swivel

And the colleague saw them sitting next to me talking. After the students left, she ran into me, excited and extremely happy, “They are the ‘tits’ you told me the other day! They are so adorable, and I felt their delicate, charming vibes like a pair of tiny birds as you perfectly described!”

I affectionately but secretly call two of my former students who graduated “tits” (as you call those tiny birds), and I once talked about the name I gave them to a young colleague, and today was the date that the students happened to visit me at school.

Over the last 4 years being an EFL teacher in a Japanese high school myself, I’ve been asking my colleagues if they’ve heard of Juneteenth as a public holiday or a US independence day (as a foil of or alternative to the July 4), none of them appears to know the date and its significance.

Before showing “Hairspray Live!” in class, I distributed an article on Juneteenth, showed the library scene from “Hidden Figures,” and explained the students a brief history on segregation in the 1960s US. But I guess they haven’t figured out how they are connected to each other yet.

In Cebu. Over the last five days I’ve read 3-4 books about the Philippines and people from/in the country in Japanese. I wish I could share some of the insights with students, who are taking English lessons with Filipina/o teachers.

The most recent topic he brought (tho it’s the 2nd or 3rd time at least) was how easy for him to understand Trump‘s speech, while implying he generally favors the president. And of course I was being offended and he did not care.

There is a part time guy at work, who is supposed to help us with computer stuff, and he likes bragging about his EFL ability. So he sometimes comes to me (an EFL teacher) with an uninteresting news article just to try to convince me that he‘s good at reading English.

On Valentine’s day, it’s a custom for fellow female teachers to distribute chocolates to male colleagues. And I feel pressured to give such gifts though I don’t.

Turned out that the destination is the Philippines, specifically Cebu island, famous for a inexpensive short-term option for Japanese EFL students to study abroad. My knowledge of the place is mainly as occupied by the empire and there was a JP military-affiliated sex slavery facility tho.

When I called in, the head teacher was a bit surprised to hear me saying that I was about to take a day off. He sounded like, “isn’t it an hour off or something shorter?” because I usually take a last minute break as only for a fragment of the work day.

Reading after months later, it reads even more confusing; “colleagues,” not “colleges.”

I no longer can afford to travel abroad on my salary. So I had slightly hoped that I could have gone on to there as part of my current job if that international whatever program would have survived, but in any case it didn’t work out that way.

Opening this account for the first time in several months, I guess I should write on here more often.

It’s probably the best if they could send off a permanently hired teacher, at least someone who is secured a position in this school.

The interesting part is that since I’m a contract worker under the whole prefectural high school system, when I leave Japan in late March, I wouldn’t know which school I would be working from April. And I might need to move to a new place right after I come back.

Because of the weak yen, the international exchange program to send students to somewhere in the south was too costly so that it was called off and they’ve now changed the destination to somewhere in Asia in March. I might be going to be the teacher in charge to take the students out. Could be fun.

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #838,152!

This is the final week, which means I made several sets of exams and am now going to grade them. It’s always hectic to be a school teacher here but it’s even worse during the grading period. I am forced to learn how bad I’m at teaching.

A colleague regularly wears the so-called national flags of Japan and the US as if they were hair accessories when they teach students. They don’t care about the imperialist legacies and symbolism. Scared in this authoritarian settings that I can’t even talk about it yet.

So when they participated or handed out an assignment, colleges appreciate my teaching (not the student’s engagement). I think that’s the reason why they didn’t show their interest in studying.

There’s the student who needs extra attention to focus on class activities, so I call their name as necessary to show my caring. And I didn’t find it particularly bothersome but it seems like having them engage in anything was unusual until now.

While the university I graduated changed their hosing service from Gmail to Microsoft, it seems like I’ve lost all of my undergraduate writings except one of the thesis that I once submitted to the graduate admission. Umm. 🤨

A colleague told me that she liked students in this school because they were “well disciplined.” I found the students explicitly authoritarian, nationalistic, and xenophobic. So I actually agreed with her that they were disciplined indeed as if they had been in the military. And I hate that.

I want to be a friend to this colleague who appears gay to me while passing as a straight man. The thing is I probably look cishet to him so that I don’t know how I could figure this out without disclosing myself too much in the workplace. I’m really hoping him being gay. Otherwise I’m so alone.

Everything is so dichotomously gendered and it hasn’t ended yet as long as I‘m in school. I‘m so tired of everything in pink and blue.

There was the commencement ceremony. So my colleague who is the homeroom teacher prepared flowers for the whole class, a pink bouquet for a girl a blue one for a boy, and I was asked to had them one by one. In return, students gave me flowers all in pink.

Today we made dummy certificates with cupboards and ribbons that’ll be used at its rehearsal. Everyone seems to enjoy the whole process of making a typically Japanese school like ceremonial event. I don’t know how I should feel about it yet.

If you are seen not following the decree of the national anthem and flag, you’ll be fired. I also have to follow the strict local dress code though I’ll partially skip that part since I don’t have that kind of garment.

For the first time in three years since I became a teacher in a Japanese school, I’m going to attend a full scale commencement after the covid. So once again they’ll force school staff to sing the anthem and pay the tribute to the national flag both of which are the symbols of the Imperial Japan.

It’s part of my official job as a teacher under the prefectural supervision, so it may or may not been published as it is if it is deemed too skeptical about their policy to completely rely on big tech companies.