Just Another Day at School

Dear Blog,

short rundown on today. First class, Monday morning (3-5). Tally: all but 3 students sleeping. Confiscated 2 projectiles of notible size in 1-4; my second class (one in flight), and made bet with myself as to how big the pool of drool on Shogei's handout would become if I refrained from awakening him for the entire period. Didn't win because my Japanese teacher woke him up first.

During the first 5 minutes of my third class today (3-3), I watched 2 boys directly in front of me tie up a third boy with a large roll of tape, while my Japanese sensei attempted to call roll. They were quite loud, shouting and laughing good naturedly (I quite like these 2 boys, they ask lots of questions and are pretty good at English. One even calls me his oneechan, older sister). The third boy had allowed (most unwisely) his hands to be strapped to his elbows and chest in the beginning, making him helpless. I watched on silently (not doing anything to stop it because, well, that seems to be the way it works here) as the other 2 firmly taped him to his chair and then wrapped his head vertically to his elbows (looked most uncomfortable and probably stuck ferociously to his hair), then to the chair, then began wrapping up his neck. The teacher finally cut in at this point, since the victim was clearly about to have trouble breathing. He had to be unwrapped, and the state of the tape on his head and neck created quite the obstacle towards this objective. This activity probably cut 10 minutes out of all 40 students learning time in 3rd period. Fascinating how the system works here. Never run out of excitement in this joint.

Oh, to add to the previous posts' list of things kids like to do during class: lift hand weights. a number of the older boys keep weights in the classroom and just do curls throughout class, or have these hand strengthening thingies (don't know what they're called but you squeeze them) and work with those. Teachers never seem to say anything.

Cheers!
Joyce Tea-chaaa