Japanese Students?
Oh Yeah They Are So Quiet And Well-behaved!!!
Last night was not a night for sleeping. Something, possibly the Macha Cream Frappaccino followed by Palak Paneer curry had left a latent feeling of sickness in the pits of my stomach. Such pits as the Nubian pits that spawned the Black Death and other such plagues through history. Waking up did not improve things as hovered between sick and zombiefied until the end of my first class.
The first year students were fine as they got their terrible test scores back. Some how bad boy Tomoki AKA Little Johnny did not get the lowest. His spectacular 15% was trumped by a 13 somewhere else. The first years doing their Christmas Wordsearches was just the warm up, the lulling of me into a false sense of security for the three second year classes to come...
Second year classes had never been fun. While the first years amuse themselves by trying to stroke my bugeoning beard, slapping my arse or ramming their fingers up my anus the Second years are past those monkeyisms. After showing off their Sports Test scores of 4% and 5% they got down to the business of talking, and talking, and talking about anything except English. The teacher and I tried in vain to keep them quiet. In the end I just gave the hand outs to the good kids who got stuck into the challenge... finding good Comparative words to fit my sentences. Apparently Godzilla is smaller than Doraemon.
That was the good class. The infamous 3-kumi (class 3) warmed up with the usual noisiness and walking in and out of the class. But with the influence of the chief Bad Girl they decided a much better idea would be to gather at the back of the class and try out the girl's make-up on each other, LOUDLY. Eyelashes were curled, blusher was put on badly and the lipstick... all I can say is Dondake!!!!! Another pair of girls made Origami cubes out of paper and played tennis with them.
That was the merely bad class. As I approached the class boys came in wielding sticks. I confiscated one and then entered the room. The first thing I saw was my teacher throwing a 3-foot branch plump with foliage out of the window. The room smelt of burning. It hung in the air. There was a burnt stain next to a pile of leaves to the left. Leaves were dotted around. At the back a pencilcase dripped with water. All of the place there were crushed Ginan (A seasonal and stinky bean in Japan) and paper balls. As I was to find out during the noisy and troublesome class not all of the Ginan had been crushed. A number of boys preceded to pelt a poor (if mouthy) girl with the Ginan and hitting anyone else in the vicinity. Of course the Ginan flew my way once I stepped in to help her... It is safe to say they learnt not to throw Ginan at a Foreigner like me...
Once over it was time to meet my friends from America, Jamaica and Japan for a Chanko Nabe (Sumo Stew) dinner followed by Ice Cream. Everyone was looking good and in high spirits. We had a wonderful time followed by some Baskin Robbins Ice cream.
Then came time to pick Natsumi up from the Train Station in Kumeda. Running late like an idiot I cycled up a road I hoped to be a short-cut (And it was) but I never reached the Station. Just before the train crossing a pair of figures in heavy coats stepped out of the gloom. Unfortunately they were not Yakuza. Instead it was the plod, doughnut munching gits out for easy Police points by stopping suspect cyclists and nothing is more suspect than a beared foreigner. They checked the Bike's registration, my occupation, phone number (date?) and if I was an illegal immigrant or not.