tissue time: bye bye higashi

Leaving school was like ripping off a bandaid.  I’ve known about my last day for weeks (technically years) and especially since my last round of classes started, it had been hovering over me, and every time I walked through the halls, I thought about how I’d have to walk through them for the last time [...]

Read Full Post »

leaving: i’m finally writing about it

Leaving is incredibly difficult.  Not like I’ve never left things before – high school, college, my childhood home – but leaving here is unlike anything I’ve really experienced before.  Every day here has been an adventure, and this foreign land somehow became my home.  But it’s a home that takes upwards of 20 hours to [...]

Read Full Post »

wonder kids and …not so much

I had brand new students today – something that hasn’t happened in a long time.   Of course I’ve spent 2 Aprils here, which means two new classes of first graders in elementary after the initial newness of arriving – but they’re pretty predictable, the first graders.  Start from scratch.  But at my one school I [...]

Read Full Post »

love connection!!

My little kids are getting all grown up!  We played a game today where kids are randomly picked to ask each other questions, and so as a joke I put on a few silly ones like “Do you have a boyfriend?” “Where is the toilet?” and “Do you like me?” and they can ask whatever [...]

Read Full Post »

found an awesome kid + language acquisition happening before my eyes

OMG!!  I had such a wonderful moment today.  I was helping some kids after school who had flunked their final English tests, and since their attention span for English is about 7 and a half minutes long, I’d take little breaks in between and make a joke or do something stupid so that they could [...]

Read Full Post »

poop boy

Way back at the beginning of the year I made my kids do name poems, you know like this: H – as very little nice to say, so doesn’t say much, but E – njoys looking at small cuddly animals so much that she K – eeps trash in her house cos she’s too lazy [...]

Read Full Post »

graduation

Time to write about graduation.  Elementary, middle, and I assume high schools are on the trimester system and the school year starts in April – which means graduation is in March.  This is my second graduation at Higashi, and also my last. Last year, I was surprised how little the kids practiced before the day [...]

Read Full Post »

okurukai!

Today was the 送る会 – sending off assembly for my graduating 3rd years.  They will all be going off to different high schools that they’ve spent the last 4 months cramming for exams to gain entrance to – but their results are rolling in and a good number of them are going to the local [...]

Read Full Post »

get it together!!

I know it’s like a cardinal sin of blogging to blog about how much you blog.  Or that you haven’t blogged.  Or that you promise you’re gonna start blogging from now on, like as if anyone’s life would be worse off if they couldn’t read your brain-to-internet dribble on a daily basis.  But let me [...]

Read Full Post »

a nickname

Okay, I had another special moment at elementary today.  I got my first Japanesey nickname!  For those of you who don’t know, NO, Heke was not some random Japanese name that I picked for myself and insisted that people call me.  It’s not even a Japanese name (although it is the nickname of pop supastaa [...]

Read Full Post »