97 leavers.

Ah, the ten year school reunion. I think that I'm quite glad that I'm living in Japan, and that I don't have to make the choice between going and pretending I'm fabulous or not going and making sure that people know that I'm being fabulous else where.

So, my unavoidable absence therefore by proxy means that I am Elsewhere Being Fabulous, thus I do not have to defend my position of how much I am winning at life. Marvellous. Break out the Veuve, it's a definite step up from the days of Passion Pop, and as a graduate from such a prestigious school, one does not pay 5 dollars for a certified #1 hangover anymore.

Trying to write a blurb about what I've been doing for the past ten years was much more difficult than I anticipated. Problem number one being that I couldn't crap on and on as is my wont to do, and that my definitions of winning at life are likely to be different to most of the girls I went to school with (and that's ok, really).

Provided below, for your reading pleasure and amusement is the paragraph of trite that quite nicely sums up the past decade.

The last ten years have flown by. I've done the usual go to Uni, get said degree (Bachelor of Science, Environmental Science, Murdoch Uni.), get perfect job at the Agriculture Department, ditch perfect job and go travelling. I've worked a myriad of jobs, but find myself constantly coming back to hospitality. One of the few permanents in my life is that I have a regular hairdresser. I've learnt how to drink Scotch on the rocks and enjoy it. I've been living in Japan for the past 2 1/2 years, teaching English at a public high school, just outside of Kobe. I have no idea what comes next, but if the last ten years are anything to go by, it's going to be nothing like I imagine.

Interesting things, these reunions. Especially when they've got a facebook group attached. Maybe I'll make it to the 20-yr one.

Release

So this is graduation the second time around. The same pomp and ceremony, the same 4 hours spent cleaning the school the day before, the same suits from last year that haven't been busted out since the last time, the same twee-ness of the corsages for the graduate's homeroom teachers. And then, like I do for special occasions, I put my cynicism away, and watch these people stand for the last time and walk away from what has probably been the most influential period of their lives.

Sometimes I think teaching is kind of addictive. The beginning part is fucking hard, you're completely winging it, ballsing stuff up, but always, the saving grace is the students. It starts getting easier, you gain a tentative grasp on what's needed, confidence grows exponentially, but is just as easily shredded into itty bitty pieces. The students, the few who actually listen, the majority that don't, are what keep drawing me back into that classroom, to teach the same lesson for the sixth time, for that one moment where something is suddenly clarified or you manage to elicit a genuine laugh from a student you've been working on for weeks and weeks.

Say what you like about JET and our lack of qualifications, and the pay that we get for doing not much, but at the end of the day, on days like graduation, you realise that you've had a chance to have an influence on the next generation, that this is your chance to stop complaining about our parent's generation and their fuck-ups, our generation and our fuck-ups, and that this is a chance to actually make some kind of difference. Maybe I notice it more in Japan because there are such apparent societal disparities that I could not stand were I to live here indefinitely, because I'm still not cynical enough to be totally indifferent, because I'm not happy with the answer of "It is the Japanese way". But now, with the opportunity of teaching given to me and these kids who are so open to learning, it's been special to have been of some significance in their lives.

Having just come through a completely hellish time with my school, arguments and tears and more arguments and cultural clashes and really, that's a whole new story, there have been days when I've woken up and wanted nothing more than to not to go to school, having had to convince myself just to go through the next logical step of going downstairs and then having a shower and then having breakfast until eventually I'm walking through the school gates, one of the few things that made me keep going is that I'm vain enough to think that by not being in class would disappoint at least one kid. In not being there, I would be depriving them of an opportunity of viewing an opinion that different to the populist bullshit that seems to drive the education curriculum here.


Graduation is special. The bonds that form at school you think will last forever. For the first time in your life you're being told that the future is up to you, that you're finally being trusted with making big decisions, and from a teacher's perspective, that you've been prepared as much as possible for whatever may come your way. You leave school no longer as one of many, but as your own individual person, full of ideas and ideals. And for whatever crazy notion made me decide to move to Japan (hey, that sounds fun and I can put off real-life for a bit longer!), at no point did I consider that I would be in this privileged position where students were actually coming to me to thank me for teaching them.

This is where I wish I had the Japanese to convey just how much of an influence they've had on my experience of Japan. And sure, call me a JET poster child, or whatever throw-away insult you may care to find, but if only this could be genuinely conveyed to more people, and their schools and powers that be, before spirits are irrevocably broken.

Infectious Part 3.

Today's absentee count of the first years was over 80 students today. The second years are beginning to drop as well, with almost 30 students absent with influenza. The only reason the third years aren't getting sick is because they're too busy studying 20 hours a day in solitary confinement in their bedrooms.

In the effort to prevent an influenza epidemic, although I suspect it's already too late, all classes tomorrow have been cancelled. There was a big meeting after lunch about it, and I've found it hard to express surprise at the decision without being amused. The students still at school are completely thrilled at the bonus day, and I'm content with a student-free day myself.

To then be told that in order to prevent further sickness myself, I should gargle with either tap water or green tea every time I leave the staff room, because the virus lives in the throat, makes me wonder a) if we'll actually get to graduation next week, and b) who the amazing people are that do such a wonderful spin job on the at-home remedies in Japan.

Infectious Part 2.

I took this morning off. I've been feeling like I've been fighting something off for about 2 weeks now, and really didn't fancy the prospect of sitting in the simmering pot of sickness that is our staffroom at the moment.

I got to school at lunch time to be questioned by many people who all kept me at arm's length as though my germs were going to be more gaijin vicious. Then I was told with a small hint of delight that there were over 60 first years away today due to colds and influenza. The kids still left at school are finding it somewhat amusing that they're tougher than their friends and have taken to mocking each other coughing.

Jokes aside, really, I'm not surprised that everyone's getting sick. The classrooms are generally freezing, there's 40 kids in each room, the windows are never opened, and the kids are constantly pushed hard. It's almost the end of term, there's exams and classes finishing, and graduation and song competitions and the cultural festival coming up. While I'm all for having a full life and being busy, you've got to wonder about the durability of these kids when roughly one quarter of the year group is absent, fallen to something that can only be fixed by prolonged bed rest. Like Amanda said, preventative medicine has a long way to go in this country. Not coming to school and getting well is surely going to be a lot better recieved by your colleagues than passing around the malady that you're incubatuing.

Infectious.

I just taught a class of 23 kids. 23. I normally have 40 kids in a class. Today, 10 of them were home with influenza, and the other 7 were home with colds. The remaining 23 weren't all that flash either, with at least half of them looking like they were on the wrong side of the black plague. Minus the pustules.

Ganbatte, anyone?

Everyone else around me seems intent on spreading whatever it is that they have - the spluttering, spitting and sneezing symphony is in full swing in the stuffy, over-heated staffroom drowning out the pious ones with their Micheal Jackson-esque masks. I feel kinda crappy, and I'd rather take my chances with my own solitary germs at home than the cocktail of air-borne mucus that's on offer at school at the moment.