Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Season of farewells and welcomes...

It is near the end of the the Japanese school year and my 3rd (9th, to you Canadians) grade kids have graduated. It's a more than likely that I'll never see the majority of these kids again and it makes me sad. Let's rewind a bit, shall we?

On Wednesday, I gave my last lesson to the kids and it wasn't really a lesson as much as an exercise in having fun and being loud. We played a couple of games for the whole period and at the end, there was some chatter then a couple of kids jankened (rock-paper-scissors). Yuki was the winner (loser?) and she stepped up to me and told me how much she was going to miss me and that I was a good teacher. Then one by one, each of the 3rd graders came up to me, looked me in the eye and said a few words, in English. Of course I was touched and reached out to them the best way I knew how - pure, physical contact. Yup, I gave each of those Japanese kids a big, messy hug, and while all the girls and a couple of boys were receptive and hugged me back, a few boys stood rod straight and slapped me on the back when I hugged them. And one boy, Kazuyuki, actually ran away from me. But don't worry; I caught him and hugged the hell out of him!

At the beginning of the class, I noticed that one of the girls, Mami, wasn't there and I assumed that she was doing something important with another teacher. But at the end of the class when my JTE told me step outside, I found her there with Mami, who was sobbing uncontrollably. She managed to get out a couple of words before I started tearing up. We hugged furiously while she spilled fat tears on my shoulder and I told her that I will miss her too, that she'll big star and that she was one of my favorites. I HATE goodbyes, absolutely hate them, so I knew that the graduation ceremony would not be tear-free for me.

So here we are. Post-graduation ceremony, sitting in the teacher's lounge. I was right. It was a doozy. The girls were sobbing, even a couple of the second grade girls, and most of the teachers were crying and I wasn't an exception.

I'm beat now. I'm waiting to get the F out of here and begin my weekend, but I'll be back soon to post my pics. Later.

2 comments:

dancing chaos said...

mine's tomorrow, and I thought I might bust out teh makeup and put in an effort to look good.

SCREW THAT.

I was tearing up just signing yearbooks today.

argh, I hate my hormones. they lead to human emotions.

Anonymous said...

contrasting posts... i completely understand, that is how life in japan is for me too, a land of contrast

cheers

dan