03.13.03

Well, another school year is wrapping up at Higashi Chu. The graduation ceremony is tomorrow already. Yesterday was the last Adopt Program Trash expedition. I think these kids need to graduate more often, because they were getting more trash yesterday then on all the other times I've seen them do it put together.

I was walking along an irrigation canal with a couple of students when they spied some garbage in the water. They janken-ed for it to see who would go down to get it (how else would they decide?) and this guy lost...er, I mean won!! Hooray.

Anyway, he seemed to have such a good time venturing down into the water in his brand new sneakers, that the next garbage we came to, I didn't even wait for the janken, I just grabbed a pair of tongs and jumped down to get it. I was probably risking life and limb by foregoing the janken ritual, but that discarded bento box was all mine!! And believe you me, I picked up the hell out of that garbage, baby!! It never stood a chance. I almost feel bad for it... sorry-ass garbage.

Today, as per the usual dilly, we had the O-souji (big cleaning) that seems to come around every year at this time. I went up to the 3rd floor to spend one last souji session with the soon-to-be graduates and helped clean here and there between taking pictures and signing yearbooks.

Working hard or hardly working? "Who cares, we graduate tomorrow."

Why scrub the floor by hand with a grungy old rag, when you can use your best friend's face instead?

Oh, my God!! They remembered West-Side!! First English-janken, now this! Score 2 for the JET Programme!!

Yep, they got yearbooks here, more or less like at home, except they seem to do it as more of digest version. The memorial albums, as their called, contain class pictures with names, photos and brief writings on activities throughout the year, sports club group photos and the like, but all if it pertains and is only for the graduating class. The 1st and 2nd year students get a whopping, grand total of just two things: jack and shit.
 

Gawd, what a motto! Lemme just finish reminiscing my Jr. High years by washing down this bottle of whiskey with a bullet. :(

The ubiquitous signing ritual in action.

A couple of students' farewell-message-filled Memorial Albums. If you look closely, one is signed by yours truly. ^_^

Not too long ago I brought in my Junior year, High School yearbook and showed one of my teachers and he was floored at how big of a production it was. And the fact that it came out every year and it was for everyone, not just the graduating class, was incomprehensible to him. He had never even heard of such a thing. Not sure why I mentioned it, just thought it was an interesting difference and not uncommon in Japan; there's often things that look familiar but are still different at the same time.

After the cleaning, the students retired to their rooms for what seemed to be loose-end-tying sessions with teachers. Last minute notifications were made, compilations of students' writings were handed out, and even more yearbooks were signed.
 

Tying up the loose ends from the past three years.

"Dear Yumi,
That creepy English teacher is taking another picture of us. Call the police.

Your friend,
Stacey I mean Akiko"

These girls had a slew of photos were dividing them up using, what else, janken!!

Then came time for the graduation ceremony rehearsal. Now, I can appreciate the need to rehearse this kind of thing, but this was unnecessarily epic. There are numerous times throughout the ceremony when the students must stand up from their chairs, bow, then sit down again. It happens enough that it was considered important enough to practice over and over.
 

Miho and Yuta of the Special or "Harmony" Class. Easily two of my favorite, and soon to be most missed, students.

Kazuhiro is so ready for this shite to be over and have a diploma in his hand.

These guys wanted a picture with me so badly that they started chasing me down the damn hallway. Looks like a reject Beatles album cover doesn't it?

"Stand! Bow! Sit!" The teachers conducted it three times. Then Kumate-sensei filled in as the Principal and walked up to the stage and they did the "Stand! Bow! Sit!" routine again, but with someone standing on the stage, acting as the Principal. All kinds of variations were done, apparently to simulate the different stages of the ceremony tomorrow. Doing it with someone taking the stage, doing it with someone leaving the stage, doing it before a song. Then they brought in the 2nd year students and had them sit in their chairs behind the 3rd years and they did it a couple more ways. By the end, they did it no less than (and I was indeed keeping count) twenty-five times. Twenty-five!!! Okay, look, these kids are Japanese, have lived in Japan for at least 15 years now and are about to graduate Jr. High... if they haven't learned how to bow yet, they ain't going to fuckin' get it now!!!
 

"You're going to practice sitting here and being bored out of your minds until you get it right, dammit!!"

"Your shoe's untied. HA! Made all of you look!!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Ikeda. I thought these hotpants were compliant with school guidelines."

(Boy, I really like doing the quote-captions, don't I?)

Finally, there was one final uniform check to make sure skirts weren't too short and shirts had all their buttons and the day was over, save some more yearbook signing, of course. Everyone is starting to get emotional already. It was really cute when Ishii-sensei was announcing to everyone at the end of the chorus practice that it may be difficult to sing such an emotional song tomorrow in front of everyone's friends and family, but to try really hard not to cry, but she couldn't finish the announcement because she started crying! It was so cute!! Dammit, she's sweet! ^_^

So that's that and we're all ready for the big day tomorrow. I just hope it doesn't rain like it did last year, that was weak.

03.10.03

You know, it’s odd living here sometimes. Actually I guess it doesn’t really matter that it’s here, it’s just living somewhere other then where I was born and lived for 24 years of my life. I mean, you get here and live here every day and you get used to things being... well, different. Everything is different, all the time, all day every day for almost two years now. So it’s kind of odd when I get the rare chance to see something familiar. Except it’s been so long since I've seen it that it’s not familiar any more, so I get to discover it all over again. I experienced a bit of this when I went home around this time last year, and I experienced it again last week when I went to Costco, sweet Costco.

For those of you who haven’t been fortunate enough for providence to smile upon you and bless you with the knowledge and experience of this fine company, Costco is a chain of supermarkets the size of a large warehouse that sells things only in bulk. It’s glorious. It’s even more glorious when you happen upon it while in Japan and you’re dying for it’s bounty of divine, not-available-in-Japan, American foodstuffs.

So I thought I’d today share with you, not the odd stuff from Japan, but the familiar stuff from home that I missed without even realizing it, and that made me hop around the isles of Costco giggling with delight like a little girl. Wouldn’t my parents be proud of that.
 

Graham Crackers - They say that bananas are the “perfect food” but I don’t know, these babies are a close second in my book. They just never get old!!
 

Water-packed Tuna - Sure, you can get tuna (or “sea-chicken”, as the locals call it) here no problem, but what you can’t find is tuna packed in water. Better tasting and better for you. Mmmmm.
 

Refried Beans, Flour Tortillas, Proper Tortilla Chips, Salsa and Guacamole - Finding any kind of Mexican food fixins in Japan seems to be a pain in the arse. There are up and downsides to this. The downside is that you can’t find guacamole anywhere in supermarkets. The upside is that if you do manage to find it at, say, a Mexican restaurant, it’s always handmade and damn tasty, because they have to make it by hand.
 

Corned Beef Hash - OH MY GOD, THEY HAD CORNED BEEF HASH!!! FUCKING YUM, DUDE!!!!!!
 

Oatmeal - Tast-ee... as... hell.
 

Granola Bars (both hard and soft varieties) - Man, I missed these things too. I always try and keep one or two in my briefcase for those long days at school when my bento at lunch just isn’t big enough and I don’t feel like riding my bike for 15 minutes to the nearest convenience store. Brilliant, these things. Odd note, no one in Japan seems to have any clue what granola is, even with the use of an English-Japanese dictionary. Savages.
 

Clam Chowder - You’d figure that with as much seafood as the Japanese eat, they might have heard of and even like clam chowder, but no such luck. Campbell’s will do in a pinch though. Now if we could just get a Mo’s in Fukuma...
 

Pinot Noir - I have been looking for a year and a half now and am convinced that there isn’t a single of Pinot Noir on this entire freaking island. I suppose I shouldn’t expect more from a country where virtually every restaurant insists on serving red wines chilled. <sigh>
 

Nutella - This is actually the first time I’ve ever had the stuff, but damn yo, this be the hellafied-tasty-shit right here, I ain’t even fuqin’ wit you, homie.
 

Pancake Mix - This is another one of those things that you can actually find in Japan, but they just don’t quite get it right. All the ‘domestic’ pancake mixes I’ve tried here come out WAY too sweet, almost like they’re more of a desert pastry or something rather than...well, a pancake. Finding this bag o’ pancake mix was one of the happiest moments of my stay in Japan.
 

Folgers - Such a simple thing we’ve saved for last, but so very nice. I’m even a coffee snob and love going to SBC and Starbucks in the city every chance I get, but when it comes to brewing the stuff at home, there’s just nothing like the ‘cuppa joe’ character of Folgers which is, as you can probably guess, nowhere to be found in this fine country, save the fine cradle of culinary culture that is Costco.

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