Are You Genki Yet?

Me: Of course I speak English in American supermarkets! I speak Japanese there and everyone will say EEEEHHH?

I met a couple friends in Hamamatsu for dinner on Friday. The train car was mostly empty, and who should sit one empty seat away from me but the infamous diary writer from last year! At first I wasn't toatlly sure it was him, especially since he didn't seem to take any notice of me. But I looked a little closer and decided it was definitely him, so I said hello. He looked up and reeled back, but once he realized it was me he said "[That surprised me!] Hello." I asked how he was and how school was going. He asked me "Where did you go?" I said "I live in Iwata, but I'm going to Hamamatsu now." "Oh, me too." I asked "Why?" He started "Becau..." then sat back and thought for a second. Then he said "When I was a junior high school student, I lived in Iwata. But now I live in Hamamatsu." When we got off the train a little later. He waved to me and said "Have a nice day." I was so proud of him for actually having a conversation with me, and it totally made my day.

Just another day in my life of middle schoolers being way cuter than they have any business being. 

The 7th grade teacher calls class 1-3 a “crazy zoo” and honestly, she’s not wrong. They have unbelievable energy, especially for the last class on Friday. When she told this to the English helpers, one of them replied “wildlife sanctuary!” which is a term they learned in the most recent section of their textbook. They were especially genki today. When I came into their classroom a few minutes before class, the English helpers had turned on the radio on the classroom CD player, and were screaming at the top of their lungs “shut up!!” “sit down!!” and “close your eyes, wildlife!!” While the students were closing their eyes like they do before every class, the helpers wrote “we are wildlife,” "this is wildlife sanctuary,” and “[classmate’s name] loves woman” on the blackboard. When they opened their eyes and the classmate in question saw this, he leaped out of his seat and ran to erase everything from the board. 

In January, my 9th graders sang “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5. When they were still learning the words, they listed through at the beginning of class and practiced a verse before singing. One day while listening, the CD started skipping, and a boy yelled “ganbare!” which means something like “do your best!”

Most of my 9th graders are taking high school entrance exams tomorrow. I passed a group of girls heading down the stairs at the end of the day, and asked if they were taking tests tomorrow. They said yes, and I said “Do your best!” They replied “I’ll do my best!” and after I turned the corner, I heard them yell it again even louder. I hope they pass!

Today my 6th graders performed skits they wrote in English, and they were the cutest things. Some of them were unrehearsed train wrecks, but others were so impressive. My personal favorite was a version of Momotaro, a story about a boy and his animal friends who defeat a band of demons. Momotaro was played by one of the most adorable and enthusiastic kids in the grade, and before driving all his friends to the demon island (which was already a hilarious concept) he stopped to check that they had all buckled their seat belts. 

Finally, the ever exciting 1-3. The teacher says this class is like a zoo, and it certainly was today. My favorite moment was when I told a boy to sit down and he said “I can’t” “You can’t sit down?” “Yes.” “Why?” “TNT.” “...There’s TNT on your chair?” “Yes.” “Ok, let’s go look.” I steered him back to his seat, and he took a folded paper shape from geometry class off his desk, put it on his chair, pointed and said “TNT.” I very carefully picked it up, set it on his desk and said “Ok, safe. Now write!” After class, he said “Do you want a sticker?” I said “Oh, sure,” so we traded stickers. He took a brown felt smiley face poop sticker off his pencil case and stuck it on my sticker pouch in return for a cat-shaped-sushi sticker.

Boy 2: [I love broccoli!]

Red Demon

The other day, a student came up to me after class to chat. I noticed a hair hanging from her sleeve, so (remembering the boy from last year) I pulled it off for her. As she said “Thank you,” I looked at it and said “Oh. It’s mine,” which she thought was pretty funny.

Towards the end of last year, the 3rd year students were starting to relax a lot and just enjoy the last few weeks of junior high school. In class 3-2, this particularly manifested itself in their English singing. The 3rd years all liked to sing really loudly, but they were taking it to the next level with how loudly (and badly) they were singing. One day the teacher left the room during the song to grab some supplies. Some of the genkier boys, many of whom happened to be seated near each other, took this as their cue to open up the doors and windows and sing out into the halls. As I went to stand near them to make them clam down, one of their friends seated near the front sneaked forward and turned up the volume on the CD player. Honestly, I felt like I should have been mad, but I couldn’t keep from smiling because this was one of my favorite classes and they were so close to graduating that I felt like they deserved a little fun. 

Here’s a story from last Tuesday, my first day back at school for the year. Every morning, the students who are class helpers come the the teachers’ room to ask about the day’s lesson. The two boys from class 1-3, who are very genki, came in to talk to their teacher as usual. Although these conversations usually take place in Japanese unless they’re with me (the boys from 2-3 who bring the notebooks have to ask me “Could you check these notebooks? May I put them on your desk?” everyday), these boys are determined to speak as much English as they can. They always say “May I ask you a question? What’s today’s lesson?” to their teacher. They were doing this as usual, then transitioned into speaking Japanese. I don’t have any first year classes on Tuesdays, so I wasn’t really listening, but then I heard one of the boys say “[japanesejapanese] please come to our class?” The teacher said “No, you don’t have to ask her today.” He looked a little pouty and said “Why?!” 

Monday was my first day at elementary school in the new year. Before class 6-3′s lesson, I was in the English classroom with one of the middle school English teachers who comes to the ES to observe and help out. A couple minutes before class was supposed to start, a single student walked in. Usually the kids all come over together, but no one else came in for a few minutes. When they did, a student informed us that their home room teacher would be late because a student had thrown up. Mind you, this is the same class as the kid who threw up a month or so ago, so this poor teacher has been cleaning up a lot of puke. From what I gathered (if I understood correctly), the student threw up right in the doorway as they were leaving for English class, which would explain why only one kid made it to the English room and all the others got held up. Luckily the classrooms have two doors. This was, yet again, fortunate timing for these kids, since they were already on the way out of the puke classroom and didn’t have to sit around while the teacher cleaned it up. And even luckier for me, since I didn’t have to deal with it at all.

One student came to me and handed me his script about how he wants to be a doctor. The last line was “I’ll study hard every day.” I asked him “What do you have to study to be a doctor?” I didn’t mean for it to be a trick question, but it surprised him since the answer wasn’t in his script. He struggled for a second, and then the boy sitting over my shoulder, who was a friend, started whispering “science, science!”

Last year, a student’s handwriting got so sloppy that the teacher joked that it looked like he had written “Charlie” instead of his actual name. He replied “oh, middle name Charlie.” Middle names aren’t a think in Japan, but this kid was born in the US while his family lived there for his parent(s) work, so we were totally prepared to believe him. He cracked up when we asked “Really??”