Not much in the way of updates this month, so once again the traditional apologies.

Robin and Jon came and went. Their Japanese is more than functional, and I think they had a great time fending for themselves while I was at work. I managed to get a fair bit of time off, and took a few days early-off as well, so we managed to do quite a bit together as well. The weather was very obliging: it seems to have rained just barely enough to not get in the way, and only on the days they had indoory things to do like Zuiganji Temple in Matsushima. Robin and Jon, feel free to post your own comments!

It's once more time for the host of assemblies and ceremonies accompanying the restart of the school year in Japan, and the welcoming of the new students. I was going to write a long discourse on the ceremonial, assemblical start to the new year, but I realised I'd already done that before. Could it be I am running out of material?

The major point of interest this year is that I have met all but a handful of Icchu's new first years this time round: they are from Medeshima, Fujigaoka, and Tatekoshi elementaries - the elementaries I have been to visit. Though I mentioned it to them before, I think the kids are still very surprised to find me here in their junior high.

The year is ending in Japan, and things are starting to fall apart. I am getting a lot more ready to come home now.

In Japan, there's a very long-standing tradition of enforced transfers, particularly in bureaucratic jobs. The modern-day explanation is that constant transfers ensure that employees have a wide variety of experiences, in a number of fields and with different coworkers and bosses. I suppose that since most Japanese people would never complain about their work environment, it also keeps anyone from getting trapped in an awful place for too long. In the samurai days of the Tokugawa shogunate, when the tradition originated, it was actually designed to keep the bureaucrats - who were all samurai - from formenting rebellion against the state. By shuffling around, no employees of an office gained enough trust and familiarity to plan against their superiors.

It's February, and school ends in a month: the Japanese tradition places the end of the old year and begining of the new in April, and that applies to schools as well. Around here, that means school is grinding to a complete halt. I'm at Nichu right now, and have hardly done any teaching for the last two weeks... I went to Fujigaoka during school exams. Before exams was about a week of studying for exams, and after exams was about a week of discussing the exams. This is for all grades, from 1st year jr. high (canada Grade 7) up. It's a little frustrating for me.

Class grades have to be in on the 6th, so right now teachers are panicking to get their big assignment projects done on time. Classes are canned material for the most part, or tests and projects that should have been done earlier but there wasn't time. In other words, the life of an ALT is a bit boring!

On the bright side, I get to mark a heap of letters from 1st year students, which ought to be a bit of fun.

I'm teaching at Fujigaoka Elementary right now, the elementary I'm most familiar with and fond of. The other day I taught my second graders to sing Old MacDonald had a Farm. It was pretty popular for the E-I-E-I-O bit; the kids loved the song, but mostly I wound up with "Oh macdahdah hah.. fah, EIEIO!" still, they had fun and got some english vocab and pronunciation practice. As is traditional, there were a very wide variety of animals on the farm: cheetah was exceptionally popular, for some reason. Rabbit was as well. What sound does a rabbit make? I went with "boing-boing".

I learned some odd things. It doesn't appear that Japanese people recognise a cat's purr as a distinct sound. I can't really imagine that, because Japanese people are onomatopoeia-crazy, but nobody in the entire class could describe "the other sound that cats make, when you pet them and they are happy". They just made a really happy sounding meow... even the teacher didn't know.