Welcome Friday

Today is the second official day for the new teachers. Yesterday we sat in the cold gym for an hour while they introduced themselves to the students and did general opening ceremony stuff. Today is the more enticing prospect of a welcome party. But standing between me and lots of food and beer is the new students entrance ceremony.

So, good news, the gym is warm. It is not the scene from Narnia I was expecting. The bad news; I am sitting next to an industrial heater and feel I may pass out from the fumes...and yet it is not THAT warm. I also made the mistake of wearing my black suit skirt, which is very cute, but only good for standing events, as when I sit down it tends to disappear, revealing rather too much flesh for a hall full of parents. Thus I have spent the last 90 minutes squirming in my chair wrestling to keep the hem line below my mid-thigh. I must have looked like a bored child.

Well, the ceremony was long and the speeches were longer, but generally not a bad ceremony. This year there is a mere 69 students, compared to the 130 odd we had when I first arrived in 2003, which is sad for the school, but means there are only half the amount of names to read, so the ceremonies get shorter and shorter, and when living in the land of ceremony, this can only be a good thing. I like the fact that the speeches are read from a little piece of folded paper, so you can see it coming to an end, but there is one man, who always makes a speech at our school who always, always, always finishes his piece of paper and then goes off at a random tangent telling us all his thoughts of the day. I have wondered many times if he asks if this is ok, if the headmaster is happy that he does it, or if anyone else finds it as arrogant as I do. Everyone else sticks to their little prepared speech, why can't he??

After the ceremony was over, I found myself stuck in the PTA meeting. I have no idea how I got there. We were told to stay in our seats, so I did. But one by one, all the other teachers slowly disappeared. Then all of a sudden I was trapped, listening to advice on how to make my child study. Every time someone got to the end of a speech, I tried to leave, but then the next person was on their feet and talking. There was no way I was getting out, so I had inadvertently subjected myself to another hour of speeches. Sad thing is I have a sneaking suspicion I may have done exactly the same thing last year.

After a quick dash home to change into an outfit suitable for sitting on the floor, I made my way to Naria for the welcome party. As expected it was good food of voluminous quantity and constantly running beer. Even the speeches were quite entertaining as one girl managed to say to the new teachers, "please only stay a short time", instead of "welcome to our school". That's what you get for speaking fancy Japanese. Ms S was on top form of silliness and we giggled in the corner with the new office girl and somehow never got round to speaking to the new teachers.