We got a late start this morning, and arrived a bit late to catch the usual train. Instead we sat around at the station for a few minutes and caught the next one. I got to work just a little bit later than normal, but nobody really noticed.
At school today I had the first four periods full of classes, but then the afternoon was free. The highlight of my day was working with the first year students. Part of the lesson is to sing “Country Road” with the students. Everyone has a lyric sheet and pronunciation guide, and we listen to a tape and sign along. The students really like it, and I’m getting pretty used to singing the song by now.
One of the noisy students in my class was belting out the song, yelling the lyrics rather than singing them, and enthusiastically sang “West vagina, mountain momma…”
I looked around to see if anyone else heard it, but nobody caught it. I was laughing, and I had a little bit of trouble getting back under control. The second time we sang the verse he sang it correctly, so I was relieved that it was just a random pronunciation mistake.
In the afternoon I went out to watch our students marching around the grounds in preparation for the sports day coming up next week. I sat in the shade with Harada sensei and a student who had sprained his ankle and enjoyed the show. The student had lots of questions for me, and Harada sensei wanted to vent her office politic-based frustrations. I ended up quite busy for the 90 minutes I was out there, and to be honest I was just as ready to go back inside when the bell rang as all the students were.
On my way back I bumped into Shiokawa sensei, who is the teacher in charge of one of the disabled students. They try very hard at my school to give the disabled students every possible chance to have a “normal” junior high school experience. For some of the students it is possible to come pretty close. Other students are in wheelchairs and are barely conscious of their surroundings. Shiokawa sensei’s student, Kohashi-kun, is one of those students. He is in his wheelchair almost all the time, and cannot speak or communicate in any way. He is entirely passive, but that doesn’t stop Shiokawa sensei from rolling his around with the other students on the marching field.
Shiokawa sensei offered to let me push Kohashi-kun back to his classroom, so I took over and walked slowly through the students through the school. Kohashi-kun’s mom comes to school almost every day to help out, and she was there today. I met her once before, and she remembered me and said hello. When we got to the elevator and went upstairs, she met us at the top and snapped a couple of quick photos of me pushing her son through the school.
She seemed really happy to have me help out, and I’m glad she was happy. It wasn’t like I have a deep relationship with her son, but because I’m a foreigner the moment was photo-worthy. Still, it was a good way to wrap up my day.
Kuniko got home early tonight, and I heated up some newly purchased Rosarita refried beans and made tacos, along with a salad and some leftover curry. Now we’re just relaxing and enjoying the evening – it’s unusual to have so much free time together.
We bought tickets to America last night, and as soon as the tickets are confirmed we can start thinking about making the trip. It’ll be at the end of December/beginning of January – it seems like a long way off.
