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.