Back To School

Today's Gift Count (no word of a lie) : one cake, one sachet of posh tea, one home-made loaf of bread, one mini 2011 planner and two photos of myself (from two different people). Gave some more of my gifts from England today and had a text from one of the English volunteers about an hour after I gave her hers which said she was "sooooo happy" (you just count them os mate)...like I said in my last post, I am a quality gift giver (actually it was a Now magazine and a Jon Bon Jovi diary, but you've gotta know your audience innit).

So, on to my main topic...Being back at school has been going fairly well so far this term, except for being so jet-lagged that I have spent a lot of it feeling like it's 2am. Friday was the first day back, but in true Japanese style, the first day back isn't so much a "day" as a 3 hour session of ceremonies, meetings and cleaning, before the kids go home, leaving the teachers with another 5 hours of meetings, or, in my case, 5 hours of sitting gaumlessly at my desk trying desperately to stay awake. This is the second year in a row (out of two at the school) in which the Head Teacher has for some unknown reason chosen to use ME in his New Year speech, without informing me, or indeed speaking to me for at least 2 months prior, prompting 500 students and 30-odd teachers to turn around and look at me, whilst I am innocently staring out of a nearby window or picking my nose or something. I then realise, look shocked, grin and sort of nod-bow. Of course, all I ever know is that it's something about me, not what he is actually saying about me, so he could be saying, "Why on earth is that moron MARK still here, staring out of a window like that" and I am just grinning and nodding him along. No, actually, last year I know that he was talking about Susan Boyle (as you do) and just kept referring to the UK as "Mark-sensei's country," as if he thought that was its actual name. This year's was something about his favourite moments of last year, but, assuming that his favourite moment of last year wasn't simply "Mark-sensei" there must have been more to it than that.

Anyway, lessons have all been going very very well so far. Have been using some UK chart music with my second graders, which has been going down well (although I am rather supsicious that it's more just an excuse for them to chat, not that they need one, but at least they are talking about soemthing vaguely related to English this way.) With my third graders, I have had a whole lesson to myself, which is quite rare with that teacher (which I can understand, cos they are busy with exams and stuff and he has a lot to get through), but I did a talk and quiz about my trip back home, where they had to guess what I did while I was in England. Also, before the holidays I had them all write a question in English on a piece of paper, took them back to England and then I got my friends and family to write answers back to them. It was something that I really wanted to do, but was a bit worried that the English would just get too difficult for them (they aren't used to things that aren't lifted directly from the textbook) and that it would just put them off English more. Also, it was the absolute bane of my existance during my holiday, ruining precious catch up time with my mates (160 is a lot of questions for two weeks, especially when you have a year and a half of goss to catch up on!) "Friend: Marrrrkkkk!! How have you been? How's Japan? How's the job? You look amazingly beautiful and radiant! Me: You couldn't just quickly write down for this student what Japanese food you like or whether you prefer AKB48 or Arashi for me could you? Ten times!" Anyway...it was all well worth it in the end, because the reaction was fantastic and they all tried really hard to understand the answers and everyone thinks that all of my friends and family are absolutely gorgeous (I glued photos on the back). Anyway, wonderful lessons all round there so that was wicked.

The only problem of the last few days came yesterday. When I first came to Japan I started taking Japanese lessons with a teacher in my town. He rather incoveniently for me went to live in China for 8 months or something and that commute wasn't really gonna happen so I have been on a rather long break. Anyway, he's back now, and he always used to pick me up for the lessons and take me to his house for the lesson (so that his wife could feed me enormous amounts of green tea and sweet, Japanese bean-filled blobs which all taste exactly the same but are apparently all completely differently.) Anyway, in the meantime, I've moved house, and he didn't know where my new flat was so we agreed to meet outside the town hall. Still, because he felt bad making me walk 2 minutes to the town hall, he cycled (not sure why he cycled) the 20 minutes from his house to the town hall earlier in the day, in order to look at random nearby blocks of flats to see if he could see mine. Don't forget that the reason he comes to get me is to save me the very same cycle ride. It's almost too nice for words, but completely fruitless as he couldn't find it anyway so I had to WALK like some kind of WALKER 2 whole minutes to the town hall. And that was my big problem of the last few days...wanker. How could he do that to me??

No, no, that wasn't my big problem. I was feeling totally fine, was lovely to see my teacher and his wife after quite a while (I did actually see them briefly when he was back for a visit in October but still, even that's over 2 months ago). Anyway, about 5 minutes in to the lesson, I suddenly started to feel a really strong pain in my stomach, and I'm not the "ill" sort of person, who has a headache and takes a week off of work or calls a hospital in case they are dying, I'm more the sort of person who would have to be about 10 heartbeats off of dying before calling in sick for work, let alone ring a hospital (I waited 48 hours before going to the doctors after starting to feel ill a couple of years ago with what turned out to be a burst appendix). Anyway, it was so painful, that I just had to say something and ask if I could just go home. I couldn't believe I was saying it almost, but I knew that I just couldn't sit there, for fear of throwing up all over my bean blob. Being ill in Japan is definitely something that causes a fuss, so saying that I was ill, all of a sudden, at the table of somebody else's house, was a cue for the fuss of the century to break out. He called his wife back down (which he does with a very rude OI type noise as if talking to a criminal or a meercat or something) and they then set about touching various parts of their body (some rather compromising) to try and guess what was wrong with me, supplemented by my teacher frantically flipping through his dictionary and coming out with things like "are you nachiies?" (nauseous) and "do you have dyorihaa?" (I can't spell the real one, but you've got it right?) with his wife standing next to him doing incredibly accurate gestures for each potential illness. From a British perspective at least, Japan has a very strange privacy culture. I mean, if I reach up at school and somebody sees my tummy poke out of my t-shirt, they all find it so hilarious and hold their heads in their hands in embarrassment for me, yet, somebody just saying, I need to go home, I have a "dicky tummy" or something as I would probably say in the UK, does not get the response of "OK, I'll take you, take care" no more questions asked, but instead some kind of charades routine of the shits and vomitting and a broken English list of body organs...very strange and VERY embarrassing. All the time I just kept saying "I don't know" and concentrated very hard on not letting the pair of 50-odd-year olds in front of me doing impressions of vomitting and shougin words like "bowels" at me, actually make me vomit all over my textbook. Anyway, eventually I was allowed to go home with just a warning (it was like the Spanish Inquisition I swear), and I will just be polite and British now and keep my privacy by saying that all you need to know is that I'm fine now. I hope that will do in my next lesson and they won't ask for photo evidence of what happened!! Keep your bowels crossed for me please!