friday in naruto

While biking to work today, I realized that I had my camera handy as I was about to board the ferry that takes me to Naruto Jr. High. The ship runs about every 20 minutes and it's free to use. There is another way to get to this particular school but it involves crossing a long bride and a major highway, so I'm pretty thankful for my ferry ride.


It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the view of the harbor as I waited for the ship to take off.


Sometimes the ride is crowded with cyclists but today it was just me and an older woman who looked like she was running some errands.


Today I taught four classes and all of them were doing mid-year speaking tests. What this means is that I had one-on-one interviews with 125 middle school (chugakko) students. This can make for a long day but I really like it when I have the chance to get to know everyone a little better. After the tests, I ate lunch with 3B- one of my favorite homerooms. These are third year English students that are really enthusiastic about English as well as my existence. They are responsible for the majority of the letters that I recieve and it's always so good to come to school and chat with them, especially after a long week.


School lunches in Japan are interesting. The students are responsible for serving food to their own homerooms so every day during lunch time the desks are rearranged as some designated servers put aprons and face masks in order to give out the meal of the day. When I tell them that students in America don't do this, they are pretty much in disbelief. It's even crazier for them to hear that the students don't clean the classrooms after school. Because it's such a tradition here it really blows their minds that schools in America don't do the same.


This group mentality brings about a kind of family atmosphere within these kinds of situations. I often feel a strange sense of security that I'm welcomed into this tighly-knit community of people. Although sometimes that feeling of belonging is the same thing that makes me homesick for my previous life in America. What always prevails though is the kindness and sincerity of the Japanese people.


After lunch I headed to the gym to attend the last 10 minutes of of a self-defense seminar. I listened to ten minutes of someone speaking Japanese and then everyone bowed to each other and said 'arigatou gozaimashita' for about five minutes. And sometimes at moments like this I wonder how I got here, but really it's just another day in Japan.