Happiness at Hikami Nishi

Something is up. Everybody in the school today is stupidly happy. It started this morning, when I was teaching a couple of lessons with the student teacher, and the kids were so responsive and genki, I wondered what was up. We're both only a few years older than them so I guess they relate more, but it was the best we've had it so far. They still don't like working, but they're so cute with it, like they had cards with information about cities on them and the final line in the discussion was meant to be 'that sounds interesting', and this girl was like (in Japanese) "Lau sensei, it's not interesting. It's really boring. Can I say "I think sleeping" instead?" So I taught her 'that sounds boring' and I had a whole class happily doing the work but ending the conversation with 'that sounds boring' instead. [Incidentally, when a student at the back said me and student teacher were 'best couple' complete with heart sign, instead of the expected rebuff, student teacher said 'thankyou' and blushed. Followed by a beltingly fast exchange of Japanese which she said it was 'better I didn't understand'.]

Then I had a 'debate' lesson, well not really a debate, but the students have spent about 4 lessons preparing their opinions on the topic of 'can (various animals) communicate with people?' Their opinions are so cute, at a couple of points I couldn't hold in my laughter but they didn't mind (remember this is inexplicably happy day). Each group made an argument, to which the other group responded. To the question 'can chimpanzees communicate with people', after the standard 'they can use sign language' and 'they can respond to human language' they had clearly run out of ideas as it went like this:

Group 1: "We think that Chimpanzees can't communicate with people because they can't tell the time."
Group 2: "We disagree, because chimpanzees can get up in the morning."

next reason:
Group 1: "We think chimpanzees can't communicate with people because they can't play the guitar."
Group 2: "We disagree because chimpanzees can beat a drum."

So cute . Also, I think I may have been a bit genki one day and said 'yay' a few times as there's now a group of girls who end every sentence with a super genki 'yay'. Eg, "Hello LauYAY!" "How are youYAY!" "終わったYAY!".

The third years are back as well after a number of weeks away to start preperation for graduation next week (maybe this is what's making the school's mood good) so all the third years are walking round giving everyone a big cheery hisashiburi (long time no see.) [Speaking of graduation , I have to play Auld Lang Syne at the ceremony next week. My supervisor asked me to arrange it to make it as sad as possible. "We want the students who are leaving to cry... ideally."]

On the way to cleaning [don't know if I mentioned before, every day students clean the school and teachers half help half oversee. I run tings at 2F-3F east staircase], I saw students:
*sliding down the bannisters sitting upright (pretty difficult)
*using semi-clear tape to write all over their blazers (they'd written the kanji for numbers on their arm, one guy had 百(hundred) and one 五 (five), no idea why. One had what looked like a massive penis on his back, and as his friend explained this was "男 シンボル" (man symbol) I think it probably was. As I arrived they were writing N T for new type across the front, and were sad that I didn't know what it meant. (Also, girls keep asking me S or M and I have no idea why this is.)
*a guy leggin it down the corridor giving another guy a piggy back ("Oh, Lau!! HallohowareyouImfine!!")

Remember, this is a Senior High School. So something is up to make these kids so crazy today. It could be the weather, we had a bit of sun for the first time in months, or the third years coming back, or something else. I asked kyoto-sensei (deputy head) if there was something special about today cos everyone is so genki, and he was like 'I don't know... but they do seem pretty genki don't they...'

Mystery.

Also today I had to make a list of famous monkeys (going to use them in a lesson next week). I got paid to think about this:

• King Kong
• Bubbles (Michael Jackson)
• Zephir from Babar
• A Bathing Ape
• Milo
• Abu from Aladdin
• Donkey Kong
• Diddy Kong
• Cornelius (planet of the apes)
• Super Monkey Ball monkeys
• Evil Monkey (Family Guy)
• Goku (dragonball)
• Paul Frank monkey
• Mankey (pokemon)
• Marcel from Friends
• Mojo (simpsons)
• Mr Teeny (simpsons)
• Rafiki (Lion King)
• Ape Escape (playstation)

The students mood has completely rubbed off on me! Great day.