New Schedule

There are only two new departments in my revised work schedule for this month: the nursery and the operation room. I worked in both of them for the first time last week, so I can tell you a little about them now.

Before my timetable changed, I worked on the wards every day of the week. Now, with the nursery on Wednesday mornings I have a break from that, a 'weekend in the middle of the week' as May called it. It made a huge difference. How could it not have? Instead of changing bed sheets, folding towels and making oshibori, I am playing with a dozen children under the age of five. They were all very cute and very shy at first, but after about half an hour they were jumping all over May and me – literally – and trying to out-do each other in impressing us. The teachers were great too; they didn't even laugh when they had to show me how to change a nappy.

The highlight of the morning was watching the children's Christmas concert rehersal. I felt a little sorry for them though. They must have been petrified performing to a couple of foreigners instead of their parents. To my surprise, they didn't show any more fear than you might expect from a toddler singing a solo to an audience. It was a great little show. The costumes were wonderful too. And because this was a Buddhist Christmas concert, there was no mention of the birth of Jesus or telling of the nativity story – as you would expect – just lots of singing about Christmas time... and food, for some reason. I can't wait to go back there on Wednesday.

Second, the operation room. You're probably wondering what work two un-trained volunteers could possibly do on the surgery floor. Unfortunately for me, it turned out the answer didn't involve anything inside the theatres. We were doing behind the scenes stuff – packaging sterile equipment mainly, for both the OT's and the wards. I thought it was quite satisfying in a way, knowing that this medical equipment was soon going to be used by a surgeon or doctor. Maybe I was grabbing at straws though; I wanted to be observing surgery.

Anyway, that's about it. My timetable will change again come January. I will no longer have a free Wednesday afternoon but will be working in Nutrition and then Radiology. Although I will obviously miss my free afternoon – especially considering that is the only time I have been able to watch surgeries so far – it will be nice going back to Radiology. I already miss it after only a week without it. There's such a great atmosphere there, one that seems to be unique to Radiology. Plus, May and I have made some good friends there. Matso-san stands out for both of us. He is a similar age to us (he's 24) so we feel like we're on a similar level to him. I am the youngest employee on the hospital staff so, according to Japanese culture, everyone else is essentially my boss, including May. Matso-san treats us more like equals though, maybe because if it weren't for us, he would be the youngest on the staff. I also miss the chief Radiologist, 'Ojiisan' ('Grandfather' – not his name, just what everyone calls him). He shows me the coolest x-rays, MRI's and CT's that he can find and then lets me try and work out what they are of. At least we will see all the Radiology gang at Bonenkai on Friday. Yay.