written August 27, 2007

Summer school is now over and real school has begun. I had an interesting first few days of school -- the first day here is very different from those I experienced in the States. The first bell rings at 0815 by which time all of the teachers (57!) are assembled in the staff room. Everyone stands up. One of the vice principals says "Ohayo Gozaimasu" and everyone returns the greeting and bows. One of the staff stands up and reads the days announcements and notices off of the black boards on the wall in the center of the room. Then the teachers listen to the announcements for their year. My desk is located in the section with the 2nd year teachers (I sit next to the nurse and the PE teachers). The room can get very loud as there is a person making an announcement and competing with 2 others to be heard. All of this is over by 0825 because it is then time for the Short Home Room. I have no real idea of what this is because I don't have a class or anything to take care of at that time.

After this on the first day it was cleaning time. Usually cleaning time takes place everyday between the second to last and the last period. I am in charge of the English classroom. In Japanese schools, the teachers move classrooms and the students stay put. However, in my school at least, there is a classroom devoted to English. In this space I can put up posters (if anyone has any, please send!) of different things about America or about myself. There are also magazines, textbooks, and dictionaries on the shelves. Anyway, the 2-7 students are the ones that clean my class and the end of the hallway. Every year of students is divided into 8 sections, so 2-7 would be second year section 7 students. My classroom is located on the fourth floor of the first building at the end of a short hallway. The library takes up the rest of the floor, so my students clean the classroom, the hallway outside, and the bathrooms that are between it and the library. The girls clean the bathrooms and the boys the classroom and hallway. The 5 girls seem to be fairly industrious, but then again, I'm not watching them all the time. The 5 boys...well, let's just say they use a broom the same way Thomas used to wipe down the table: they swish. However, if you pointedly ask them to do something, they will become slightly more energetic. Cleaning time only lasts 15 minutes, but the students are usually done after 10 so they will look out of the windows to the other school building across the way. The two academic buildings look like an = sign.

Then it was time for the assembly which officially opens the school year. The principal said a bunch of things and handed out awards to the sports teams which competed over the summer. The students then broke down into year groups and went to different sections of the gym for inspection. This involves the girls standing in rows on one side and the boys on the other by section and then by individual number (so Yamamoto-san could be 2-4-6, second year, 4th class, student 6). The teachers then walk up and down the rows and check hair and uniforms. No hair dye is allowed and boys' hair can:t touch their ears. For girls, their hair must be "natural" so either pulled back in a low ponytail or two low pigtails. All of the students have the same pair of outdoor shoes (black penny loafers) and gym shoes (white and green). Their indoor shoes look the same except for the color of rubber on the toe differs by class year; green is year 1, yellow year 2 and blue year 3. All of them have their names and year/section/student numbers written on the toe above the colored rubber. Indoor shoes are not allowed in the gym, only gym shoes or socks, so for an assembly, you will see all 800 pairs of shoes lined up outside the gym (hence naming and numbering the shoes). The students spent the rest of the first day taking placement exams in various subjects.

On the second day, the morning announcement part was the same. However, yesterday was special because there was a practice for Sports Day during 2nd and 3rd periods. All of the students and staff were in gym clothes (student's uniform is white top with a red stripe and navy blue shorts) standing in rows to do raijo taiso, girls in front and boys in back. The teachers were standing on the sides or in the middle. They brough someone in from Nagasaki to teach us this raijo taiso. It was called Gambarumba. This was a play on words. In Japanese the slang way to say good job or work hard is not Ganbatte (polite) but Gambaro (long o). However, they say Gambaranba in Nagasaki-ben (Nagasaki dialect). I stood in the middle of the room between the nurse and the PE teachers. However, halfway through, the boys moved to the front and the girls to the back, so the nurse dragged me to stand in the front of the room. So, there I was in tracksuit pants I had bought (thank goodness, or else it would have been bicycle shorts!) in front of a bunch of teenage boys doing a funky workout...oh man, I wish you all had been there!

Today was my actuall first day of teaching. For my first class, I team-taught 1-1 with Higa-sensei. I will team teach all 8 first year conversation classes and help out with two of the third year writing classes. However, teachers from all the years come up to me in the staff room for help/corrections/etc as needed. I even recorded the listening test for the English placement exam with another English teacher.

So, in class I started by introducing myself (I get to do this at least 7 more times). I then repeated it. As I was doing this the students took notes. Higa-sensei then had me direct them to arrange their desks into groups (41 students total!). The students spoke with each other about what they heard me say. I then chose one student from each group to stand up and read a statement I had made. If it was incorrect I corrected them. They then wrote the correct version on the board. It was funny, all the students would sit very tensely (now my English is going...) until I picked the presenter and then the rest would all heave a great sigh of relief and slouch down in their chairs. The last part of the class they wrote questions for me to answer next class. I can:t wait to see what they wrote!

At lunch I was speaking with one of the other first year teacher adn I happened to mention that I wanted to buy a bike. Kanamori-sensei said that she bought a bike that she didn:t use and that she would give it to me. I offered to pay for it, but she said she would like to give it to me. She said that in Japan most bikes have 26 inch wheels, but hers is 27 inches because she:s tall. I don:t know enough about bikes to tell if this will cause me any difficulty, but I guess I:ll find out soon. She lives nearby so she will bring her bike either today or tomorrow.

Yesterday was Jacob:s 28th birthday. Jacob is one of my best friends here in Japan. He is one of the people I traveled to Nagsaki with 2 weeks ago for Obon. Before coming to Japan, he was a chemist for Coca Cola in Atlanta for two years. He and his boyfriend were looking for things to do together so they took up line dancing Jacob was trying to convice his bf to take Japanese. They broke up, but thankfully for us, Jacob studied Japanese anyway. He:s been studying for the last 2 years, so his Japanese is really good. He arrived in Japan a week before I did and on his first night in Nagasaki he went to a restaurant across the street from his apartment. That is when he met Mama-san. Mama-san and Papa-san own the restaurant. Jacob mentioned he was going to teach English at Shygyo HS, which is where their daughter goes to school. Mama-san then took Jacob under their wing. He eats there often and teaches them English (their ability is amazing btw) and they teach him Japanese. Mama-san and Papa-san invited Jacob over for his birthday and told him to bring his friends so Sue Ann and Laurence (Trinis) and I went over. Patrick was to come as well but he was helping his students film something for their culture festival in October. Anywho, they laid quite a table. There were at least 12 different dishes and 3 desserts on the 5 tables they pushed together to seat the 4 of us, them, their daughter, her high school friend, Jacob:s landlord and her two daughters, and an elderly friend of the family. There were dumplings, fried rice balls, Japanese baked potatoes, fries, curry, pasta salad, regular salad, fried fish, octopus balls, a couple of different meat plates, Japanese pears, nectarines, edamame, beer, soda, a few other drinks, birthday cake, pound cake, and ice cream among others. I had a little of everything and didn't even eat breakfast this morning as I was so full (and my BG was good too). They even gave us each a box of leftover cake and another takeaway box to put in whatever leftovers we wanted. So good...!There was much laughing and talking and picture taking and at least 3 renditions of Happy Birthday. Apparently their version of hip hip hooray is to say Banzai 3 times, each time they lift their arms straight up in the air (like the signal for touchdown). We all had a lot of fun. Mama-san and Papa-san have even invited us to their restaurant for a moon viewing BBQ in October. I can:t wait!

note: On a Japanese keyboard, : is where ' should be. ' is above the 2 key. I'm too lazy to press shift every time I want ' so I'm just leaving them all as :.