(no longer) LOST IN JAPAN

First Day of School

School has finally begun and this year, I've got plenty of stuff to keep me busy. I'm starting at Oji Kougyo next Monday, where I'll be teaching the 3rd years. I now have 5 classes at Oji and 8 classes at Kashiba... bringing my total number of classes to... ummmmmm... 13, right? Math isn't my strong point.

Yesterday was the first day of school at Kashiba. I'm sitting at my desk, minding my own business, and all of a sudden, I raise my head and there is NO ONE in the teachers room. This isn't unusual, in fact it happens all the time but I've been here for a year and I'm sick of people just not telling me what's going on just because I don't speak Japanese... So I get up and walk to the gym thinking that opening ceremonies had started without me... again. But there is no one there. I check the classrooms on the way back but they are also empty except for a few students sitting on the desks... Where is everyone?! I hear voices so they must be around somewhere, right? So I go to the student entrence thinking that maybe the teachers are out welcoming the students... BINGO! Well except that they weren't doing any welcoming. It was uniform inspection. All the students were lined up outside, in the sweltering heat, waiting to be poked and prodded.

Here's how it worked. Each student would walk up in turn and the teachers would look them up and down. Since students at my school (and at most schools for that matter) aren't allowed having dyed hair, wearing make-up or painting their nails... this is what the teachers are looking for. However, during the summer, many of the students do just that. So if the teachers find that the student is not "properly attired" (i.e. the black hair spray is not properly applied), then the students are sent home to do it again. It was quite a spectacle actually. It looked like the teachers were checking for lice or something. I was thoroughly amused watching the students squeal and squirm and complain under the prying eyes of the P.E. teacher, until one of the girls who I knew had naturally lighter hair came up to the plate. The teachers looked at her hair and hemmed and hawed... I honestly thought that they were going to send her home. Instead, they cross-checked her name with a second list of students. I'm guessing that this was a list of students who were "different" to begin with because she was let through without being sent home. I'm glad that's what happened because had it gone any other way, I probably would have flipped out. And people laugh at me when I said I went to a private, all-girls Catholic school... The nuns were strict but nowhere near as strict as what I've seen in Japan.

I let myself slide this summer and have gained weight again (too many McDonalds' cheeseburgers). So I have to get back in gear and back onto my Okinawa diet. Hopefully it's not too late for me to get my stomach under control again... Besides... after I get my a** severely whooped at the black belt tournament on Sunday, I'll have serious motivation. Back to the gym and back to the Judo club. Ganbarimasu!

posted by Samantha @ 7:19 PM