My Heart Attack School
I call one of my elementary schools, that I teach at, the “Heart Attack School”, because I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack every time I go there. It’s always for a different reason though, this time was particulary special though. You see last week, I missed my train and came to school a little bit late. I wasn’t so late that I missed my first class or anything, but I did miss the morning meeting they always have and one teacher even commented, “we were worried you weren’t going to make it!” This was very bad. Punctuality is excruciatingly important in Japan and I had made a major mistake by showing up late. But today, I was going to make it up by finally handing out my Omiyage. You see Omiyage is like an obligatory gift you give out when you first arrive to your new job location or when you come back from vacation (like a souvenier in that case). It’s normally just a small snack you pass around to the teachers.
Well, me in my brilliance decided to pass out the Italian Biscotti I had been saving particularly for this school (though never managed to hand out). It was a perfect rasberry biscotti with a single edge glazed in rasberry icing and wrapped in gold foil. It looked perfect. All the teachers were oohing and aahing as I passed it out with a smug look on my face. They all asked what it was and I would casually explain: “It’s biscotti. It’s Italian. You dip it in coffee and it’s quite delicious!” I thought this would win them over. Then the worst thing imaginable had happened. I had arrived to a desk, reached into my box, and realized, I had run out of biscotti.
Yes, in my haste, I had forgotten to count how many Biscotti I had and how many teachers there were. 18 Biscotti and 24 teachers. I was officially F&*@#$!!! There was nothing I could do about it! I couldn’t just take them back! I also had to get some more Omiyage fast, but how??? I ran back to my desk and sank in to my chair, hoping no one would notice me. But to my luck, someone else was passing out Omiyage too! That bastard! So someone, a newcomer, would be able to get EVERYONE an omiyage, but stupid me, wouldn’t and I would look so bad comparitively. I mean it’s bad enough that I didn’t have enough, but it looks even worse when someone else does have enough. It was becoming an increasingly worse situation.
The teachers didn’t make it any better either. The ones who did get biscotti were all coming up to my desk and bowing “thank you! Thank you so much for the gift! I love it!” and I was like “No problem!” but inside I was thinking go away! Go away before someone sees you and notices they didn’t get one!!! My heart was pounding. I don’t know if you know this, but not giving omiyage to someone is a tremendous insult and then factor in the language barrier and you can see the train wreck I was approaching. Why oh why didn’t I count beforehand???? Then the morning meeting began. I thought I had gotten away with it. I mean, after the morning meeting, everyone goes to class, then I could sneak out (I didn’t have a class the first period), run to the nearest store, buy some gifts and come back and hand them out without anyone knowing. But right before the morning meeting ends, one of the teachers goes, “Thank you Matt Sensei and (whoever the other person was) for the wonderful gifts! Thanks Matt Sensei for the Biscotti!”
My heart literally stopped. I had been outed. There was no turning back now, I had to face my teachers and explain the situation. That’s when Kocho Sensei (The Principal) looks confused and says, “hey, I didn’t get any biscotti!” Holy shi–… Of all the people to forget, I also happened to forget the Principal of the MFing school! I was really going to be the hated at that school. Believe me, what happened next…pandemonium would be too soft a word to use, because it was a complete disaster. Everyone was like “えええええええ？？” (”What???”) “You didn’t get one?” I was completely flustered and kept stuttering “すみません！！” (I’m so sorry!) And I tried to explain the situation in the most broken Japanese possible, but no one could really hear me, because they were all chatting as if this were the biggest intrigue to hit the school in a while. BREAKING NEWS: Gaijin insults 4 faculty members where two of the faculty members were the Kocho Sensei (Principal) and the Kyoto Sensei (Vice Principal)! Did I mention that I ALSO FORGOT THE VICE PRINCIPAL? Can you believe the shitstorm I created???
Ok, as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, one of the teachers was insisting the Kocho Sensei take her biscotti. “Here take mine! Please, I insist!” Inside I was screaming STOP! STOP! YOU’RE ONLY MAKING THINGS WORSE!!! That actually was the lowest point; a teacher giving up her Omiyage for the Kocho Sensei. I was waiting for the part where God just ends my life and spares me the ensuing embarassment. Of course, that never happened, but you can see now why the school is called My Heart Attack School. Trust me, other incidents (thought not as bad as this one) happen all the time. It was a couple minutes before the teachers began to settle down again and my face was completely red from embarassment; I just knew I had to do something to make things better. I had the first period off, so I knew what I had to do.
If you guessed amend the situation, you’d be wrong, that happened later. First I had to make the situation even worse. You see, I eat lunch with the kids every time I’m at this school, it’s written right there on the board which class I’m having lunch with. This was also the day I had to tell the Head Teacher that I wouldn’t be able to eat with the kids, because it’s Ramadan and I would be fasting. I thought the omiyage would help soften the blow. What an awfully retarded plan that was! I had to tell him anyways and he was really disheartened by the news. So disheartened, in fact that instead of erasing that part of my schedule (lunch) from the board, he crossed it out as if to explicitly show I was cancelling on a bunch of innocent, unsuspecting kids. Who does that? It was so noticeable! Every teacher later on inquired about why that part of the schedule was crossed out and the Head Teacher would go into a nice explanation complete with furtive glances.
So now I made the situation better, right? Wrong, I had to make it even worse. You see, I also forgot my laptop, with all my lesson plans on it, so I had to make up an entire new one, but all my teaching materials were at my base school (walking distance away, but still I had to get there)! So after breaking the Ramadan news, I also informed him that I would be leaving the school to pick up some teaching materials I forgot. You probably already guessed that, leaving the school during school hours wasn’t allowed, but he could see that it was important to me, so he let it slide. “The school clerk will drive you.” Ok, that was absolutely the low point for me. After insulting the Kocho Sensei, Kyoto Sensei, Head Teacher, some other teachers, and the students, I wasn’t about to have someone be my cheuffer. “No thank you.” Was all I could muster, “it’s alright, I can walk…I’ll run, I’ll do whatever, I’ll make it back on time, I promise!” I was not about to make the situation even worse than I already had.
By the way, mad props if you made it down this far, it’s a long story, I know. But you see, I had an alterior motive. I did go to the school to get some much needed teaching materials, but I did make a detour to a Convenient Store and bought some omiyage for everyone I couldn’t get omiyage for. I had to alleviate the situation somehow. Kocho Sensei was laughing so hard when he saw what I brought him. He kept telling me, “it’s ok! Seriously, it’s ok, you didn’t have to get anything!” But I was like, I insist! And I marched over to his desk and placed it there. There was no way he was going to say no. The lesson also turned out really well. With my trusty Copy Machine, I managed to pull a lesson out of nowhere for 5th and 6th graders. Crisis averted, but I probably shaved off 20 years from my life and added a few grey hairs as a result. Holy Crap, i still can’t believe I survived today.
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