On "work"

All I have been doing over the past month is strudying Japanese everyday all day, pretty much. I go to the town office at 8 am picked up by a co-worker til I buy a car, start studying at 8:30 am sharp when this kiddy-alarm-clock melody comes on to let everyone know its time to start working then break at 12. All the lights are turned off (I was told to save electricity), the TV is turned on and everyone brings out their lunchboxes and eats "together" at their desks. Usually it is a quiet affair with everyone still doing something on their computer during that time.Very quiet and kind of strange. Actually I kind of dread lunch time since it is the one time when all activity comes to a halt and everyone goes to their own little world at their desk, 1,000 miles away. I usually gobble my food down and duck out of there. I head downstairs to chat it up with the secretary who loves to talk, like any good secretary. Then we have a grand old time til the clock strikes noon, when the kiddy tune announces that it's time to start studying again until about 5:30 pm when we are driven home to the apato. Phew.

This is a normal workday unless we get kidnapped. Sometimes our co-workers tell us to go, at a moment's notice, with a random person somewhere. We never have any idea what's going on or why we're there. There's never an explanation (an explanation that's understandable). The most interesting kidnapping is when we went to a golf course, then a freshwater spring, then an ice cream shop, then back to work. It doesn't sound half bad when I write about it, but imagine being in a car for a few hours having absolutely no idea what's going on. Then imagine people you don't know getting out of the car and voila, they're filling up their water bottles from a hidden spring without saying a word to you. And you copy them go to the spring. Then we go back to the car and start driving again. Next thing you know you're at a place with livestock and the people are going inside a store. So you follow them not knowing what's going on, then voila, they buy you ice cream. Then you sit down and eat ice cream in silence then they go back to the car and you follow them. You have NO IDEA what's going on.... then you are suddenly at the town office. STRANGE. You would feel abducted too.