Seito

Yesterday, I meant to leave at 4:30 for the second day in a row, but ended up staying with students until 6 afterschool. And I have no regrets about having done so.

Monday, I headed up to the san-nensei hallway to see if some of my favorite 35HR girls were up there studying. Instead, I ran into two 35 boys and two 33 boys. The two were from the "boy's class" I had while they were second years, infamous for the one student that was basically sexually harassing me during classtime. Needless to say, I didn't necessarily have a good impression of any of the boys in that class. But they totally brought me around.

I don't know how it really began, I think I might've asked how the English proficiency test that they took on Sunday went, but from there we ended up talking about music, movies, famous people, languages, university and what they were going to study, and of course, boys and girls and boyfriends and girlfriends. It was then that I realized that I haven't been taking advantage of my unique position at the school as much as I used to. For those boys, I was an 'approachable' girl, because I wasn't Japanese so I'm not afraid or shy about hanging out with them. Plus, as an ALT, I'm not quite a full-fledged teacher, and am also younger than most of the other teachers, so they can relate to me better.

The one thing was that, after I suggested to one of the boys that he text me in French after he graduates, another one asked if we could "asobimashou" i. e. play together after they graduated. I agreed, and then one says, "Tequila!" followed by chimes of "Beer!" Ah, they are adolescent boys after all. At first I tried to point out that even if they were graduates, they were still 2 years younger than the legal limit, but I realized that that would've been hypocritical, so I trailed off with a "Well, as long as you're not in uniform..." Then, when we started packing up and heading home, they thanked me "for my time." I thought that was really sweet.

Yesterday kinda went the same way: I had to wait for the teachers to return to the teacher's room from a meeting that I didn't know was happening, to stand guard against the students having full access to said room. 5 o'clock hit, and I 'osaki-ni-shitsurei shimashita'-ed myself out of there. But, I got to the hallway linking the two buildings and heard the girls playing basketball in the gym to my left.

Bouyed by the great experience of connecting with the boys the previous day, I mounted the steps and walked over. The 6 girls playing swiveled their heads as one as I got to entrance, followed by greetings of welcome. I stepped in and for a while just watched them practice their shots. After a while, their coach came and they began various drills. I stayed to the side and chatted with two of the girls: one the manager and one a player who wasn't feeling well that day, punctuated by my eardrums getting nearly blown out by the signal going off every 6 minutes per drill. When they started shooting practice again, I decided to shoot some hoops too.

It's been a while. I think the last time I did so in a real gym was in high school, over 7 years ago. I'm a horrible shot. But, I didn't care. At some point during it, I started enjoying it. Shooting, dribbling, running after the ball after it rebounded off the backboard. The whole time, I thought about Pin and his love for this game, and I understood a bit. I'm certainly not going to play in a game anytime soon, but before I left, I asked them to teach me to how to shoot a ball.

I stayed til their practice was over, and after they stood in a circle, bowed and said thank you to their coach with an "arigatou gozaimashita" (something that I'm a bit familiar with, having to do so in tea ceremony club), they came over to me, stood in a circle and thanked me with the same Japanese formality. I felt a bit over-whelmed since I thought I was just being "jama" and in the way, interrupting their practice and all. But they thanked me for my time (just like the boys) in English, and invited me to come again.

How can you not love these kids?