WHAT COLOR?

Today is wednesday so it was elementary school day, aka shogakko, todays school was Tatsuno. The hardest part is just getting out of bed, everytime i go i know its gonna be busy, 4-5 classes with wild monkeys. Everytime i feel like calling in sick, but somehow i pull myself together and go to school. This morning was one of those days, and i think i am slowly going later and later and later. I used to arrive by bike at around 820, then it became 830, and now 835, oh well at least it isnt so bad now that i have pretty much all the classes planned for, just got pick whats on my teaching menu.

Had some of my regular teachers they were great as usual. Things went like clockwork,5th grade rad, 6th grade awesome, 2nd grade cute, wish i could take the kids home. Then there was the new 3rd grade teacher, always a mystery with the new teacher, and ah damn they cant all be great so this one was totally weak, kids out of control, they didnt listen to her, even the principal came in and she went to even more panic mode. Oh my, seemed like she was trying to hide from the kids or something, some people arent cut out to be teachers, kinda harsh, or they need to get some serious training or a backbone, these kids were wild like monkeys. But in defense of the teacher, she was handling over 30 kids because the other teacher, um, went somewhere else. Anyways enough rant, now on to the good stuff.

At lunch time i gotta eat with kids, so today was with the 5th grade kids, the menu not bad, salmon, rice, noodles, seaweed, and milk. Usually before i didnt know how to interact with the kids so much, mm .. i didnt speak much japanese and they didnt speak much english, so what to do. So recently i always brought a pen and paper to class to do a little lunch time interview. I asked their names, or what kinda drinks they liked, or color, or food, or team, or whatever. Today I just went with the names. Kids would have names like "Senba, Terumi, Kouki" and they would tell me their names and i would write it down, but i would pretend that i have a hearing problem and (i kinda do, because when they say their names fast, i have no idea what it is) then twist their name into some funny japanese name. So for Ms. Senba, i called her "sembe" which means japanese cracker, then the other boy "kouki" turned into "kansai kuko" which is the local airport. Then poor "Terumi" i butchered his name into teriyaki mayonaise tomato salad burger. Hahaha ... all the kids were rolling, good times at lunch time.

For the last class it was the 4th grade kids teaching them color. I was a bit tired, but the kids genki energy got me going. Had a new teacher who wore the tackiest green 80s suit i have ever seen, but he was a cool guy and i got him to work so it was all good. So for the lesson i was screwing around with random ideas, so i thought how lame color cards are, so i popped out my wallet and asked kids what color this 1000yen (10 bucks) bill was, blue , the kids went nuts and mobbed me like it was a "new kids on the block" concert. Then i settled the youngins down, then proceeded to pull out the 5000yen bill (50 bucks) purple, then the kids went even more nuts with more kids joining the mosh pit, then lastly i went with the big bucks and pulled out the 10000yen bill (100 bucks) and it was an all out assault by the kids, geez! And that was just the begining of class, got so loud that some of the other poor kids were plugging their ears with their fingers, ha ha. So it was onto reviewing the colors, so i brought my bag of goodies this time and instead of using the lame color cards i proceeded to pull out drinks and treats and toys for colors. Mmmm ... we had CC Lemon for yellow, Grape Fanta for purple, Doraemon for blue, King Kong for black, Qoo Orange juice for orange, Pocky for red, and so on. It was quite a riot the rest of the class as well and so fun!

Then as i said goodbye to the kids and they departed one by one all the jumping and screaming and smiles were all gone. There was no one left, i was only left with an empty music room with a bag of goods, color cards, a notebook, and a key to lock up the room. Then i thought to myself its gonna be like this in about 3 months. No more dancing around with the kids, no more joking around. The kids will be gone and i will miss them. Realization kinda just hit me there.