Can you hear silence?

I asked him how he was and he just looked at me blankly without saying anything. I gestured back "are you happy? hot? cold? hungry? good?" and he actually said back "hungry" to me.

It felt monumental that he actually said anything to me. The fact that he approached me instead of me approaching him.

Small moments like that are reasons why I love teaching to see those small steps. It really warms my heart.

There are lots of difficult kids at school but I want them to know that I believe in them.

I really want to work on myself. 

Actually thank you skate teacher for telling me I’m bad at falling. 

I really need to kill my ego sometimes. 

I had really bad allergies all afternoon, so I was LITERALLY blowing my nose every second of the afternoon that I used one full tissue box. 

I got a message from an old toxic friend that I’m trying to get over...she messaged me saying she had a birthday gift to give me from essentially last year and I feel happy that she acknowledged me for once after basically ghosting me on social media but I also feel sad about her intentions or what this means. Will it be the last time I see her before I move out of here? Will she even want me in her life? I feel weird tension and my heart feels very uneasy. How much is it that I’m making up these intrusive thoughts and how much is the vibe real. 

I tried really hard to land a trick I used to have down without assistance from my teacher, and I ended up rolling my ankle and injuring myself. I hope it won’t be too bad because I have a snowboarding trip this Saturday with a friend. 

My skate teacher told me in general I’m not good at falling. I’m already dealing with so much fear after injuring myself and just overall not being good at sports or skating in general. I mean I’m glad he told me straight up that I suck at falling because it is a good skill to have if I want to skate for a long time, but it still sucks to hear. But I think I needed that to humble me a bit. I just feel like I lost confidence especially cause I’m highly motivated but now I’m injured. Idk. I suck at skating.

But I also need to move past and grow up. And to stop worrying about something I cannot change. 

I keep telling myself this over and over, chanting to myself until I have calmed down. 

They are allowed to hang out with them. 

They are allowed to hang out with them. 

They are allowed to hang out with them. 

Anyways, we had a lot planned for class. So we decided to do an hour class instead of 45 minutes. I decided to let the teacher lead one part of the activity, but it took double the time it should have. The way she facilitated it was really inefficient and we barely had time to finish. 

When class ended, she told me there wasn’t enough time for the lesson as though it was my fault.  And in my head I was like no this could have easily been done in 45 minutes. You just explained the activity and ran it the wrong way from when we had a meeting about it. 

I taught the same lesson for a different 4th grade class, and we only had 45 minutes and this time I basically taught the class by myself. And boom, we managed to finish all of the activity with leeway room.  The homeroom teacher for that class was actually impressed by my time management skills. I think I am very intense and bossy when it comes as a teacher but that's the only way to keep the kids going and to move quickly when they need to be. 

Standing while teaching vs. sitting while teaching really is a different experience. And sitting and being a “student” for an activity is really refreshing. I also really enjoyed coloring after a long time. 

I tried comforting him with the other teacher and helped him out. I wonder what’s going on recently. I heard that he hasn’t been able to come into class and has been studying separately so I think that’s also had an impact on how he feels being in class with everyone for English. 

I think he has some kind of anxiety. And I really felt him, because I was exactly like him as a kid, and I still am like that as an adult. I kind of wish mental health was talked about more open. It would be nice to be like “hey I feel you. I have anxiety too. I also cry when I feel like I am incapable and am dealing with intrusive thoughts” and instead all I can do is affirm him. I wish I did more for him. I made sure to tell him that he always does an amazing job on his speeches and to never forget that or lose confidence. 

I showed up to their classroom 15 minutes early and many of them were rehearsing their speeches. I told them if they didn’t know how to say something to come check with me. 

Three students were desperate to practice with me! They wanted to show me how perfect they had practiced and I was in awe too! It was also sweet to see that they wanted to practice with me specifically. 

One kid Tsukasa is a very shy boy. I don’t know if he has a stuttering issue or anxiety or both, but he has a hard time communicating verbally when he is nervous. He came up to me and he never does, at least not from his end. It’s usually me checking in on him. And this time he was one of the first kids in line when I showed up. I asked him if he wanted to confirm some English word with him, trying to ask yes or no questions to figure out what he wanted to do, and eventually I got the answer that he wanted to practice with me. Honestly, I was in so much awe. He was stumbling over his words but he said everything perfectly and I was sooo proud of him. I was baffled actually. I even told the other teachers and homeroom teachers how I was amazed that he had the courage and bravery to come talk to me. I actually bumped up his speaking grade because I was just so taken back. I love the feeling of being proud of someone. 

I can only think about failing my dance test. 

If I don’t pass, I don’t get to perform in the event. There’s only about less than a month left...

Me and one of the girls spent like 5 minutes talking about the rainbow. She was so mesmerized and curious. 

In one of my 6th grade classes, I have a very difficult student I work with. I don’t know what his condition is, but he is very picky and particular about things, has a hard time with eye contact and always makes excuses for his behavior/actions even if he’s wrong. I know his classmates have a hard time engaging with me and I know he also tries to avoid me at all costs, so I’ve always thought he has just disliked me so I have kept my distance. 

There were an odd amount of students in class, so the homeroom teacher made me pair up with him for a conversation. He was facing the other direction the whole time, and refused to have a conversation with me or even finish and he was holding the whole class behind. I’m used to him being this way but this time Internally, I felt frustrated, that he refused to even attempt, or give me eye contact and I left that class feeling a little defeated and frustrated that he wanted nothing to do with me. He was very capable of having a conversation, and said everything very smoothly though.

On my way home, I was walking to my car, and his special needs homeroom teacher came up to me saying “Maya-sensei! I’m so sorry about what happened in class” and I said “It’s okay, I’m used to it. He did his best and he did well.” and she said he came back into the special needs class being concerned and worried about his English not being good enough for me to understand. He simply lacked confidence. 

My first year teaching, I was very sensitive and took everything personally. If a kid acted up, or if a class was rowdy and uncontrollable, I always blamed it on myself for class not going well. 

Yesterday, I taught the infamous 4th graders at my school who have been known to be the class filled with about 5 troublesome kids. I think most of them have ADD/ADHD of some sort but are undiagnosed. 

We were doing a listening comprehension test where they had to mark if I was saying the singular or plural form of a word. Of course, the rowdy boys were being talkative during the test, blurting out the answers, and talking over me. They are always like that but I kept going on. 

By the next activity, I noticed one of the boys was visibly upset. He had his head down and he was crying. My team teacher went up and asked what happened, and he said he heard pineapple instead of pineapples and said I was lying. Which isn’t true, because everyone else in the class got the answer right and if I had messed up, someone would have said something. I figured he probably heard it that way because his other classmates were being disruptive during the test.

When I collected the test, the kid wrote “Maya-sensei you are the biggest liar ever.” I saw the comment and I wasn’t even upset. Instead I tried to think about why he might have took out his anger on me. 

Anyways I felt a moment of growth because I know for a fact if I saw a comment like that directed towards me my first year, I would have been in the staff room crying. But not this time. I wasn’t even bothered by it. 

I’ve been working on not taking external factors personally. A lot of times when people take out their anger on you, it’s because of something they are dealing with personally or some other factor and less to do with you.

But today was one of those days where I had a really special moment and felt like I made a small impact. 

I have a student who stopped coming to school part way through the year. I don’t know what is going on at home but she has some kind of severe social anxiety. She cannot be around anyone, and stopped communicating in even Japanese. She completely freezes up around other people. 

Recently she started coming back to school, but isn’t able to be in the classroom with other kids so she is placed in a small empty meeting room. 

After lunch ended, the vice principal asked me if I wanted a yogurt drink and I said sure? Why? And he said Seira didn’t want the yogurt drink so to give it to me. So I asked if I could talk to her personally and say thank you. I walked over to the small room and told her thanks for the drink and asked her for a high five and she gave me one with a big smile. 

She’s part of the International club that I run but also stopped coming in. The vice principal really wanted her to participate and I wanted to do something for her. Club started and she was no where to be found. The vice principal said she probably won’t come unless she is invited. Eventually she had her chair by the door outside of the classroom but refused to come in. 

I gently asked her if she wanted to play a card game with me. Surprisingly she said yes. And behold! She was even talking!! Which is miraculous. And she was smiling the whole time. I haven’t seen her smile like that in a long time. We were playing go fish. A game kids here are unfamiliar with. She enjoyed it so much that we played two rounds. 

After school ended, the vice principal came up to me to thank me for doing that for her. He said it was huge to see her be in the classroom, interact with me/participate in an activity -- Something she was unable to do for a long time.

I feel so happy for her. Seriously her smile made my day and I hope I could ease some of that anxiety. I really feel for her because I am similar to her in so many ways. 

I miss coming home from a day feeling good. 

I performed on stage and made me debut just last week and I feel like something in me changed. I feel so motivated to immerse myself into dance.