Even the non-believers at the school where I work are praying tonight. Well, at least those of us on the native speaker staff are.

If tomorrow is sunny and beautiful, the students will head to a nearby lake where they will run a 10 kilometer (6.3ish mile) “marathon”. While they are doing this, we, the native speakers, will be doing such useful, scholarly things as “going to the bank”, “playing World of Tanks” and “recovering from hangover”.

This is because there is nothing for us to do on marathon day. I’ll be working on my final exam/playing World of Tanks whilst my students run in the wind and the cold.

If, however, it is rainy and/or snowy, the marathon will be cancelled and classes will be reinstated and we’ll have to rush to school to teach.

The latter has happened quite a few times. My first year at the school where I work, it was a beautiful sunny day everywhere but the actual marathon site. As I went about wasting time and conspicuously consuming, I got a call telling me marathon had been cancelled and I had to go to work. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the school, my classes would have been finished.

I ended up getting the day off, but I felt bad about it all day.

A few years ago we got two major snow storms a week apart and that left the marathon site messy and dangerous  and we ended up having class.

Although we can guess, based on the weather predictions, if the marathon will be a go or not, we still have to be up early to monitor the school website to learn if there’s a change of schedule. If there is, we start working the phones and rush to school.

I’ll be up early waiting for the official notice. If nothing changes, I might go back to bed.

We all showed up, today, but none of us were really there.

One of the quirks of the school where I work is we have lots of odd days with little to do because of entrance exams. Because of this, when we finally have something to do, it’s often been so long since we had to do it that we forget how it was done.

Throw in illness and a migraine hangover, and you’ve got recipe for zombies.

One of us had a toothache and was popping pain killers which left him less than 100%. Others were losing energy as they encountered students who either had too much energy or, more likely, too little. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but no matter how many times you it with a stun gun, you can make it drink (something like that).

In my case I was nursing a migraine hangover. (I got the migraine aura right before supper last night. The spot was in my left eye which usually means a brutal one is coming.) I thought I was fine until I got to class and could feel the leftover hint of nausea and the leftover hint of migraine at the side of my head. The effect of this was to make me cranky in a “shut the f@#k up” kind of way.

It didn’t help that in my second class, seven of nine speeches had to go again, including five people who were already going again. Then, despite it having been translated for them, they pretended they didn’t understand that they had to go again in the same class. This led to more crankiness in a “What are you people? On dope?” kind of way.

At the end of the day, even though today was the only full day of the week, we were all like the walking dead. We were walking slowly; we were hungry; and we all needed a brain.

Oh, and in a follow up from yesterday’s post: I didn’t get approved for the credit card. 

I’m not sure what to think about what happened in class today.

Nothing happened, and that has me a bit worried.

As a rule, when I start the new year, even though it’s not a new school year, I tend to approach each class as a new start. Well, not with my worst class, I expect them to be bad.

Today they weren’t, but the so-called “higher level” half of them were and I’m not sure what that means.

It could be that because my expectations were so low for them, I abandoned any pretense of trying to do anything fun. My colleague had plans for games and sundry activities. I started with a plan to do an activity (albeit not a fun one) and then changed plans and did something a lot simpler.

The students were reasonably quiet and did the work. Granted, for some of them “doing the work” means waiting until someone smarter finishes and then copying their paper. They did this today even though the answers were supposed to come via an interview which makes it look like a lot of my students are actually the same person with different faces. (This actually explains a lot.)

Because I came in with low expectations I was worried when it appeared as if they would all finish sooner than I expected, which meant some of them would never finish. Luckily, their natural distraction took over and the worst students slowed down.

They did spend most of the class testing me, though. One refused to stand at first during the warm up; one started using bad Japanese words until he realized I understood and then he stopped; one tried calling me “Mr. Jason” which is their old nickname for me; the one who refused to stand up thought he’d get away without showing his print. Then he seemed to remember what happened the last time he tried that and quickly copied someone else’s answers (adding yet another face to the one student).

As classes with my worst class go, it wasn’t a bad day. My colleague, though, had lots of trouble. Her students wouldn’t listen to the game rules and she didn’t finish everything she’d planned. It’s an odd day in deed when I’m happy with my class and she’s not.

I’d tell their homeroom teacher about how good they were, but they’d just be terrible the next time.

I’m trying to plan for what’s coming, but I’m not sure it will help.

I’ve written before how the third term at the school where I work is kind of crazy. There are odd days and cancelled days and every grade ends at different times. Some classes never seem to end, and those are almost always my worst classes because “karma” and “bitch”.

This term my one student in my high school third year class has already informed me he won’t be attending his one class. I’ll have to show up for work anyway as I have a class later in the afternoon, but part of me is already planning what to do with that time. I’m pretty sure I’ll show up earlier than I have to, just not at the usual time.

What I do when I get there I do not know.

At the end of February, high school first and second years end early and start exams. A couple days after that junior high school third years end and start exams. At some point, we are marking exams and passing them back whilst we are still teaching grades that haven’t ended. Then, when we’re tired and ready for a break, we suddenly have another batch of exams to mark.

In truth it’s not that hard, it’s just that anything resembling a teaching rhythm is suddenly gone and that makes it feel surreal. You wake up a couple times and try to remember where you’re supposed to be and if you really need to get up or not. (The fear that you’re missing something is what wakes you up.)

Also, because the term is half as long as the others, there isn’t a lot of time to introduce new material. This means almost all final exams are comprehensive which means we have to calm rooms of panicked young men who haven’t followed the rules to keep all their notes and handouts in an easy to access location.

Many of them ask me for copies of the print and I tell them I don’t make any extra copies. If they ask why not I just say it’s because “karma” and “bitch”.

They don’t understand, but it’s still kind of fun to say.

Although I usually like having time to myself, today it was kind of annoying.

At the school where I work today was make-up exams. Any student who gets a 3 (21-30%) as his final score for the term must, in theory, take the make-up exam. If a student gets a 4 (31-40%) he has the option of taking the exam. A 4 is considered a passing grade, although in English classes it’s not high enough to get an automatic recommendation to the attached university (that requires a 6). If a student passes the make-up exam, he can push his grade up one mark.

The problems occur when the student has a 4 because he’s missed a third or more of the total classes. These students get to take the exam but, because they have a habit of missing things, the odds of them showing up for the make-up exam are very slim.

That’s what happened to me today. I got up at a decent hour and then made my way to the school where I printed off my exam paper and did some prep work. At exam time, I found the room early and turned on the heater (which I don’t always do during a make-up exam because that’s the kind of cruel person I am…).

The student didn’t arrive early and at exam time, I found myself standing in the classroom by myself. The problem was, I couldn’t actually leave until the exam time was over (which I learned the term before). If the student had arrived with five minutes left, I would have to give him the exam and then collect it five minutes later.

Instead, I camped out at the front and did a little writing and a little planning. I also looked up a few things on my cellphone, which I’d brought anticipating this happening. The only student who came by was a student who wanted to take a picture of the blackboard and tomorrow’s special exam schedule.

After exam time, I entered an X on the OCR form and turned it in. I then headed out to do nothing for a little while until my evening class. I’d rather have done nothing at home, so maybe this was the student’s payback for his having received a low score.

Today was the first meeting I’ve ever been to where everyone seemed to phone it in, including the people in charge of the meeting.

I’ve mentioned before how the Company For Which I Work (not its real name) has for the last few years, been requiring us to attend odd little training meetings during what used to be time off. The meetings are mostly useless and seem to exist to justify the employment of one or more people above us. Usually, the only useful part is the  sharing session where we pass around lessons that have worked and therefore get a selection of proven ideas.

Today, though, we were expected to describe how last year went–fine except for problems caused by you guys–and then watched a video of a poor gentleman dying in front of a class in what appeared to be a last minute change of schedule. Although the video clip was entertaining in an “I feel you pain” kind of way, it’s the kind of thing I hate doing at meetings such as these. It’s like having a professional baseball player studying a worse player’s batting style and saying “don’t do that” and calling it training.

There was some interesting politics where a couple teachers told us they would lose their positions because the company lost the contract but the company was trying to find them other placements. Why the positions were lost had us taking bets on when the school would come back to CFWIW and beg for trained teachers. (I can’t give more details than that except to say that private schools seemed to have discovered a way to get the free teachers from the JET Programme; the schools then discover that not all foreigners are trained language teachers.)

When we got the sharing part, most of us didn’t have handouts. We just got up and talked about the lesson or activity and promised to deliver it by email if anyone was interested. I tried to get copies of mine, but had technical issues meshed with a lack of incentives to deal with the issues so I just got up and talked.

When time was up, we bolted for the train station and home. We get to do this again in April (for orientation) and then in July (for no reason whatsoever).

I survived teaching at the elementary school with no injuries and it’s got me thinking about if enjoying something, more or less, and being good at it, is worth being forced to do it.

I was lucky to have good train connections and, much to my surprise, the trains I was on were not crowded even though they were major arteries to Tokyo. In fact, the platforms and stations were more crowded than the trains. That put me in a good mood as I expected to be quietly killing people in order to get air. (Not that I would ever do that but if you’ve ever been in a train crush, it does cross your mind…)

Getting to the school was also easy, even though I went out the wrong exit.

I discovered, once I got to the school, that all the materials I was expecting to have weren’t actually available so I had to improvise a few things on the spot.

I taught four classes in a row (with fourth graders and third graders) and the school has had enough regular English lessons that the students are reasonably well behaved (although my first class began with a teacher yelling at a student and escorting him out of class) and the homeroom teachers know how to help and, because of the nature of the contract, they are actually able to help. (Long story.) The students are also able to follow English instructions, within reason and do not attempt to harm the teacher by attempting to insert fingers in his rectum or testing the ability of his genitals to withstand blunt force trauma.

Students approached me to ask my name and only one expressed disappointment I wasn’t the guy who taught yesterday. One student played an impromptu game of red light-green light with me in the hallway while I was waiting for my next class. Whenever I tried to talk to him, he just stared and didn’t move and when I looked away, moved closer.

I also had fun eating the flavorless school lunch with the second graders. Two girls tried to avoid choking while the class clown put on a show.

Even though I had fun, I couldn’t get over the nagging feeling that I should have been at home wasting time and making Christmas plans. I still feel as if I’ve lost a bonus. It doesn’t cost me money, just time and effort. I also can’t help but feel that today was some kind of compliance test. (How will DL react when he discovers that we’ve replaced his day off with a day at an elementary school?)

The vice principal let me go early, which was nice of him as I was scheduled to be there until 4:45 but only had classes until 12:30. That said, I’m also betting I catch a cold from being in trains full of people and shaking hands with lots of students.

Today’s speech contest started with a half hour delay. A train line that doesn’t even reach the school where I work stopped working for a while and that slowed things down.

Strangely enough, I arrived early and texted everyone else and a few minutes later two of everyone else arrived and I delivered the message personally. We then had that awkward moment where they checked their phones and thanked me for sending them the message.

Eventually the speeches began and for complicated reasons I was scheduled to be head judge for the first set of speeches (the JHS 3s/9th graders) and then demoted to ordinary judge for the second set of speeches (the JHS 1s/7th graders). I actually like being ordinary judge because that means I have no responsibilities. (More on that later.)

The main thing I liked about the speeches in this contest was that I don’t teach those grades this year which means I haven’t heard the same speech again and again. This meant I got to hear them fresh (granted, we have been using the same topics for 15 years but, well, yeah, I hadn’t heard them recently).

During the first set of speeches, as head judge, I had to stand up, read certificates, hand out certificates, shake hands, give a coherent speech (not always easy for me to do) and pose for pictures.

For the second set of speeches all I had to do was stay awake.

The problem was, for the second set of speeches the top three speeches of the first set of speeches were added to the program. Since the winning speech was almost five minutes long this added a lot of time to the already delayed speeches. (Oddly, the winner actually did better the second time, the second and third place winners did worse.)

Luckily, I was able to leave before the hunger games started. The hunger games were the third set of speeches (the JHS 2s/8th graders). They were being pushed back into lunch time and would have to listen to the top speeches from the first two sets of speeches. Being 8th graders they are naturally restless. Add in hunger and I’ll bet it got dangerous.

I’ve heard from one of the judges since then. I’m not sure what happened to the other one.

At the school where I work one of the rituals we go through is pass back classes for exams. This ritual involves teasing with scores, handing out answer sheets and exams, fielding questions and correcting mistakes and rejecting appeals for higher marks. That all takes about 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, the pass back class is 50 minutes long.

There then ensues a dilemma: do I waste paper and provide some sort of activity, do I only provide an activity to the class with the lowest average to punish then for doing badly, or do I let them do their winter homework whilst I mark other exams and/or write and/or simply waste time.

Today I opted for the latter with my junior high school classes. Unfortunately, for two of my classes, I was one of their first pass backs and they didn’t yet have homework. This meant I told them to relax with the caveats “No fighting, no kissing, no sports”. At least not while I’m in the class. (Note: the first and last are more common; as for the second, well, some guys have done things that might as well have involved kissing.)

Left with nothing else to do, the students fall back on games. There are brief rounds of Bloody Knuckles, which I stop because that counts as a sport. There is also a game involving groups of boys making fists and raising their thumbs whilst each takes turns guessing how many thumbs will be raised. There is a countdown and at “zero” one boy says a number as the others raise one thumb, both thumbs or no thumb. (It is possible to guess “none”.) If the guesser is right, he stays in the game and the guessing moves to another boy. This goes on until someone makes the final guess.

There is also a game involving flicking erasers around the table that is one part shuffle board and one part paper football. As near as I can tell–the rules seem to change every game–the winner knocks everyone else off the board. There is also a version involving coins. However, I always remind them that house rules are that any money that falls on the floor belongs to me, er, the house, and that’s why they switch to erasers.

Eventually, the bell rings and I go off to do this with another class in another room.

The test pile this year is smaller than in years before but it never gets any smaller. It is very much like a plate of pasta or a car trip across Nebraska. The more progress you make, the less progress you seem to have made.

Relatively speaking, I have already made a lot of progress: I’ve finished one batch of exams (my smallest batch) and am almost halfway through my second batch, although it seems to have taken a long time to get there.

The third batch taunts me.

Complicating matters are an evening class that steals away some of my official time-wasting time (because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t actually be marking that quickly even with lots of time to mark) a piano recital this coming Sunday, the arguments affiliated with piano recital practice/lack of practice, and in-bound in-laws.

Although I like my in-laws their arrival will involve a lost Saturday night filled with lots of food and beer. There will also be long explanations of why She Who Must Be Obeyed has not been feeding me properly when they see that I’ve lost almost 33 pounds since the last time they saw me. This will be made worse by the fact that most of my clothes are now baggy as I’ve been putting off shopping until I reach my weight goal (which is more-or-less what I’ve just done).

The only good thing will be that I’ll actually be able to go this year, unlike last year., which will earn me back some Good Graces Points. (I will probably lose those, though, if I decide to take exams to mark for when our girls aren’t performing. It might actually be worth it to try.)

I will have Monday to finish, but by then I’ll have failed to establish any rhythm. Until then, the test pile, no matter how hard I work, will always be the same size.

And the third batch will keep taunting me.