It’s late; I’m tired; and work has infected my brain.

Today was the end of our first full week of “teaching” at the school. Teaching is in quotation marks because the only information that was imparted was names, class rules and a couple impromptu demonstrations of how the students won’t like me when I get angry.

(For the record, I don’t turn green, I get red and loud.)

I usually like to assign some kind of short conversation; the students introduce their partners or, in one case, they lie about their partners and then the partners set the record straight. This lets me know who is willing to do work, who plays well with others, and who already has a decent level of English.

Everybody is carefully studying everyone else and students are trying to figure out what they can get away with. Most students usually don’t push things too far in the first week. They’ll make a little noise, but usually the first week is the only time that every student actually does a project.

Then I’ve got the kids who just put their heads down and go to sleep. I usually invite them to leave and hilarity ensues.

That happened twice today. One kid was clearly surprised by my reaction–he strikes me as the kind of kid other teachers are happy to see fall asleep. Another kid tried to drop attitude, partly because he clearly thinks his English is already good enough. The first kid will be annoying, but I suspect he’ll eventually do something. The second kid will discover I don’t mind spending a long time after school watching him do work. The latest I’ve stayed is until 7:00 o’clock waiting for a student to finish a speech.I’ve been known to make deals: sleep now, and we’ll study later. The school’s pretty good about helping us enforce detention. He’ll also discover that his partners don’t like losing points whilst he’s sleeping. Finally, he’ll discover I can teach just as well from next to his desk as I can from the front of the room. I’m a lot louder there, too. He’ll also get called on a lot.

In the end, he’ll do his work because he wants a good mark and the kid who’s been watching carefully will become the worst student.

I’m in one of THOSE moods today, which means I’m probably in a culture shock down swing.

One of the things that hurts me with both languages and sport is that I’m prone to periodic bouts of brain lock. I can practice the basic set plays in basketball and memorize subjunctives and modals and various tenses described as “perfect” but when the actual play starts, and things are moving much faster and more chaotically than in practice, my brain just sort of stops and says “Okay, so now what?” More often than not I’m left standing in one part of the court just sort of blathering to myself. (This, by colossal coincidence, is a pretty apt description of my dating techniques as well.)

It is, I suspect, a form of panic. Rather than living in the moment and reacting to what actually is going on, my brain searches out the perfect thing to do and, not finding it, just takes a little vacation, but I usually pull myself together and move on (albeit, from the far end of the bench whilst I’m holding the stats clipboard trying to keep track of shots and rebounds).

That said, there have only been a few times in my life where I felt completely helpless as a result of brain lock. In one case, it was a the result of ignoring a series of signs, and my own nature, and hoping for the best (which is also a symptom of brain lock).

Back when I was working in Nou-machi, as a rule, I tried to avoid teacher trips. They typically took place in the summer and the staff of the school bussed off to some resort town and had a drunken good time whilst the parents were, for a short time anyway, actually in charge of their children.

I was usually invited to join the trips, but the people issuing the invitations were clearly only doing so out of courtesy. There were a lot reasons for this, part of it having to do with me being a foreigner, and part of it having to do with me working for the school board and not for the school (long, long story that).

One summer, though, in a fit of brain lock, I thought “Well, why not? What’s the worst that can happen?” and said yes. The English teachers I worked with, Miss Kato and The Beautiful Miss Takahashi (not her real name–for the record, that is the phrase She Who Must Be Obeyed used to describe her) talked up the trip, which was to a famous lake and ski resort in Fukushima Prefecture. They talked about all the stuff they were planning to do.

Then, at a PTA party, or some such random drinking event, I said I was looking forward to hanging out with all the other teachers and with Miss Kato and the Beautiful Miss Takahashi. They both gave me that look (which is apparently universal to all women all over the world) and explained that “hanging out” was pretty much not going to happen as it was not an English department trip. (Cue ice cold wind sounds, shrieking and horror music theme.)

At this point, the part of my brain that actually, on occasion functions, took the hint (DON’T GO! GET YOUR MONEY BACK! HELL, LET THEM KEEP THE MONEY! DON’T GO!) I also seem to remember complaining about that incident to my friend Charles who said something like “You know, whenever I start to feel like a part of the team, something always happens to remind me that I’m not.” In retrospect, this was his way of saying DON’T GO! GET YOUR MONEY BACK! HELL, LET THEM KEEP THE MONEY! DON’T GO!

I, of course, went on the trip because the large part of my brain that was locked up thought things would work out.

Long story short: things didn’t work out. We had an expensive, microscopic lunch and rain cancelled the one set of activities everyone was most looking forward to. Therefore, everyone was in a bad mood when we somehow ended up at a glass factory/museum. No one bothered to tell me how long we’d be there or that most of the teaching staff were going to a nearby bar. At that point, I was in the middle of the basketball court two movements behind in the set play, out of position and pretty much already blathering.

What I remember most about this incident was the feeling of panic and not knowing what to do. I was stuck for two days with people who clearly didn’t want me around and weren’t bothering to keep me informed. After a while I want back to the bus for a short nap. To make matters even more interesting, they’d stuck me off in a room by myself which is something that never, ever happens on a Japanese trip because the group is too important to them.

However, it did give me some time alone to recharge and settle down and get my brain working again (well, so to speak). A long soak in the hot spring bath helped a lot, too (almost as good a form of therapy as a proper haircut).

I ended up having a good time drinking with the principal and vice principal and didn’t have to pay for any of the beer, whiskey or sake.

Since then, I’ve managed to avoid school trips, although I did stumble across someone else’s once on a trip to Kyoto. (But that’s another odd story.)

A work related post today as tomorrow is the first day of teaching in a new school year here in Japan.

The start of a new school year brings a strange amount of stress here in Japan. Just a few weeks ago the old school year ended. You’ve had a short break and a shorter time to get ready. A few weeks ago you were telling junior high school students good luck in their future as ditch diggers–education is compulsory only until 9th grade–and then suddenly you’re combing through the lists of students assigned to your 10th grade class and going “Him? Really? Him again? And him? And him, too? Who the hell let them into high school? My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

My Reaction Upon Viewing My Student Lists.

Of course, I also accept that I’m probably the teacher that makes students swear when they discover I’m their teacher for the year. In fact, I often aspire to that.

Student A–Oh no! I’ve got Library.
Student B–(Points and laughs) You’ve got Library. Ha ha ha. SHUT UP! Ha ha ha.
Student A–AIEEEE! (Student A explodes.)
Student B–Wow!

(Note: My name, with two “L’s” and one “V” is about the most difficult name possible for Japanese to pronounce. In the Japanese version of Roman letters, it’s spelled/pronounced “Raiburi”; Library is “Raiburari”. Every now and then I get mail intended for the library. “Shut up” is a common phrase in some of my junior high classes.)

This year is especially odd as we have a new school building and three and a half new teachers. (One old veteran returned to the school last November after nine years away; I therefore consider him half new.) Although I’ve been at the office almost every day this week, it’s a different office. As crappy and dark and potentially toxic as my old office was, it was familiar. The crap was always in the same place–I had the same desk for 14 years. On the shelves above my desk were copies of the textbooks and a letter box stuffed with scratch paper and abandoned exam papers. Above that was a row of personal books and above that were copies of the Encyclopedia Americana from 1967. This means they were almost as old as I am and that they didn’t even include the moon landing.

Now, we’ve got shiny new rooms and shiny new desks and the old encyclopedias are stored away somewhere along with decades of dust and mildew. Our chairs are more comfortable and don’t have wheels that give off nerve shattering squeaks, but now our desks are crowded by desktop bookshelves and everyone can see us through large windows on one side of the office. Nothing has that lived-in look.

Even the old folks need maps to get around which makes us appear less than knowledgeable to the three and a half new people.

I’ll get used to it, though, especially when Pleasant gives way to Humid and the new air conditioners kick in. The old building had the world’s largest swamp cooler that worked until it got humid and cloudy.

I’ll also get used to the students, even those I expected to be digging ditches. They’ll be mixed with new students and I’m pretty good about leaving behind the old dust and mold, well except for what I carry with me.

Today I watched a group of Japanese high school students give speeches in English.

This is especially impressive because, according to an oft cited, and in some cases replicated survey in the 1977 edition of the Book of Lists, the number one fear people have is speaking before a group. This fear beats out insects, sickness and death. Jerry Seinfeld said “This means, for the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than giving the eulogy.”

Oddly, I’ve never had this fear. I’ve been nervous before a speech, but I’ve never been afraid of speaking before a group. (Speaking to people one on one, though, is closer to number one for me and fodder for another post.)

I vaguely remember acting as narrator for a Christmas production in early elementary school and doing various reading bits in church. I’ve given speeches before businessmen and Air Force personnel and even dabbled in acting. I’m pretty good at extemporaneous speaking and can, on occasion, make funny jokes. I don’t remember ever being afraid.

That said, I do understand the fear. I’ve become nervous during speeches when a joke failed or I wasn’t getting any response. In such cases I lose my rhythm and intonation and become more reliant on notes than I should be.

I gave one such speech last December to a group of junior high students who’d just finished watching the school’s annual English speech contest. It was an off-the-cuff speech so I started with a joke that I’d used on other occasions about knowing how much they love giving speeches. This time, though, the line got zero reaction. Then rather than just saying “Good job everybody. See you next year.” and running for cover, I made the terrible mistake of trying to save the speech, forgetting that 97% of the audience couldn’t understand a word I was saying and the other 3% couldn’t have cared less that I was saying anything. That just made matters worse. Eventually I was dragged away by a team of men armed with chains and a large hook.

There was no use defending the speech and since then I’ve happily participated in the joke about how bad it was, while secretly hoping it means I never have to give another speech like that again. (Hey, I said I was good at it; I didn’t say I liked doing it.)

That, though, hints at why I think people fear public speaking more than death. If you die, all your problems are finished one way or another. If you give a bad speech, you hear about it for a very long time and get to relive it a few more times.

I’ve just spent a fortnight staying up late and passing judgement on the work of young men who most likely won’t even read my comments. In some cases, I put more red ink on it than they put pencil marks.

We’re now in pass-backs, which is basically 10 minutes of writing answers on the board and passing out the marked exams followed by five minutes of reactions and trying to get everyone quieted down again. I’ve seen entire classes celebrate having the lowest average. I’ve seen students celebrate their low scores. I’ve had one student doubt that his low score was real because it was the highest test score he’d ever received. I’ve received and passed back tests with blood on them but no writing. I’ve even passed back a blank test that had been glued to the test behind it, because, apparently, the proctor fell asleep or knew it was unlikely the student would ever write anything on a test.

This period of celebration and hand-wringing is followed by a few minutes of answering questions from the handful of students whose parents will give them a hard time about their grades, followed by a half-hour of baby-sitting while the students enjoy free time. (My only limits on the free time: no fighting, no kissing, no sports, at least while I’m in the room because I don’t want to have to do paperwork.)

Eventually all this ends and I am suddenly left to my own devices. Which means I enter the post-marking malaise. My old schedule has been scrapped and I have to start remembering what I used to do in the evening before I marked exams. It’s especially difficult at the end of the school year–Note: Japan’s school year runs from April to March with only a short break between years–as different grades end at different times which means we are marking exams for one group and still teaching another.

That said, I can’t complain too much. With a few exceptions, my students are loud but not rowdy. Even the rowdy classes aren’t as bad as similar classes in the USA or the UK would be. (I’ve heard that even Australia and Canada have some, um, challenging groups of students.) The work is only crazy a few times a year, and crazy me decided to start a daily blog during that time, mostly to see if I could maintain the habit through a busy time.

Now that I’ve finished that for today, I have to figure out what to do next. I could start an online business, or write, or play free games online.