I’ve mentioned before that I’m in the middle of a long work push with no full breaks for thirteen days. I didn’t think I was doing too badly until the last couple days.

Suddenly I find myself irritable in class with a patience level somewhere between “extremely low” and “hair trigger”. Suddenly having new students in my JHS 1 classes hasn’t helped as they’ve changed the dynamic and they are in the “let’s test the limits” phase of class.

Granted, being irritable helps crush some of that testing, which, eventually goes away as they get used to my rules and my voice. Me being irritable also makes them long to be back in the class they just left. For that, I’m happy to oblige.

I told them all they have to do is get an 80% on their next exam and their former teacher will take them back.

This means, of course, that I’m stuck with them until the end of the school year.

I usually try to remain cheerful and friendly for a first class, but my students today were having none of it.

My worst students in my (current) worst class decided to live up to their reputation by causing trouble. One student didn’t have his summer homework but claimed he’d left it in another class. I told him to go get it but he seemed to think that the claim that he’d completed it was sufficient to count it as completed. He put his head down and tried to go to sleep. I woke him up and we had exactly the same conversation until he started at least pretending to write.

Another student tried playing dumb about what he was supposed to do until I pointed out there were Japanese instructions on the paper. He then acted as if he was being sneaky by copying the example sentences put there for him to copy.

I did manage to remain calm, but it’s a bad start to the week when your first class on Monday goes that way.

The rest of the day went better, but I don’t like Monday’s schedule: three classes in a row, then nothing for three hours. I get a lot of prep work done, but it’s still an oddly exhausting day. Then again, with the kind of start today had, it’s hard to keep the energy flowing.

The worst thing about the first week back at work after a long vacation is remembering how to do your job.

Although I’ve been working on Sundays and the occasional Saturday over the summer holiday; and even though the company I work for requires me to do busy work because, well, because, it takes some time for me to get my teaching legs back once I’m in front of students after a break.

Even figuring out where I’m supposed to be is a chore.

I’m constantly checking my schedule and double checking which room I’m supposed to be in. Despite that, I still check the schedule posted next to the door of each room to make sure I’m entering the correct room.

Granted, I get a kind of warm up, at least with junior high school, as we are checking speech contest speeches. This requires very little prep on my part and very little classroom management. My only job is to keep my eyes focused and to stay awake.

It helps when you’ve had a pretty good week and, despite having my eyes go bleary and numb, I had a good week. Next week is another day, though, so to speak.

As first dates go, it wasn’t so bad, mostly because it didn’t last that long. It’s amazing what a little humidity and hunger can do.

The start of autumn term at the school where I work has a number of traditions, at least with my classes. Junior high school students have have had the entire summer “vacation” (just under two months) to write a relatively short speech for the annual speech contest. Each grade has a different topic and each assignment sheet is filled with examples and Japanese explanations.

In theory, they will have this ready to be checked on the first day back.

In reality, around half have not finished the writing and several have lost their assignment sheets.

On the first day back, though, I’m relatively kind and let students finish their speeches. I even offer a new assignment sheet. This is especially true  with first year junior high school students as we’ve just shifted students around and many of them don’t know me.

On the second day, though, I stop being kind. and anyone who hasn’t finished has to join me at lunch for as many days as it takes them to finish their speeches.

In preparation for this, whenever it’s possible, I have lunch before class.

Today, one of my students didn’t finish in time and, much to his surprise, I told him to follow me. I took him to a desk just outside the large window of the jhs 1 teachers’ office. Imagine the guard observation post in a prison and then imagine a desk right in front of that and you’ll understand the scene.

His homeroom teacher saw him and came out to see what was going on. This trip was accompanied by many heavy sighs. Also keep in mind that every jhs 1 student can also see my student working.

Even worse, the desk is in a place with no air conditioning which, today, was an issue that almost made me rethink my diabolical plan.

After two months in which my student wrote only one sentence, it took him only ten minutes to finish the speech and another five for me to proofread it.

One down, only eight more classes to go.