Last Day at TJHS

Last Thursday was my final day at my mountain school, TJHS. In the morning, I got to give a short farewell speech to the staff at the morning meeting. Then, before classes started, there was an assembly in the gym. At the assembly, the Principal gave a short speech about how long I've been in Japan and some of the stuff I'd done at school, and then it was my turn to make a speech to the students. I did a slight variation on the speech I'd given the staff, and tacked on a few sentences in English. After the assembly, the English teacher told me she was very impressed with my Japanese. I explained that the speech had actually been written with someone else's help, but she was even impressed just that I could memorize it.

Following my speech, there was a speech from the student body president. She had memorized quite a long and impressive speech in English. I had held up pretty well until then, but I think it was when she said, "We will miss you" that I started crying. I cried for most of the rest of the ceremony. Next a representative from each class presented me with a gift. Each class had decorated a sort of cardboard plaque with a picture of the class and a message from each student. I will really treasure those. Some of the messages:

Ms. Andrea
My name is Chika. My favorite things are reading books and music. I like ARASHI. Do you know them? I like Sakurai Sho the best. I have been enjoying your English classes. I'll study English very hard.
Best wishes, Chika


Dear Ms. Andrea.
My name is Natsuya. I'm fifteen years old. My birthday is May 30. My favorite sports is softball. I'll be stay by you forever.
Love Natsuya


Dear Ms. Andrea,
Thank you very much for your nice English classes. I'm fourteen years old. My birthday is July 12. I love you. Please enjoy at New school, NJHS. See you,
Sincerely Risa

Chika and Natsuya are both third graders (9th grade). Chika is a very quiet girl, and Natsuya is a boy with rather extravagant hair. Risa, who wrote the third message, is in second grade, and is possibly my favorite student. She's incredibly sweet and works hard. She's also a little bossy; if her only classmate, Yudai, isn't working as hard as she thinks he should be, she'll harass him until he shapes up.

The first graders and their messages.

Both of the second graders. Risa, the girl in the picture, added  some Pokemon for me.

The third graders. The circle in the upper left corner is Yuki, who was absent when the picture was taken.

Getting back on track, after the gifts were presented, we all took pictures together. I don't know if I'll eventually get copies of the pictures; hopefully I will. I managed to stop crying long enough to take the pictures. And then the ceremony was over and it was time for class. The English teacher was concerned as class would start very soon and I was still sniffling and teary, but I assured her that I would be fine in a few minutes.

As I had predicted, I calmed down pretty quickly once the ceremony was done with, and we had our last classes with each of the grades. In each class we pretty much just played games and listened to music. Class felt  fun and cheerful, and I was able to enjoy it without getting too emotional. The day before, I had written short messages to each student on some cute stationery and put them in envelopes along with some stickers. I gave them their letters in class, and the teacher helped explain them to each of the students, since I had written things that were well above their grade level. Mostly I had focused on what I wanted to say to each of them, rather than what they could actually read. The third graders could understand parts of the letters on their own, but the first graders needed all of it translated. It was pretty funny; when I started handing out the letters to the third graders, Yoshiki asked, "What's this?" and his friend Yusuke replied, "Love letter." It made everyone laugh.

To be fair, he wasn't that far off. I'd tried to tell each student something that I thought was special about them, or explain how much I'd enjoyed working with them. There was enough praise and admiration in them that they did read a bit like love letters. Most of them I'd signed "Best wishes" or "Sincerely", but I did sign Risa's letter "With love". Because she really is that dear to me.

Anyhow, after classes ended, it was lunch time. I ate in the staff room as always, and in the afternoon I typed up some more songs for the English teacher. Around 4:00 I called a taxi. And that was it. I felt kind of queasy on the ride home, but I tried to enjoy one last look at the scenery. When I got home I cried some more and took a nap.

All in all, it was a pretty good last day. I was able to enjoy my last lessons with the students, and I was very touched by the gifts they made for me. There was really only one disappointment, and that was that Yuki, one of my favorite students, was absent. He'd been sick since the week before, so I hadn't seen him since before I found out I was being moved to another school. He was the student with the greatest drive to communicate. He seemed a little hyperactive, but very cheerful and funny. It hurt that I really didn't get to say goodbye to him. There's no message from him on the plaque, either, since he was absent when it was being made.

However, I am hoping that maybe I can go to the school's Culture Festival again this year. So long as it's not on the same day as my other schools' festivals, it shouldn't be a problem. Tatsuya also wants to go. We'll see if we can make it happen. This year the junior high and elementary school are doing a combined Culture Festival, so I'd get to see the elementary students, too.