Kyle's World

That's what I kept thinking about as typhoon 18 hit my area today. That of course is a lyric from Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Membrane". Pigs aren't exactly a typhoon, but it's the closest I could come. Anyway, I woke up this morning with my walls shaking (there was also the phonecall at 6:40AM telling me that I had to come to work). When I arrived at work, none of the teachers who told me I had to be there were there themselves. What's up with that? Were they trying to be deceptive on purpose? I figured out that any teacher who wanted to be absent from school would have to use one of their precious 20 days vacation time. I thought I could make the 5 minute trek, even in adverse conditions and save one of my days off, say for something better like travelling. Using holiday time in the event of a natural disaster is further evidence of some eccentricities on the part of the Japanese. I'd say the typhoon was most severe between 10:30AM and 12:00PM. All the teachers had great views from the windows in our teachers room. We watched the roof of the barber shop across the street blow away one shingle at a time. Then there was a giant piece of sheet metal that came screaming towards the teachers room, but luckily it was picked up by a gust of wind at the last minute and instead blew all the way down the street. All the teachers ended up at the gym, cuz it was flooded. I had to take my socks off, roll up my pants, and bail water into a bucket. I mean, if I wanted to go to a waterpark, I would have gone. A waterpark has no business being in my school gym. I'm sure when I go home I'll find I don't have a balcony anymore or some other drastic happening. That's ok though, I've finally seen a typhoon that's lived up to it's billing. I swear I'll never get excited at a typhoon coming again, once is enough for me...