So again, it’s Monday night and I haven’t written anything this week yet, even though I definitely could have written a bunch of good posts a few days ago… oh well.
Today I went to a barbecue with one of my coworkers and her friends. It was at this awesome place up in the mountains that was like a campground, except no camping — only barbecueing. Japanese barbecues are fun — they use a lot more types of food than we do in America (especially more vegetables), and you barbecue right on the specially made table that has the coals and grill built into it, rather than on a separate grill. The smell was great, and there was a big downpour with thunder right in the middle of it (we were under a roofed area so it didn’t bother us), and that made it even cooler, as I love rain and thunder.
This week at work, the manager decided I have a poltergeist. Apparently, ever since I arrived here, the copy machine has been shutting itself off. She took me into the copy room to show me that I can just hit the standby button instead of turning it off, and I told her that I already knew that and had been doing that since day one. But one day I was in the room putting books away and I heard a click — the on/off switch on the copier flipped itself off. I suggested maybe there was a fuse or some other thing shutting it off, but apparently there isn’t… I don’t know, maybe I do have a poltergeist? That would explain all the ghost-y things that have been happening back home in NJ and at college in FL for all of my life. In any case, I have to be careful about talking about ghosts at work, as one of my coworkers gets really scared and angry with me if she even hears the word ‘ghost.’
It took a lot of repetition to convince them that I wasn’t the one turning the machine off, and that’s my fault really — I’ve been playing a few pranks since July… After my first lesson at Shinetsu — a company about a 10 minute walk away from Aeon — one of the students gave me a love letter and asked me to hand it to one of my coworkers. She’s engaged, and had only met the student once, so she was a little freaked out. Since then, every time I’ve come back from Shinetsu, I’ve brought her some kind of love token from the student (completely fake, of course). This week, I brought her an empty box and told her that he cut off a lock of his hair and put it in there for her, so a part of him could always be with her. Then the next day, with the help of one of the other teachers, I sent her a Japanese email from him using my phone explaining that I had left my phone at Shinetsu, and could he stop by her house and drop it off some time that day.
When I sent the email, she happened to be at home on her lunch break, and she got really freaked out and called her mom to ask her what she should do… When she came back to work she was a little bit shaken to say the least.
But I always told her that I was just joking after each prank, so no harm done… except for ruining her image of an otherwise perfectly nice guy. Oh well, she’s engaged anyway so it doesn’t matter, right? 
But yeah, like I said, the consequence of that prank was that it took a lot of work to convince my coworkers that I’m not turning the copy machine off… and I’m still not 100% sure that they believe me. But this time, I’m really not behind it! (Though I have to admit, I’m really tempted to start sneaking in there and turning it off during the day to add to the mystery.)