Contemporary Happenings

Have to take a quick break from vacation stories to relate up-to-date news.

Around this time, teachers are reassigned to new schools. While it's typical to stay at a school for 3 years, sometimes the duration is much longer [if they can work out a deal with the administration] or much shorter. Accordingly, one of my favored teachers is leaving to head all the way down to Akashi. Waaah! And my beloved Kyoutou-sensei [VP] is leaving after only a year! I am in complete shock about the VP! When he first arrived, he made me incredibly uncomfortable by using his 10 stock English phrases on me everyday; "You changed your hairstyle-- how beautiful." Which is really nice, but hearing it every single day made me feel like the butt of a joke. As the months progressed, he became more comfortable and expanded his English usage. He became one of my favorite people-- he's friendly, always polite, interesting, and has a sense of humor [often lacking in Eng/J language exchanges]. And now he's leaving! It's horrible!

The only plus at the moment is the whole seat change thing. See, the teachers can't keep their usual seats-- if a teacher is becoming a 2nd year homeroom teacher, he needs to move the the 2nd year hm row. This means my L teacher will no longer be my neighbor. And since the teachers were all worried about me "needing" an English speaker, they're giving me Ishii-sensei! Hooray!!! Here's hoping it's not an empty promise.