All of the leaving ceremonies and starting ceremonies and entrance ceremonies and cleaning ceremonies have wrapped up, and my school has barrelled headfirst into a new school year, starting this morning.
Yesterday was the first time the whole batch of students were in one place at one time; the new first years have been kept largely separate from the older students for reasons I don’t fully comprehend. At the assembly, the newly-minted second and third years got their respective lectures on being responsible sempai (an older student, responsible for the younger ones) to the firs years, and studying hard, and buttoning up that top button on your jacket, boys, what is this, a zoo?
All the students then clustered on one half of the gym and turned 90 degrees clockwise, now facing the side wall instead of the stage. They then proceeded to watch and whisper as the 321 new students were marched in class by class to stand at ridgid attention in front of 560 pairs of curious and judging eyes, to bow and ask the older students for their guidance and good graces in the coming years. And they wonder why there’s a problem with bullying in this country.
I’ve been eyeball-deep in work, strangely enough, for the last week or so. A self-appointed project of translating the whole roster of new first year students turned into a nightmare as my ignorance of name-based kanji characters reared its ugly head. I felt accomplished that I knew about 70% of the more commonly used kanji used for last names, but for the first names, it was a lost cause.
Asking other teachers for help was no use either. “This name? Umm… it could either be ‘Asami’ or ‘Maki.’ Seriously, these characters could be read either way. Or maybe another way I don’t know of. Sorry.” I finally coerced the office staff to give up the copy of the class lists with the names printed in the syllabary script, and the task went much quicker.
Most of my students have fairly easy-to-pronounce names, and I go by their last names anyway. The first names can get a bit tricky if there are double vowels, or a long sound or a short sound, but they’re mostly there for reference, or if two students have the same last name. Some joker put both of the girls with the last name “Aoki” in one second year class.
Most of my friends are also getting to know their new first year students, and we swapped stories and anecdotes about what we knew so far when we were out at karaoke the other night:
Amanda: One of my new first years is named Rio.
Kenny: Does she dance upon the sand?
The first years seem marginally more outgoing than last year, though, which is encouraging. I was cornered by three girls yesterday while getting my scooter to go home. They assaulted me with “HARRO” and “TODAY IS FINE, DO YOU THINK?” and were generally cheerful, and introduced themselves. I hope this is indicative of the spirit level in general.
