My First (Real) Day at Chizu JHS

Today was my first day of real school! Its also actually just my third day at school. I have yet to visit the elementary school either, so it feels strange, like I only have one school. I kinda wish I only had one school. I don’t know how people with like 9+ schools do it.

Anyway, I walked to school, in the rain again, and I guess I must have been a bit early because I didn’t pass any students. I got there at about 8:05 or 8:10am.

The bell rang at 8:15am, and in the teacher’s room we had morning announcements. I didn’t understand most of it, but I knew that today was testing day. I also knew that I had to give a speech in front of the whole school (all 157 students and about 21 teachers). After morning announcements the teacher’s room emptied quickly. I had no idea where people went, but a lot of them are homeroom teachers, so my guess is they went to homeroom. I sat anxiously at my desk until finally at 8:40 Kyoto-sensei (vice principal) showed me into the hall where the opening ceremony was. All the students and other teachers were already in place. Kyoto-sensei showed me where to stand, up at the front between her and Kocho-sensei (principal). I was told to wear a suit for the ceremony, but truthfully only me, the principal, and the vice principal were wearing jackets! Everyone else was in black and white (or neutral), but not necessarily collared button up shirts.

First, Kocho-sensei introduced me and sort of discussed how I was taking my predecessor’s place. Then it was my turn. I gave a pretty short speech, in Japanese:

Good morning! Nice to meet you.
My name is Anje Merkies. I am 24 years old. I come from Ontario, Canada.
Six years ago I was an exchange student in Osaka.
My hobbies are baking and photography.
From now on, let’s have fun together!
Please take care of me.

After that there was a lot of bowing and another speech from Kocho-sensei, which included a lecture on saying greetings loudly. And then more bowing.

Once the ceremony was over, the students went back to their classes for tests, and I was left mostly alone in the teacher’s room for the morning. At 12:30 it was lunch time. As the teacher across from me, N, put it, kyuushoku (school lunch) is scary! I was pretty confused about what to do; all the teachers had disappeared again and I didn’t even know where to get lunch, let alone eat it. So I waited it out, took a bathroom break, and when I came back Kyoto-sensei was sitting eating and told me I could eat with her and to get a lunch tray from the kitchen. We were also joined by one of the office ladies, which was nice because Kyoto-sensei ate her lunch in record speed and left the two of us alone before the OL had even sat down properly. Lunch today was bread, mikan (tangerine), milk, some sort of vinegary seaweed/cabbage salad, pumpkin with spaghetti sauce and cheese, and some sort of spaghetti seaweed thing. I managed to drink most of the milk, eat the mikan, half the bread, half the salad, and all of the pumpkin. I didn’t even try the spaghetti, mostly because I ran out of time, but to be honest I was terrified of the thing the whole time and was rather relieved. I wrapped my bread up for later though, because it was yummy.

After lunch, the OL showed me how to clean my tray and put away the dirty dishes. After lunch was a short break period, so all the teachers came back to the room. At this time a saleslady also came around, selling yakult and other yogurt drinks.

Lunch ended at 1:30, after which were more tests for the poor students. I ran out of things to do and started typing this blog. I spent the rest of the afternoon researching games and activities. At 3:40pm I had just started stuffing my face with a cookie when J-sensei came and asked if I was coming to the assembly! I didn't even know there was another one. This one seemed to be about sports awards, the upcoming sports day, and some kind of lecture about the school entrance area. Afterwards, I returned to my desk, but all the other teachers were elsewhere, much to the surprise of about 6 students who came in looking for someone and were met with only myself.

A little later, J-sensei brought a student to me, I guess she is a first year doing the speech contest in September. I had to pick a speech for her, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was instructed to pick something easy, so I chose some story about a red demon who wanted to be friends with children. 

I was hoping the rain would let up, but it didn't stop, so I decided to go home a little while after. As I left, three girls waved and shouted goodbye from an upstairs classroom.