My Friday

I was sat at my desk preparing for the next lesson, when suddenly the other staff members began frantically running around and behaving in a rather alarming manner. They all ran out the staff room and our into the main part of the school. It was like some emergency was underway, but not being able to understand my Japanese colleagues I was somewhat in the dark. Being the helpful individual I am, I wanted to aid them in what ever was going on, so I investigated. I assumed it would be a fire or something and I might be required to pull children from the burning building in a heroic fashion. However, peering into the hallway I saw a policeman in fall flat jacket and helmet being led by another teacher. I spend a lot of my day confused, but this really threw me! At that point all the children began streaming out the building to an evacuation point. I managed to grab one of the teachers, but they're English wasn't so good. I ask what was happening and after a couple of attempts they were able to find an English word that fit; “Practice”. I asked what kind of practice? She said “Bad man! Bad man in building practice.” I wish people would tell me of these things before hand. Sometimes I feel like they are sat around thinking “So, what can we do today to really screw with the Gaijin's head? I know that's have a drill from a strange man being in the school, but not tell him.” Still, keeps me on my toes I guess.

I had my first lesson with the first years today too. They are soooo tiny and sooo cute. First years are about 6 or 7 year olds. I find smaller children are easier, you just do over the top actions and gestures and they think you're amazing. After the lesson I had lunch with them and managed to highly entertain them by going cross-eyed every time I sucked my milk with the straw. Once they had all finish I did a magic trick for them. I take a metal coin and bite off a part. As a finale, I then magically spit the top section back onto the coin. It's quite an impressive trick even for adults to see, but with children they just go ape! Here is a youtube link of David Blaine doing the same trick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Yhaz4xDRM. So I did the trick and they went a little too crazy. They kept asking for it again and again, with more kids joining each time until I was surrounded by a pint-sized mob, trying to get the coin and see how it was done. In the end I had to discreetly slide the coin in my back pocket and then pretended to put the whole coin in my mouth, gulped and showed them there was nothing in my hands or mouth. This created an even stronger reaction with a choral Japanese “ehhhhhh!?!?” and some very shocked faces. If only we were all so easy to please and entertain.

And that was my Friday.