Christmas @ School

Unfortunately all of my plans for a fun-filled Wednesday night fell through when I caught a nasty cold (from whom, I’m not sure; everybody is sick recently). I came home from school at 4:30 feeling like a ghost and crashed on the couch until 9:00, when I got up just to go to bed. So I missed the end-of-year enkai (party) and what seemed a promising karaoke experience, all because I got sick. On the bright side of things, I also saved myself 11,500 yen (60,000 for dinner, 25,000 for karaoke, 30,000 for a cab ride home). But I really was looking forward to it.

This morning (Thursday, the Emperor’s Birthday and a national holiday), I woke up at 6:00 and couldn’t go back to sleep since I had slept so much the day before. So I made myself comfy on the couch again, wrapped up in two quilts, and drank tea and read for a while before talking to my parents. Google Talk really does do the trick when Skype is down, like it was today.

But I digress.

I wanted to tell you about school.

We made balloon piñatas in my Special Ed class. The kids—there are seven of them—really enjoyed putting them together, and their decorations were fantastic! One boy hung origami cranes all over his, giving the Mexican tradition a Japanese flair; another kid made his into a head, drawing the features on the newspaper with magic marker and using pink construction paper for the hair. Mine, the one I filled with tiny presents from the hyaku-yen shop (dollar store), was a jumble of red, pink, and yellow tissue paper.

Since yesterday was the last day of school, it was the day we broke the piñatas. After learning the English words for “spin” and “hit,” we went to the “Friendly Room” (no joke, the フレンドリールム)where Ms. I and I had set everything up. We attached the piñatas to a thin green rope that hung from a bar on one side of the room to Mr. K’s hand, who stood on the desk opposite. I didn’t have a good stick to use, so we used my Mt. Fuji stick—more than a meter long! After a little squabbling about who would go first, the kids lined up. They really enjoyed having their turn at whacking the piñata (or the air) as hard as they could! But once it actually broke, they were so kind and polite to each other! I was astounded. I was so used to kids throwing themselves on the ground and beating each other up in order to hoard as much as possible, but these children stood by quietly waiting to be told what to do. I explained that there were enough presents (a pad of paper with a dog picture on it, an anime-themed pencil with a pencil tip holder, candy, and tissues) for each of them, and then they knelt politely down to pick up what was theirs. Oh, Japan!

Back in October, I had gone to an elementary school to pick up some ideas from an ALT there, and he inspired me to make Christmas cards for my students. He actually makes Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas/New Year’s cards for the entire school (hell, he might even make Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day cards, too, for all I know) but after I started cutting the construction paper, I decided only to give them to the san-nenseis (3^rd years/15 years old). I made them green and red, with a green (or red, whichever the contrasting color was) tree, snowman, or star silhouette on it. With the help of two other teachers at my school, we managed to put all 120 cards together by the end of November, and I spent my free time in December writing variations of “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I wish you much happiness in your life!” on each card in curlicue cursive writing. I even tried to write a more meaningful message to the 15 or so students that I know better than others, like the ones I helped during the speech contest.

Before I passed out the cards (and after we watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas/Snuu-pi no Ku-ri-su-masu”) I first explained how the U.S. Postal Service works. Showing a small cardboard box wrapped in green paper with a red cardboard flag, I demonstrated how the postman takes note of the raised flag before taking the cards out. There were a few gasps of astonishment from the students, as here in Japan, you mail your letters in the orange post boxes scattered around town. You don’t leave mail at your door like back home, and you certainly don’t have a cute flag that raises and lowers. “So,” I told them, “When you write a card, you put it in the box, and raise the flag. Then I’ll know I have mail.”

I stole that idea from RG, as well: ask the students to send me a card that they write on their own time. I wasn’t really too sure how it was going to work out, but I am very impressed with the results! It’s not a lot, but 18 san-nenseis (and two ni-nenseis, who didn't even get one from me) gave me cards! All of them except two are homemade, and so super cute! Almost everyone said, “I really like your class” (even if it’s a lie, it’s sweet), and one boy promised me, “Hereafter, I will hold out English because I want to go the foreign country some day.” M, one of my favorite students but don’t tell anyone, wrote a long message in almost-perfect English, telling me at the end that sometimes I look sad, and that if I ever need anything I can talk to her. At the bottom she put her email address. I didn’t think I look sad a lot, but it was a very nice thing for her to say!

The cards are up top because I couldn't figure out how to put them down here. Enjoy! Merry Christmas, everyone!