Less words. Just a bunch of smiling faces for this entry.

No Need To Say Goodbye from Nicole Cleary on Vimeo.

And I have no idea why Vimeo chose to focus on that particular image, but thanks to Suk for giving me inspiration with endless gurning material. Vimeo quality better than youtube? I’m undecided…

It’s my last chance for all that playing school as a child to actually have some relevance in my life. My last chance to grade papers, to be kind and generous when that A should be a C or when a verb is left out. It’s my last chance to pick out cute stickers and to practice my ever-fading math skills as I add up the points and subtract the mistakes.

My foreign affairs students have outdone themselves. Despite their prior insistence to tell me that Ireland was Iceland and that New Zealand was located in the middle of Africa and Cambodia in Canada, they managed to correctly label almost everything in the map section of the exam. There are Ireland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Greece, England, Scotland and several others all correctly labeled and glistening proudly back at me, little mini citizens of each country dancing on the paper waving flags in glee. Despite my giving them a nice wide birth and allowing them to select 7 out of 10, they have managed to fill them all in. Whether it is out of boastfulness or simply not reading the instructions, I don’t even care. The factoids I tossed at them about various points of culture or geography they toss back at me. No longer do they believe Romulus and Remus were suckled by a hippopotamus or a cow （”かばか牛かなあ？” in class one day). Ireland is no longer famous for being blue. No, indeed. Romulus and Remus’ names are spelled correctly, the Emerald Isle is correctly identified and cities in Cambodia properly discussed. I am so very proud of them. And if nothing else, happy that at least a few kids in the school now no longer hold Iceland and Ireland to be the same country.

In my oral class, I get to help proctor the exam. The students all look remarkably calm. But by the end, several have fallen faces and declare an “ughhhh. impossible” as they pass up their papers. Upon grading them though, I see that that’s really not the case. Several of them write near perfect journal entries and their scores are generally not bad.

In one section the teacher has alloted them an easy five points. Five points to give us a comment or two (in Japanese [easy!!!] or English) about the class. Several of the more serious test takers, realizing time is limited, skip this part entirely to focus more on the 25 point essay. Several students, however, write incredibly sweet comments that make glitter run through my veins as well as regret not seeing them graduate. Or perhaps they’re just fishing for easy points:

(My interpretation of the comments maaaay be a wee bit off, but generally, I think I’m more or less accurate.)

オーラル授業は英語ばっかなのでとても難しいです。
Oral class is incredibly hard because you guys only use English.
頑張ってついていこうとは思っています。英語力を早く身に付けたいです。
I think I really will give it my all and I want to quickly increase my ability in English.
Nikki I love you <3 Nikki is very cute
All the best

ニッキーは笑顔がとてもかわいくて、私まで笑顔になれましたとても優しくて毎回の授業がとても楽しかったです。日記もコメントもすごくうれしかったです。ありがとうございます。
This comment’s grammar and lack of punctuation kind of confused me and my regrettable paltry Japanese, but basically (I think) translates to something along the lines of: Nikki’s smiling face makes every class more enjoyable and I’m really happy when I get comments on my diary. Thanks!

One girl very honestly writes,　ニッキーと先生のおかげで前よりも英文が作れるようになりました。オーラルの日記。。。
“Thanks to Nikki and Sensei I have written more in English than ever before. About the diaries...” Wait. Upon looking at it again, I think it says, “I have come to be able to write more in English than before…” which maybe is less bitter.

The comments continue to be really quite heartwarming:

何よりニッキーと英語で話す事がとても楽しくて。。。
“More than anything, speaking in english with Nikki was a lot of fun…”
ニッキーheart 短い間だったけどニッキーと一緒に勉強できてたのしかったです。：）
“Even though it was just for a short time, being able to study with Nikki was fun.”
I love Nikky * Nikky’s smile is very cute. music note. sparkle mark. laugh kanji. sparkle mark.

One even writes me an entire message in English, which is fantastic and My Ego thanks you deeply:

Dear, Nikki.
I was very interesting since years ago.
Nikki is very pretter.
Thank you. See you again *tear* *sob*

The second line is my favorite part. I, too, was very interesting since years ago.

I’ll miss this class a lot. And will be asking them to write my recommendations for subsequent positions.

The class stands to give the opening greeting. A boy in the fourth row is looking at me pointedly and he leans back to his friend, “Damn, she really DOES look like Becki doesn’t she?”

“I can heearrrrrr you,” I mouth. And he gives me a big, rare, slightly abashed smile. “Heh, she can hear me,” he says to the same friend in Japanese.

“Onegaishimassssss.”

And so the class begins.

The girl in the front row spends a good portion of the class ignoring the handouts that are given to her and instead meticulously and stealthily plucking hair from her arms with a pair of tiny silver tweezers.

The activity of the day involves the students jan-kenning, the winner permitted to ask the loser a series of questions in English. I wander over to the boys’ side of the room and engage in a riveting janken battle.

“HI BECKI!” one boy says as I begin playing rock, paper, scissor with his deskmate. “NO, NO. BECKI. ME. ME.” After I have lost to the first boy and answered his questions, I move over to The Boy Who Has Yet To Retain My Name and manage to lose yet again. There’s something in the subtle art of rock, paper, scissors that I have yet to grasp.

“Right. Let’s see. Name? …BECKI.” He proceeds to fill in ベッキ in on his sheet despite my protestations. “BECKI!” He grins at me.

“No. Not Becki!” Sigh.

The boy leans over to his friend. “Oh all right. Hey, what’s Becki’s actual name?”

His friend considers for a moment and then answers, “Rebecca.”

“Riiiight. Rebecca. Okay. You’re Rebecca.”

In the back of the room one of the rowdier students seems to be getting into an argument with the student seated diagonally in back of him. The boy in back cannot seem to stop himself from howling with laughter. Unable to endure the mockery any longer, the boy in the front leaps back and grabs the kid’s shirt by the collar, pulling him towards him, until they are face to face. The kid seems unmoved and continues to giggle uncontrollably. The teacher moves towards the back and the boy returns to his seat, looking mildly put out by the laughter, assumedly at his expense, but still simultaneously (and strangely) smiling.

As the class finishes, the Japanese teacher and I walk around the room closing windows and shutting lights. The boys are all gathered towards the back of the room around a large, gray, metal locker situated between two shelves which has been pushed up against an unused door. For some reason they are all laughing and laughing HARD at the locker, which to the untrained eye does not seem all that amusing.

I continue closing the windows giving them suspicious looks mingled with confusion.

As I gather up my things to leave, I see one of the students resignedly pull the cabinet out from between the shelves and swivel it around so that the door can swing open. And like magic, out steps the student who appeared to be on nitrous oxide not ten minutes ago. He is not laughing quite so hard anymore.

I suddenly feel like the completely clueless, out-of-touch teacher. How they managed to get that kid into the locker in the course of two minutes I am still not sure. Now-Sober-Nitrous-Oxide-Boy and his Arguing Companion are the last to leave the class. The Arguing Companion seems smug. As they leave I get a brief flash back to an episode of Saved By The Bell with the reoccurring clip of Screech emerging from a shiny red locker at Bayside.

“Everyone, today is Nikki-san’s last day here at our school.”

A groan and a started “EH? WHAT?!” runs through the class.

For some reason the boys light up and give me the best possible last lesson I can ask for. No one sleeps. No one ignores me. No one gives me lip. No one makes obscene comments. Their bright brown eyes meet mine, they glow back at me and answer every single question.

I wonder briefly at the power of the temptation of candy. But dismiss it.

Every activity I throw at them they obediently listen and attempt to understand without asking me about my underwear. I’m slightly flabbergasted.

I put up a series of sentences jumbled around the room. Their goal is to simply gather all the sentences, figure out the right order and subsequently translate into Japanese.

When I ask them if they understand they shoot back a hearty “YES!” instead of just shrugging and burying their heads into their folded arms on their desks.

The boys fly around the room gathering sentences, calling me over to help with questions and grinning back at me happily.

After a few tries every single group manages to get the story correct:

There was a girl from New York.

She will miss Niihama.

“This is a good story. But a very sad story,” says my teacher looking at me wistfully. I nod in agreement.

The boys send me off with a mumbled, shy “I love you, Nikki” and a louder, more robust, uniform, commanding, respectful, “arigatougozaimassss” accompanied by a deep bow.

It’s pretty much set in stone. Henceforth, whenever a school boy breezes past me on a bike in a blue shirt messily tucked into dark plaid slacks falling halfway-down their ass, hair messily spiked up with a slight twinge of orange (but not enough to get in trouble for), with gleaming brown eyes and a general distaste for English, I will get a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat.

As I leave the class the boys lean out the corridor windows causing their blue button down shirts to become completely untucked: “SEE YOUU BECKI!!!” they grin.

The game is jeopardy. The language is English. The competition fierce.

At the all boys school being the lone girl in the room is something of a formidable task. Hearing a voice that is not of the male register and simultaneously speaking a bizarre foreign tongue riddled with tiresome Ls and Vs, the boys tend to do what any self-respecting teenage boy would do: they mimic it and laugh at the bizarre, girlish sounds being emitted from their very own masculine mouths. More often than not I morph into Narcissus and Echo follows me obediently around the class, parroting my speech, and often over emphasizing the fact that, yes indeed, I am a girl. And just like Narcissus, I ignore Echo and her childish pranks, and continue on my merry self-absorbed way.

This class is no different. After I finish reading each question: “Please translate into English….” “What is the capital of Australia?” “Who plays Harry Potter?” I hear a voice floating around the back of the room. It’s not unlike Mickey Mouse after sucking hungrily on a helium balloon whilst attempting to vindictively torture all the dogs in the nearby vicinity. This boy seems to be giving the class his all. He keeps up the irksome facade after every question, trying my patience and concurrently impressing me with his dedication. Surely in a country where the women spend a good portion of their professional lives speaking two octaves too high in a bold attempt at cuteness, femininity and politeness and their personal lives speaking in an equally high-pitched, charming tone in an attempt to attract a mate, a normal female voice in English should not be all that shocking. However, much to my chagrin the boy keeps it up.

We move on.

The students come out to the corridor one by one to gather sentences in English from me, which they report back to their group. One boy struts out, approaches me confidently and puts his arm up along the wall above my head. He looks down at me expectantly and grins.

Eventually, Echo wanders out and listens carefully as I give him the phrase. He recites it back to me at a tone even higher than my own.

Enough is enough. Without realizing it, my voice jumps several octaves informing him quite plainly that I see his game and that I’m not amused. He seems unfazed and responds back with the exact same falsetto brassy tones and innocent brown eyes.

Fine. That’s how it’s going to be.

The teacher sidles up to me. “So the class is going well, right?”
“Yeah. It’s fine. The students seem to be doing okay. Except, some kids really like mimicking, don’t they?”
“Mimicking?”
“Yeah, copying my speech. It’s alright. I just wondered…”

It’s then that the teacher drops a bomb that makes my brain want to shrivel up, my heart to crack and for me to stick every available limb into my mouth:

“Oh, him. His voice, how do you say… it hasn’t dropped yet.”

After I manage to dislodge my left, right and center feet from my mouth, I manage to continue on with the lesson.

See also Excuse Me Sir… Ma’am, Do You Have A Penis? for more completely inappropriate teaching gaffes.

I have dubbed this girl My Own Personal Hugger. She takes every opportunity to squeeze me till my eyes bulge out, perhaps fearing that I am withering away from loneliness or maybe she just likes my perfume.

Our interactions are mostly limited to her clutching me for ten-minute intervals and me standing there, arms pinned at my sides, wondering what happened to that whole stereotype of “Japan” and “personal space.” Why is it that when I attempt a handshake with kids their hands turn flaccid and flop about like cold, dead fish, but hugs – hugs are a completely different matter and physical contact is no longer a problem.

However her iron vice grip is a bit less powerful today, in fact, she looks rather sad. I ask her what’s wrong and she pauses thoughtfully, wanting to attempt to use a bit of English. It takes her a while, but she eventually pulls out one word that manages to convey her sentiment. No subject, no verb, just the one simple word: “Blue.”

Concerned, I ask her why she feels blue – is it her friends? Her family? School? She shakes her head vehemently at all these options and pounds her hand against her chest: “Me, me.”

Despite the fact it is barely eight o’clock AM, my brain slowly begins to whirl and the microscopic, disgustingly cute, pink and white, dainty Hello Kitty that controls the paltry file of Japanese words in my brain begins to scuffle around in her Anpanman slippers attempting to sort out something appropriate for the situation: “Chewy!” “Cold, isn’t it?” “Conveyer-belt sushi!” “Cool!” “Creepy,” “Cute!” “Excuse me,” “Eyelash!” “Good for you!” “Good morning,” “Good night!” “Hippopotamus!” “Hot, isn’t it?” “How embarrassing!” “I don’t understand,” “I like Pocky,” “I’m lonely,” “I’m looking forward to it!” “Long time no see!” “Mmm, wine,” “Mosquito!” “Ogre!” “Oh, is that so?” “OOO, delicious!” “Please be kind to me,” “Please excuse my inordinate amount of rudeness,” “Perfect!” “Pretty boys!” “QUIET!” “Sassy!” “Scatterbrain!” “Shit!” “SIT DOWN” “Stand!” “Stop plucking your eyebrows during class, Tetsuya!” “Too bad!” “UNBELIEVABLE!” “Wonderful!” “Yawn.” “You understand?” “Zebra!”

Hello Kitty reaches the end of the file, blinks quizzically, looks back over at me with oversized eyes, shrugs and then bows deeply, her pink bow brushing against the floor.

I got nothing.

To make matters worse My Own Personal Hugger then looks at me and her eyes begin welling up. Pools and pools of tears collect in her eyes until they can hold no more and they spill over running down her cheeks.

I have made yet another person cry.

Crap.

She decides she can’t explain herself in English and doesn’t bother attempting it in Japanese. Instead she lurches towards me for another hug. Teachers pass us in the hallway and give us curious looks, wondering what the devil the ALT did to make one of their students turn into a blubbering blob. “Bu-ru, Bu-ru!” she yelps as a way of explanation to a passing social studies teacher who nods in understanding.

Feeling terrible for making her cry with my impertinent questions I give her a few more hugs and tell her to feel better. She gulps, says thank you and goes on her damp way.

Lunchtime rolls around and My Own Personal Hugger is back. She pounds on the staffroom door announcing, in usual regimented fashion, her name, class and purpose for visit: “IS NIKKI HERE? I HAVE COME TO HUG HER UNTIL HER HEAD POPS OFF. ”

I go out to see what’s wrong. “I’m okay now!” she exclaims and then latches onto me once again like a baby koala.

*

Enter the first year’s grammar class. It is sixth period and the kids are ready to go home. The baseball team boys flop over their desks desperately longing for a nap and the girls twitter amongst themselves completely ignoring the pivotal difference between “do” and “does.” The teacher perseveres, determined to get through the lesson.

“Okay, Class, I know it is very hot. It’s very hot and very humid, isn’t it? It is. I know it’s tough for you. It’s tough for me too. But we’re here to give it our best, right? So we’ll all try our hardest, right? Okay! Let’s go!” His tone is sweet, comforting, caramelized and something you’d imagine to emanate from a giant, fuzzy, sweet teddy bear who might pop you on his lap and feed you chocolate cake. It is impossible to get mad at him.

The kids sigh and open their yellow “Enjoy!” grammar books. As the lesson continues, the kids start dropping off like flies. The boys’ heads nod first onto their chests and then eventually make their way flat onto the desks. The girls around them whisper violently and several of the girls can’t seem to stop laughing. It’s such the complete picture of a high school classroom.

Despite the extreme rudeness of a) the boys falling asleep mid lesson and b) the girls consistently giggling during class, the teacher doesn’t falter. He doesn’t scold or yell, instead he kneels next to the sleeping student and wakes him up with the gentleness of a proper English butler. “Ryosuke, hello, Ryosuke. Is everything okay, Ryosuke? Everything all right? I was worried about you, Ryosuke. Everything okay? Tired, are you, Ryosuke? I know, but let’s try to continue, okay?” and he gives him a kindly pat. He does the same sweeter than pixie stick routine with three sleeping boys, each time maintaining his extreme sense of calm. His unflappability is almost disconcerting. But the students can’t possibly hold a grudge against someone who is behaving like a great, big, tender teddy bear, the tone of his voice sweeter than honey.
*

I have just left school and am making my way home when I hear a bike behind me. The breaks squeak gently, pressure put on the tires as the rider slows down going downhill. A second year boy sidles up next to me. I have dubbed him, “I-Don’t-Know-How-To-Love-Ask-Me-Why-Boy,” as he once graced me with that perfect sentence, no doubt lifted directly from a song.

“Want a ride?” he asks me in Japanese. He grins and pats the back of his bike, motioning for me to hop on.

“Seriously?”

I am momentarily tempted. Maybe he could pick me up every morning too and save me that painstaking fifteen-minute walk. But perhaps it might not be the best idea to accept slave labor rides from my students. We chat briefly about school and where we live, and deciding that I am not going to take him up on his generous offer, cheeky “I-Don’t-Know-How-To-Love-Ask-Me-Why-Boy” smiles, releases his breaks and sets off down the hill unburdened by the lazy foreigner.

Our first gem of the day is written by one of my favorite students. He really tries to write interesting tidbits in his diary instead of filling it up with mundane information about the weather and how he does nothing on the weekend besides sleep. A short excerpt from his journal today which touched upon the topic of foreign travel:

I have several questions about this one.

Our second gem of the day is written by another one of my favorites, a girl whose birthday just recently passed. She writes of her cousins and how they took her shopping to shower her with belated birthday gifts:

I went shooping with my cousins. My cousins are twenty two years old and ninety years old.

Whoa.

And another Sedaris travel story to keep you entertained in the meanwhile.

In any case, this (yes, it wasn’t imported - I’m well aware - the packaging kind of gives it away) was one of my delightful purchases. A fantastic bottle cap, worth every penny, that just happens to come with a bit of sparkling sake as well. It’ll go nicely with the imported graham crackers and pasta that I paid through the nose for.

Let’s all かわいいいいいいいいいい together now.

But in the mountains on one’s lunch break there’s not so much to do,
You can stare blankly up at the mountains or count a cloud or two.
You can walk along the narrow streets which in New York we’d call the gutters,
You can admire the Japanese houses with their teeny windows nice and tightly shuttered.
You can flatten yourself against the walls as the white cars go zooming by,
You can say hello to the man who wears a kappa everyday, whom you’ve dubbed the “kappa guy.”
You can listen to the mental rooster who crows despite the fact it’s almost noon,
You can hear him cry, “THERE’S NOTHING TO DO!” or on his more eloquent days the word “JEJUNE!”
You can go for a walk in the cemetery since there’s not much else worth seeing,
You can watch the man and his dog out for a walk, both simultaneously peeing.
You can then turn and look away quickly, pretending not to notice,
And instead appear deeply intrigued in that beautiful sculpture of a lotus.

You can watch the mountains disappear when the skies begin to cry,
And think mournfully about your laundry that you stupidly left outside to dry.
You can turn back to the urinating man and wonder why he couldn’t wait,
There was a Lawson just down the road outside the cemetery gate.
You can listen to the stressed out teacher who sighs deeply in distress,
You can hear as his head smacks the desk rendering it a mess.
You can go outside to weed with the children, thank goodness you learned a bit of Japanese,
As full sentences said in English tends to make them freeze.
You can go for a run outside as it seems sunny and fairly warm,
Only to be a mile away from your home when it begins to storm.
You can run back on home in the torrential rain as your shirt becomes wet and soggy,
Watching the drizzle fill the rice paddies and the trails in the water left by a big, fat froggy.
You can be grateful for the rain, at least it dissuades the bugs from flying,
Into your face, most often your mouth, which whilst running can be a bit trying.

You can go to the supermarket which in Japan we call a suupa,
Full of oddly sized fruit, octopus, pre-made sushi all advertised by a koopa troopa.
If you’re still lacking in things to do, you can check out the nearby combinis,
Stand there and read manga or magazines full of girls dressed in nothing but bikinis.
If that doesn’t quite do the trick, you could always hop on a train,
To go somewhere else an hour or so away that looks exactly the very same.

But when all of this is said and done, it doesn’t matter about your daily plan.
When push comes to shove, it still remains true that you love living in Japan.