Three different times in my career I’ve had students I never met.

I do not understand how this happens but at the school where I work (and throughout Japan for that matter) there are students who, for whatever reason, no longer come to class but have not dropped out of school. We’ve dubbed them “phantoms” or “ghosts” (Well, actually I did which gives you great insight into my ability for sympathy.)

There is a subtle difference between the two: Phantoms were seen once in class and then disappeared making you wonder if you actually ever saw them; ghosts have been photographed in the class picture but have never been seen in class. I would recognize a phantom if I saw him again; I wouldn’t recognize a ghost.

Most of the students who do this have mental issues (for the record: most of them had the issues BEFORE they took my class) and every student in their class seems to understand this (with varying degrees of sensitivity). In fact, the only person who doesn’t understand is usually me or my fellow foreign staff colleagues.

However, in an odd twist, most of these students actually sit for the exams, albeit in other rooms. Last term, we had to rush around carrying spare listening test CDs to different rooms because we had three ghosts but none wanted to be in the same room as the others. This year, the powers-what-are piped the listening into a spare room and then had someone run the CD to a different room.

Sometimes I am asked to provide study material for the phantoms and ghosts. Sometimes I am not. In several cases, the phantoms and ghosts did better than the students who actually came to class. I used to take this as an indictment on my teaching–the secret to passing Lively’s class: take a pass on Lively’s class–until I realized that the phantoms and ghosts who did well were always part of low level classes which, even those that are reasonably well behaved, are always noisy and hard to teach. By escaping the classroom, the ghosts and phantoms may have found a quiet way to study.

In junior high, missing class is problematic because education is both a basic right and a compulsory duty–students are supposed to go to class where the teachers have to take them, no matter how bad they are–but no one in junior high actually fails. The worse that happens at the school where I work is students are not invited to attend the high school.

In high school, though, students can fail for poor attendance. However, if they fail they are given a shot at a make up exam. If they pass the exam, they pass the course. They may not get invited to the university, but they will get at least a high school diploma from a big name school.

Secretly, part of me wishes I’d figured out how to do this when I was in junior high.

If things happened the way the were supposed to happen, this wouldn’t be an odd time of year. Unfortunately, that’s not the way things work.

What is supposed to happen is this: classes end; exams start; I mark exams; I give exams back; I drink bourbon (not necessarily in that order).

Unfortunately, for reasons I don’t fully understand, during the winter term at the school where I work, all the grades seem to end at different times and their exams start at different times. High school 3rd year (12th grade) ended in January but don’t graduate until March 14. High school 1st and 2nd Grade (10th and 11th grade) finished last Monday. Junior high 3rd year (9th grade which, luckily, I don’t teach) ended last Wednesday (I think). Junior high 1st and 2nd grade (7th and 8th grade) don’t finish until Tuesday.

What this means is that we are waiting for exams, marking exams, avoiding marking exams, wasting time, figuring out final marks, giving back exams and teaching all at the same time. This means we can’t pull all-nighters (well, technically we CAN, we just SHOULDN’T) and it’s hard to get into a marking rhythm.

To make matters worse, we also have to be on top of our schedules because it’s easy to lose track of what day it is an what we are supposed to be doing. On more than one occasion someone has stayed home to mark only to get a call or text calmly inquiring “Where the hell are you?” Others have finished marking their exams in the classroom while the students waited. I’ve personally written the wrong time down, arrived at school thinking I had some time to get ready, and been met by students who wondered why I was late to class.

Answer: Sit down and shut up and get ready to get your exams back. (Yeah, everyone loves having me as their teacher.)

Tomorrow I have final classes with my junior high second graders. At least I think I do.

Today was the one year anniversary of a disaster that wasn’t actually my fault but I apologized for it. The funny part is, I didn’t even realize it was the one year anniversary, but I still felt nervous about it.

Today was the start of our high school exams which means 1) I’m about to get really busy for the next few days and 2) I’m already in denial. This isn’t that unusual.

However, both yesterday and today I had a surprising amount of stress about the exam. There’s always a little bit of stress if it’s a test you’ve written, but today’s was a higher level of stress than usual.

This morning I checked the test schedule three times and even as I was walking to school I checked my phone to make sure I wasn’t getting any “where the hell are you” calls and messages. It wasn’t until I saw, off in the distance, a colleague heading to work that I felt confident that I wasn’t missing the test.

Then, because I’m in charge of the year and the exam, I went down to get the listening test CD and carry it to the broadcast room. When the technician performed his initial tests everything seemed okay, but he had to turn the volume up pretty high. This made me worry the sound quality wasn’t good enough. I spent the 10 minutes before the exam pacing and had the script ready in case I had to perform it live.

During the broadcast everything seemed to go fine but I was waiting for the “we couldn’t hear the damned thing” calls. They never came. After the listening–which was unusually short this time; a subconscious reaction to last year, I guess–I went back to the office and waited for the calls indicating the students had questions and/or had found horrible mistakes. (Past example: instructions say write ONE word but answer requires TWO,)

No calls came. But I paced, sat down, paced, sat down and paced until the last 10 minutes when it was unusual to get questions.

Now I’m in the denial phase and it wasn’t until I did some checks to make sure I wasn’t repeating myself in one of these posts that I discovered where all that stress had come from.

Now I have to get back to work, or denial, both are okay.