First day of school and one more gaijin moment

Today was the first day of school at ni-chuu (not my school) but I am there until Friday. this morning there was some school cleaning because they just got back from the holidays, and that was very interesting. Yesterday Ishida-sensei told me to bring a towel for cleaning, and I assumed he meant that I needed a towel to clean with (dust, wipe, etc). As it turned out, I needed a towel to wrap around my head, while cleaning, like a bandana of sorts, but bigger. Its still cotton, but a rectangle instead of a square. Ishida-sensei called it a Japanese towel yesterday, and I figured, a towel bought in Japan is a Japanese towel, right? NOPE! I am not sure why they wear them on their heads, I guess to cover their hair? Men/boys do it too, so its not a girl thing. Anyway, I had brought just like a hand towel from my house, so there I was standing in the library holding this random green towel watching the kids clean. Then Kovayashi-sensei told one of the kids in Japanese to show me what to do. He was sweeping, so he just looked at me and continued sweeping as he looked at me, to make sure I understood how to sweep. Then he handed me the broom and watched to make sure I was sweeping correctly. I also missed the memo about how teachers change clothes before they clean, so I was there in my nicer pants and button down shirt, cleaning.

Kobayashi-sensei asked if I had ever cleaned the floor before, and I said at my house, yes, but not at school. I explained about custodians, and she told the students who were on their hands and knees cleaning the floor, and they just looked at me and were like "hontou?!" (really?) I just nodded, and they were in utter disbelief that kids do not clean schools in the US.

After cleaning, there was an assembly, and all the students and faculty were there and after listening to the principal talk and the school song (a student played the piano and the music teacher conducted!) I had the pleasure of being called on stage to introduce myself. To the whole school. Remember that this is not my school, but still, I got to go up there and say my name, etc. I did it in Japanese, too, so that was insane (I had help)

After the assembly I had about an hour to kill in the teachers' room and I spent most of that trying to figure out how to get the internet working on my computer. I had teh cable plugged in and it was just not working at all, and then I looked under the desk and figure out that the other end was not connected to anything! Duh. I never managed to figure out what to plug the other end into, so I just made some worksheets that I can use later and I typed in my journal of sorts. Hopefully I can make it the rest of the week without internet, but tomorrow, I think I will have a lot of time to kill between classes, and it would be nice to be able to go online.

The rest of the day was fine, but I should tell about lunch. Wow. I should mention that the students serve lunch. Each homeroom has a schedule, I think, and they put on doctorish white coats, hair nets, and masks, and they get the food, carry it to their classroom and serve it! Craziness! Anyway, I have been dreading the whole school lunch thing because I heard that the "protein" can be very random at times. Guess what we had today? You guessed it, SQUID!! Thankfully, it was not the dreaded whole grilled squid on a stick, because that would have been bad. It was rings and they were fried. They tasted OK, but I have some mental issues with certain sea creatures where I imagine them whole and swimming around, and it freaks me out. The worst are the tentacles, because they still have the little suckers on them, and I really cannot handle that yet. Normally the taste is fine, but my brain gets in the way. There was also salad, tofu, soup, rice and milk for lunch, so plenty of food. More than plenty, in fact. I could not finish all of mine! I also offered my milk to the students and like 6 of them got up and had a mini janken (rock, paper, scissors) tournament to decide who got to drink my milk. I guess they are growing kids, so more food is better. I almost drank my milk, because in my stupidity this morning, I forgot a bottle of water, so I was incredibly thirsty by lunch, but I decided that I would be better off thirsty than having some...issues if you catch my drift. The kids also think it is funny when foreigners do not like certain foods. I did not advertise my issues with squid, but someday the students at my school will see it, and it will be the day that they serve the whole squid on a stick. I am sure I will end up tasting nattō at some point, and that will be a hit, too. Nattō is like fermented soybeans, and it is very smelly, and very popular, and the kids love to ask foreigners if they like nattō. I got asked once today. If you say yes, they will be astounded, and want to watch you eat some, and if you say no, they will be like, "oh of course, cause you are a foreigner so you won't like nattō." Anyway that was a random tangent, but I am sure Nattō will get its own post at some point in the future.

Alrighty, so on Wednesdays I go to city hall at 3:30 for a meeting with Sakaguchi-san (my supervisor) so I left school at 3:15 today. Tonight I will buy a "Japanese towel"