it's the little triumphs...

rock!! i just acheived a new milestone in my life here in japan. the teachers were having their weekly meeting when the phone rang. usually when this happens i tense up, wait for a japanese teacher to emerge from the meeting room and bow and apologize to him or her as they run to catch the phone. today i got all ballsy as the telephone kept screaming. i timidly picked up the receiver just as a co-worker came running for it. she stood by while i handled the call, then she knodded and ran back to the conference room. easy as that! it was the first time i'd ever answered the phone at work!! when the next call came, she again entered the room but she wasn't running and she was looking at me expectantly. the third and fourth calls didn't stir a single teacher from the meeting. woohoo!! although i didn't have the most in depth conversations with them, i managed to determine who the callers were asking for and inform them they were busy with a meeting. i said i wasn't sure when it'd be over, could they please call back. this may seem a fairly petty accomplishment, but the phone is terribly difficult. you are left strictly to your lingual devices as body language and context are of no help. and it's not like chatting with my japanese friends on my cell phone, when they call expecting the conversation to be a challenge and chocked full of misinterpretations and humorous blunders. as i'm sure my japanese phone ettiquette is lacking, i'm kinda surprised they even let me answer calls at all. i'm sure that i am real unprofessional in a real un-japanese kinda way.