Class Trips

This week, both the second and third graders are away on class trips. The third graders went to Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Nara for the week, and the second graders went somewhere in Yamanashi for a couple days. Most of the staff left to accompany the students. So, Kae is gone, along with the principal, and pretty much everyone else. I wanted to go too, but there probably would have been several meetings if they had taken my request seriously. Plus, it would have cost me something like a thousand dollars. Before they left, I asked the kids to bring me back omiyage (gifts that you bring back when you go somewhere). Most of them thought it was funny. Yuka flipped out (as she is prone to do) and screamed/whined to Kae asking if I was serious. Anyway, I have no classes this week. It’s more boring than usual…

[Side not about Yuka: Once a week (per my request) Kae and I have the students write a “journal” entry. It’s the only real opportunity they have to practice writing in English (writing original thoughts in English is completely absent from the official English curriculum). Each week we give them a topic to give them some ideas. One week’s topic was “If you could have a robot in your house, what would you do with it” – or something to that effect. Yuka wrote that, if she had a robot, she would have a Gundam. (Gundam’s are giant, heavily-armed, flying, pilot-able robots from the popular anime series Gundam). I saw her writing this, and I asked her what she would do with the Gundam – like, would she fly it to the moon, fight bad guys, blow up a city, etc? She told me that if she had a Gundam, she wouldn’t do any of those things. She wouldn’t want to get it messed up and dirty. She would just want to look at it. “Madness,” I thought. I asked her, what if the world was in peril, and we needed Yuka to step into her Gundam and save the day? She said she would not want to do this. She would rather the attractive (animated) protagonist from the series step into the Gundam and save the world. Is this not crazy? She would prefer to watch an animated character (one she is unabashedly attracted to, by the way) fly around in a Gundam than do so herself. That seems crazy to me. What would you do if you had a giant, heavily-armed, flying, pilot-able robot in your possession? Would you use it? If I had one, I would be in that thing so fast…]

The new principal really likes me. He told me as such when he was drunk at the enkai we had recently. He is also not as good as the old principal was at hiding the fact that he has nothing to do. The old principal would disappear into his office and stay there, with the door closed, all day. The new principal, I think, gets antsy. He can only be in his office for short periods of time. When he gets bored, he starts walking around the staff room blatantly wasting time (no papers in his hand, no trips to the paper shredder or the copy machine, nothing). He used to work at an elementary school, so I don’t think he’s quite used to the middle school routine. While walking around, he invariably makes his way to my desk where I always look busy – either studying Japanese, doing actual work (rare), or writing these blogs. The other day I was grading a stack of “journal” entries – I started and worked through the pile. It doesn’t take all that long if you just sit down and do it. Well, he was so impressed at how hard I work, that he suggested that I take a break. I mean, there were about fifty papers, but they each only take about forty-five seconds to correct… He can’t sit down for forty minutes and do work uninterrupted? I guess not…

No Boys in Brass Band

So, I was studying Japanese today - because I had nothing else to do - no classes or anything... I study out of a book that I get from the JET program. It covers a lot of ground really quickly. So, I'm past the point of "Hi, my name is...". While reading a sample dialogue (in Japanese), my principal comes up to me, sees what I'm reading, and decides that he's going to give me a Japanese lesson. So, he reads the first sentence of the dialogue and has me repeat after him, which I do with no problem (like that helps me with the meaning...). But then he decides to take it back a step - by teaching me the alphabet. I learned the alphabet before I came to Japan. It was the one thing I knew. But, he writes it all down and has me repeat after him - like reading along with the ABC's. We do this several times. Thanks for the Japanese lesson...

Also today, the new 7th graders went around to all the different club activities so they could decide which one they wanted to choose. I was hanging out in the band room, trying to recruit kids. It was really funny. The kids come in, they walk over to one of the 8th or 9th graders, who hands them an instrument and gives them brief instructions on how to play it. Then they kids blow away until they make a sound. My job was to make brass band look cool (its a sad state of affairs when I, of all people, am the authority on what is cool). I really want some boys to join. There hasn't been a male member of the Nakatomi Junior High School Brass Band in over 5 years.

Tomorrow, we'll give a little performance to further persuade the new kids. Before the performance we all stand up and give a little speech about how great band is. The speech ends with the whole band saying something like "lets enjoy brass band together" in unison. We were rehearsing this. After everyone yelled this phrase, they sort of just stood there awkwardly. I jokingly suggested that all give a thumbs up at the end. Unfortunately my suggestion was regarded as a good idea. It looks really nerdy. I don't think any boys are going to be joining brass band this year...

Love Patrol

Today was a half day at school. After lunch the students went home because there was a big regional teachers union meeting happening at our school in the afternoon. Kae and the Vice Principal had told me that I could go home after lunch.

So, I went up to ask the Principal if I could leave, but before I could say anything, he handed me a bright neon jacket and an orange flag and told me to go outside to be a parking attendant for all the teachers who were arriving. Great...

Soon, Kae came out, also in a jacket. Apparently suckered into doing the same thing. She told me that on the back of the jacket, it said "love patrol". I think she was kidding, but she insisted. So, there I was, waving the cars in, in my neon jacket - the love patrol.


This has nothing to do with the love patrol. Yesterday we had opening ceremonies. Typical ceremony - speeches and bowing. I wanted to make particular note of the amount of bowing that went on at this ceremony. Example - the Vice Principal opens the ceremony: he stands up from his chair, takes a couple steps, bows to the board of education people who nod back, he approaches the stage, bows to the stage, climbs the stairs to the podium, stands behind the podium, bows to everyone, everyone bows back, he says the date and that we are starting the ceremony, takes a step back, bows to everyone, everyone bows back, he gets of the stage, turns around to face the stage, bows to the stage, walks to his chair, turns around to face the BOE people, bows to the BOE people, BOE people nod back, Vice Principal sits down. And that's just how it started. Every single person who made a speech (and there were a lot of them) had to go through the exact same procedure. Sometimes everyone had to stand, then bow, and sit down. It was excruciating.

New School Year

The new school year just started. The new teachers are here. They seem pretty nice, but I think I preferred the teachers that just left…

The new principal is cool. He was the principal at one of the elementary schools I teach at, and he would assist me with the fifth grade classes. The new vice-principal seems a little weird. He could be nice though. The jury’s still out on him. The new secretary is really shy – painfully so. The new Japanese teacher seems like a real goofball. He bows really deeply and has a weird smile. He’s a young guy, so I’m not sure why he’s so uptight. When he introduced himself to the students he told a story (a fable, I think) that seemed really rehearsed.

Anyway… I was sitting in the staff room this morning, minding my own business – doing some research on where I should travel during the Golden Week holiday – when I notice that most of the teachers in the staff room are gone. This is not so strange – I frequently find myself alone in the staff room. But, the only teachers there were the new teachers. As soon as I realized this, a buzz came through on the intercom, and everyone got up to leave. They motioned that I should come with them. I followed them to the gym where the rest of the school was waiting to welcome them. Awkward. I should have been in the gym when they arrived, but no one told me about this ceremony. I did a quick social-awkwardness calculation. If I jumped ahead of them, and entered first, it would look weird – as everyone would start clapping when the door opened, and then it would only be me. If I entered last, right after the last new teacher, it would look equally weird. So, I waited a couple seconds after the last teacher went in, and then I quickly went in and took my place among the other, not new, teachers. It’d be nice if someone had given me a heads up…

So now, I am, once again, alone in the staff room. I was helping the music teacher out with preparations for the new students’ arrival (it was great, someone actually asked me for help, and I had a task to do) while the students where cleaning. When I finished, I looked up, and realized that the staff room had emptied. I walked around the school thinking that the students were in homeroom. No one was around. I think everyone’s in the gym, but the vice principal is hosing off the stairs that lead down there, and I really don’t want to a.) get hosed b.) get asked to help hose, or c.) slip and fall down the wet stairs.