature for Mumblings: the ectoplasm scale.
Ok, now I'm creeped out.
posted by Freemount at 9:57 a.m.
1 Comments:
Correction. As Jules reminds me, students say "shitsurei shimasu" (forgive my rudeness) when entering a staff room, not "irasshaimase" (welcome), the storekeeper's call. I think the merchant's cry has been burned into my senses.
Post a Comment
<< Home