Jeans Feel Weird

After a week of wearing a skirt uniform, jeans feel really weird.
But anyway none of you care, you just want to hear about my first week of school (and even if you don't, I'm gonna tell you anyway, so AHA!). First off here's what I wear every day. I’ve gotten over the whole not-feeling-sexy part since I go to an all girls school and we always change clothes before we go out in public to play after school. But anyway...enough about clothes.
Going to an all girls private Catholic School must be weird anywhere, but in Japan, it's especially weird. For example, we say some sort of prayer (it's in Japanese so I can't understand it) every day at the beginning and end of school. So I asked them what it meant and none of them knew or seemed to care. Plus the all-girls characteristic is very interesting to me. I kind of expected there to be so much petty bickering and feuding, but I was pleasantly surprised that everyone just kind of lives and let lives...there are two girls in our class that are kind of shy and quiet and reserved...and not very good in gym class...but no one taunts them or makes them the butts of any jokes. I don't really see people talking behind people’s backs, or maybe I just don't understand it when they do. Anyway, I wish American girls could take a lesson from Japanese girls; of course I'm sure they're not all like this... Oh, yea, and I have gym twice a week which is a scream. It definitely sucks to get all hot and sweaty, because you're usually hot and sweaty without the help of any physical exercise, but since there are only girls here and everyone is hot and sweaty afterwards, it doesn't really seem to matter. The most interesting thing is everyone hates gym and moans and groans about it, but then gives it their all in whatever we play. So, for all of you out there that don't know how most Japanese schools work, here's a detailed description...with some side notes of course:
First you're all in a grade, just like in America, so for example there are the elementary school kids in the 1st through 6th grades then the middle school kids are in the 7th through 9th grades and high school is 10th through 12th. However, each time you matriculate a 'school', in my school's case it's all the same school, the grade numbers start over, so for example my class is a first tenth grade class so I say I'm in 高校１年(that's high school year 1). Then each year is divided up into classes, or 組, so for example I'm in a special class that takes intensive English to prepare for a class wide exchange programme in their 11grade year. So I say I'm 高校１年６組, that's high school first year class 6. In my school each year of high school has 6 classes, the 6th is always the English class and the 5th is always a science class, the rest have a more evenly distributed curriculum. Then, each day instead of the student going from lesson to lesson the teachers change rooms. Each day at my school we have a different schedule. So really you only have some lessons once a week. There are also times when everyone in your class has an elective or a class outside the normal class room, so the head student that day locks the room and everyone goes to their respective lessons for an hour or two. It's so amazing, I truly understand why Japanese people are so mature and responsible. It's because even from a very early age their expected to carry out chores and so much trust and responsibility is placed on them in school. Each day there are two people chosen, by the school administration, I assume, to be what is called the class monitors. They go to the main teachers’ office in the morning and collect the room key and two books that the teachers use to take attendance and another that outlines the responsibilities of the monitors and the rest of the class for that day.
It's the monitors responsibility that the room is unlocked in the morning and locked whenever we all the leave the room. They are also in charge of making sure all the cleaning gets done (more on that later...) and they are in charge of announcing the start and finish of class by standing and bowing. So cleaning: all the school cleaning, even the halls and toilets, is done by the students. I've only seen one cleaning lady here, and all she does is vacuum the front entrance where we change our shoes in the morning...oh yea...even at school you have inside and outside shoes even for gym! I haven't seen one act of vandalism, there's always paper and soap in the bathrooms and nothing seems to break mysteriously in our school...if American students could only learn... Anyway, also almost everyone brings a 弁当 or boxed lunch and we usually just eat in the classroom.
Then, everyday after school, there are club activities, or like now, there is a chorus competition that we all practise for. So even though school doesn't start until 8:45am, we're all there until about 6pm. That's hard because it's seems to get dark here a lot earlier than in Colorado. So by the time I get home, take a shower, change clothes, eat dinner, and finally get around to relaxing or trying to read the days lessons, its jet black outside and I feel exhausted even though it's probably only about 8:30.
So then on Friday it was the school anniversary (I can't remember what year, maybe 25th?) So we didn't have class, and we got out at 12:30. But the time that we were at school was a huge mass, pronounced just like math in Japanese so very confusing...anyway, it was long and boring, especially since it was in Japanese...I mean I fall asleep when church is in English. Plus I have kind of a hard time grappling with the fact that the only people who are Catholic at our school are the nuns, two teachers, and some of the gaijin staff, plus another exchange student from Virginia here for a month like me. Communion was dumb, I think most of the people up there were just peckish...anyway, I was in kind of an obstinate, cynical mood, so maybe I didn't get as much out of it as I should have, but I don't take kindly to being indoctrinated, regardless of the language it's in. Most people slept anyway.
So, like I said, I'm in the English class...so they all want to practise their English, so it works well, they talk to me in a mixture of mostly Japanese with a peppering of English words and I answer in English with a smattering of Japanese words. At this point it works well; so far I can understand most of what people say to me or talk about, but can't quite form my own sentences.
Well more later...I have to go shopping now, not so much that I have to but after all it IS the national past time.
- 鴻