Listening, Learning, Laughing (and bowing, of course)

When thinking about it now, there is surprisingly little to tell about these first two real school days. In a way I think the Friday with its 'cooking game' was more intensive than Monday and Tuesday, which doesn't mean that they were bad or boring, quite the opposite. But they went very nicely, smoothly, apart maybe from the fact that I still haven't gotten my password for the school computers.

It's little things that I now remember and which are much more interesting than the basic 'went to that lesson with that teacher who was blablabla'.

For example the two girls who came back into the classroom after the first lesson was over and stood before me, hesitating, glancing at me, the teacher, then back at me, before finally one asked quietly, speaking very carefully: ”Where do you come from?” and her friend showing me the German flag stickers on her mobile after I had said that I was German (but coming here from Finland).

Or the guy whom I had never seen before who said 'Ohayoo!' (Good Morning) to me out of the blue in the little convenient store in the school. When I passed him again in the aisle he also asked me where I came from and then told me that Ai, my tutor, had told him about me.

Or the way other students that I had been introduced to by Ai were greeting me eagerly in the hallways, even if we'd just met for a few seconds before and they probably don't remember my name correctly and I don't remember theirs at all.

Or the old guy from the library who came to me when I sat in the school yard in the sun, stopping by just to speak a little Japanese to me.

Or the way on Tuesday in class, the teacher was labelling his schematic drawing of how to do a mold around a wax model with English words. And in the same class how the other students were watching out for me so well, that when I seemed to be looking for something, they anticipated what I wanted, pushed me in the right direction or even went to get it for me.

It's not all rosy of course. It's annoying to sit in a class when everybody is laughing and not understanding the teacher's joke. It's annoying if I go to lunch alone and my complete table row stays empty because I'm the foreigner (and right then none of Ai's friends or people from my classes seem to be around). It's annoying to hang about in a hallway in recess and not knowing what to do with oneself until the next class starts.

But that's alright. It would be scary, if it went all too perfectly. After all, where would the challenge be?

a very cool dance performance students did in the yard on Tuesday afternoon