At the moment, I am sitting at my desk here at work, straining not to lose control. I have the Internet but have somehow managed to avoid seeing any results. We have sky perfect here in Japan, and my friend Greg invited me over to watch the game this evening as he taped it earlier in the day. If I can hold out until 8pm I can avoid spoiling the results for myself.
Let me tell you, this is not easy. Do you know how many places on the Internet will give you sports scores? I have avoided all the usual suspects, including sports and news channels. I have also been avoiding forums where I know the score could be leaked. I almost got one when checking my google mail(stupid ad ticker at the top had an ESPN news feed on it.) With classes and prep work, I have been able to avoid this so far. Here is hoping I can endure.
I just heard something positively creepy from some of the teachers in my school. I had just come back to the staff room from teaching some first grade Junior High students and I happened to overhear a small group of teachers talking about something. It appears that over the years, people have been seeing ghosts at Senmaya Junior high School.
Of course, my skeptical side went into full alert. According to Mark, the other ALT who works here, things can get pretty creepy at night, and the day the girl reported seeing a ghost, he said he got violently sick and had to leave the school.
The current rumor is that three year ago one of the students here saw what looked like a woman staring out a window on the second floor above the staff room. Now one might easily dismiss this as an optical illusion or an overactive imagination; however, in the last couple of weeks a teacher who recently started working here described seeing the exact same woman in the exact same spot. And the teacher and former student have never had any previous contact with each other. The woman is said to have long hair. Her face cannot be seen. I’ll keep you updated if I hear anything else. There might be something to these rumors. Though I’m sure it could be debunked pretty easily as well.
UPDATE: It appears that the students and the teachers at my school aren’t the only ones who have seen this ghost. According to my girlfriend Shiho, this sort of story is very common in Japan. When she was a high school student in Mie Prefecture, she used to hear the exact same story as well. In fact, she though it rather nostalgic . She also said that the ghost usually appears to look the same in all the stories. Chalk up another victory for the skeptical enquirer.
