Last Days at Yumesaki Junior High School

This past week was my last week at Yumesaki Junior High School. Next week I'll be teaching community classes, the following week I'll be in Okinawa sightseeing, and the week after that I'll be at my new junior high school.

This week was a fun one. The students had only half days of school, and the mood was pretty light considering they have the next two weeks off, so I was able to wander around and take photos of the kids goofing off during cleaning time and club time.

This drawing cracks me up! Outside the teachers room is a blackboard and calendar which is updated every month by a couple of students. One student drew this picture as I watched. It started out so sweetly, a little child in bed with Santa standing over him. Then she drew the "virus" haunting the child and added some snot on the child's nose. Next she drew in an unnamed superhero to chase away the virus! I guess the text must say "Merry Christmas and Stay Healthy"!

All term, I've been meaning to take photos of our textbooks. Instead of fun, easy and potentially useful vocabulary like food or clothing, the publishers of the textbook decided to go for heavy topics, like starving children in Sudan, landmines, and civil rights in America. I guess they want to reinforce that learning English is a difficult and depressing chore. A couple photos of the textbook to illustrate my point:

And some of the vocabulary the publishers think will be useful: "civil rights movement", "equality", "slave", "slave owner". I gotta tell you I hated teaching that lesson on MLK!!

On to lighter subjects! On my last day, I brought in thank you gifts for the four English teachers at the school. I decided that they would all appreciate a bottle of wine (except for one English teacher who I couldn't imagine drinking wine, so I got him a bottle of Smirnoff!) After making my purchases, I headed off to the hyaku-en store (the equivalent of the dollar store, but much nicer!) There I found these absolutely adorable wine bottle covers!! The teachers also thought they were cute, and even thought I made them!!

First thing on Thursday morning was the usual staff meeting. Of course these are in Japanese so I just tune out during them. But suddenly everyone was looking at me and laughing! I asked for a translation and apparently they were laughing because they were trying to figure out how to tell me that I would be giving a speech in Japanese to the 7th graders that morning! Great! They jokingly asked me to make it an hour long, but I quickly got them down to five minutes! Please note that my Japanese has not improved at all these last four months, so basically I wrote my speech in English and asked a teacher to translate. When fourth period came, I waited for my cue (being nudged in the elbow by the teacher next to me), went to the front of the gym, and just sounded out the unknown words on the paper in front of me. Then the 7th graders presented me with letters they had written me (some in Japanese so I have no idea what they were telling me) They were very cute, most had drawings on them showing me as a beautiful blonde! I was encouraged to "hold on" by many of the letters. And what was most interesting was the spelling variations of my name. The 1-1 class decided to spell my name as "Sera", and class 1-2 spelled it as "Sala". The other three classes got it right though.

Then yesterday, the last day of the term, was an all-school ceremony. The brass band played a number from the Sound of Music, then I was invited on-stage to give another good-bye speech - also in Japanese! Once again I wrote my speech in English, had it translated, and just sounded out the words. I was then presented with a lovely bouquet of flowers, and the leader of the student council said a speech to me in English and Japanese. It was very sweet!

After the ceremony, students had homeroom. I happened to be walking in the hallways and saw that in one classroom, the teacher was standing in front of the class holding an open umbrella over her head. I can't imagine what she was telling the students!

Once they were dismissed from homeroom, I got lots of hugs good-bye from students. I was told to "gambatte" which is basically the equivalent of "good luck", but can also mean "work hard", or apparently "fight"! I was very puzzled as to why the students were wishing me to fight, but we finally resolved that they were wishing me good luck.

Then last night was the enkai (staff party)! Once again, I amused everyone by taking photos of the food. In this first picture, there is sashimi (raw fish), but the real reason I took the photo was because of the flounder under the sashimi! Apparently some of its flesh was in the bed of leaves and the remaining flounder head and tail made for a nice presentation.

The photo above is nabe, a sort of hot pot. It's really quite tasty and contains just a hodge-podge of food cooked in a broth. This one had fish-balls, crab, mussels, chicken, cabbage, mushrooms and bean sprouts. I think it's a winter dish since we had it at the last enkai last month too.

Besides the food, heavy drinking was on the agenda (I was told to go home from school early and rest up for the "heavy drinking"!). At the beginning of the dinner, I turned my head to chat to the vice principal, and when I turned around again, there were four drinks lined up at my place! Here the helpful teachers are pointing them out to me!

At some point, a rousing game of rock-paper-scissors was played (they LOVE that game here), for the prize of the evening - $200 in cash!! Mr. Enomoto, one of the English teachers, was the winner. Here you can see the semi-finals of the game.

I was a guest of honor (the party also functioned as my farewell party), so here I am posed with the principal and vice principal (yes, I did get a haircut!).And just a few photos of the drunken silliness that ensued:

Mr. Maeda drinking straight from the pitcher.

A little later, Mr. Maeda passed out and being mocked. A photo at "phase 2" - the bar after the restaurant. We had french fries and edamane as snack food!

I really had a nice time at this school this term. The teachers are a great group of people and the students so friendly!! I'm going to miss them. I hope the people at my next school are half as nice!