Sneaky surprise cake

Poor Shingaki sensei. It was her birthday on Monday, which everyone who she had told apparently forgot about. She told me at about 4pm so I brought in a cake for her yesterday, but not before she managed to get a ribbing about getting old from all angles. She's only 28. 2 of her students from last year dropped by on the way home from the middle school and when she told them she had to go and finish her marking so she could go home they said, "Why? There's no one waiting for you." How mean is that! I think being 28 and single (and a woman) here makes you qualified to be called christmas cake (somehow all the Japs know this term and use it freely to describe many of the single foreign girls around here). A woman I met a few weeks ago was taken to a shrine by her private English class in order to "pray for a boyfriend so she doesn't end up on the shelf" in their own words.

Anyway, yesterday at about 4:30 Shingaki sensei gestured urgently at me to follow her down the hall and we went into the sick room where Moriya and Saito sensei had a contraband birthday cake together with candles waiting. So the 4 of us spring chickens (all defying the norm by being single) celebrated her birthday properly with a full bitch session about the rest of the staff. It wasn't too subtle, what with the smell of burning candles wafting throughout the hallway, but I thought it was heaps great to see some Japs finally breaking the rules and being all sneaky around their superiors. Maybe there is some hope for this country yet...