Sugoi Gaijin

So today was sports competition, which meant that all the kids involved with sports (more than half the school) would be competing against other schools in the region. This also meant that I had no idea what the hell was going on. All I knew was, I had better show up to some sports meet unless I wanted to be in big trouble for taking Saturday off. So I did what I thought was best, I woke up at 6AM and got to school at around 7:30 AM. I didn’t see any other students around and that worried me. Luckily, Kyoto Sensei and some other teachers were in the office, so they definitely spotted me coming to work (it’s all about appearance). I still had no idea what to do, so Kyoto Sensei offered me to go with him to the volleyball tournament. I wanted to see the baseball game, but since I had no f*ing idea where that was, what the heck, I joined him…and that’s when the fun began!

We actually walked to the local community center. It was about a 20 minute walk, but it went by quickly, because we talked the entire time. I know what you’re thinking, me talking in Japanese. It would have been incomprehensible to the average human being, but Kyoto Sensei knows a bit of English too, so between both of our shortcomings in each other’s languages, we managed to dish out a really long conversation about Ramadan and the School and how hard the kids work, you know, teacher talk.

I walk in to the gym and all my students are really surprised to see me and are even more surprised to see the shirt that I’m wearing: “すげ！！ (cool!)” They all say. It’s a really popular local shirt featuring the nickname of a popular baseball player. Anything that exemplifies my knowledge and support for local customs is always well received, as well as, surprising. I get a lot of, “where the heck did he learn that??” or “how does he know about that??” It’s like, because I’m gaijin, I don’t know how to ask questions, or people don’t tell me things. For those of you who are interested in what kind of shirt it was; I was sporting a WASEDA shirt (A high school team that won a baseball championship or something…I wasn’t paying that much attention) where on the back the nickname chinese character (or Kanji) was written and that said Iron Handkerchief (or something like that, really I wasn’t paying attention!). The interesting part is coming, I swear, I just needed to build up the story a bit…

Also, as soon as I walk in, Kyoto Sensei leads me to the stage where distinguished guests and important people sit and ushers me to grab a chair and I’m like, “are you serious?” He says, “why not?” So I say, “whatever,” in English though…I’m not quite that skilled in Japanese…yet. After a while of watching the kids practice, I guess Kyoto Sensei got a bit bored and asked me to explore the place with him. I was bored too, so I say, “what the heck,” but it japanese it came off more like, “I’d be glad to.” So we start walking around and he finds an automatic blood pressure measuring machine. He instructs me to sit down and take my blood pressure. Of all the odd things I’ve had to do in Japan, having my blood pressure taken in front of my boss is a new one. So I sit down and get a score slightly higher that the normal 120/80, so I say, “whoa whoa whoa, one more time!”

I slow down my breathing and take the test again and get a score below 120/80 (phew, I was freaking out a little there!). I almost with the story ended there, but Kyoto Sensei says, “my turn!” and takes a go at the blood pressure machine. I’m not going to reveal what his score was, but I kinda muttered the words “exercise” and “need” in japanese. I didn’t even want to bother with congugation, I was so embarassed that we were sharing this private information. Oh man…only in Japan you guys!

Just as an aside, my Kocho Sensei and Kyoto Sensei (Principal and Vice Principal respectively) are the coolest people I know here. Anytime they see me they try to talk to me in either English or Japanese and try to make sure I’m doing ok and adjusting and stuff. We also do crazy shit together like compare blood pressure, discuss colorful japanese vocabulary, and even participate in the kids’ relay races. I really can’t narrow it down to big events, it’s all the little things that just make a person feel at ease. None of the teachers really talk to me; there’re like 4 or 5 that I’ve never talked to at all, so when people go out of their way to have a 2 minute conversation that takes 15 minutes because you’re looking up every other word in the dictionary, it really means a lot. So, I’m really lucky to have such awesome Kocho and Kyoto Sensei (did I just pull an English Grammar rule on Japanese words??? I can just hear Sara go Oh no you di-in’t).

So how did sports day go? Well, long story short (as if this weren’t long enough), Our boys Volleyball team came in first (they only played one other team, that totally got OWNED). Our girls team however, got OWNED. I learned a few new cheers in the process and I met one of the students’ mothers and first thing she said to me (before ‘hello’ or exchanging names) was “nice to meet you!” It caught me off guard. After the game, I was confused again, so I went home, when I realized I had made plans to hang out with a friend at the place I just left (the beach…yeah I work near the beach). So she and her JTE come all the way back to pick me up and on the way back to the beach I see my kids playing soccer and I’m thinking (holy crap, was I suppossed to go to more events? I think I’m in trouble!!!) But I didn’t have the heart to tell the teacher to pull over. So I went on the boat tour with them and even got in the group shot. There were more events planned, but I had the teacher drive me back to the community center. (Yes, I know, I’m an asshole)

But guess what?? As soon as I got back to the community center all the soccer games are over and I missed it. (Damnit!!!) So not only did I waste the time of my friend and her teacher, but I also missed the game I was supposed (and kinda wanted) to see! HOWEVER, people saw me there, including, my English Teacher Partner Person. She asks, “did you see the game?” My response: “It was amazing!!!” Remember, presence is everything. She offers me a ride back to the school and my Kyoto Sensei is like, “you’re back? I thought I said you could go home!”

Why am I such an idiot!? Of course he said that, that’s why I went home, I would never have gone home otherwise! I have got to stop f*ing second guessing myself! But it’s kinda hard to, with the whole language barrier and all! He also said that instead of coming in to work on Sunday, he was giving me a Mandatory Sleep Day! Who wants to take bets on whether or not I second guessed that statement and came in to school ON TIME (7:30 AM) on Sunday (or Mandatory Sleep Day). The odds are 5:1 that I came to school.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 30th, 2006 at 10:53 am and is filed under In School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.