大泉高校

Today I went to Ooizumi High School (大泉高校）　and talked to two classes for 50 minutes each about myself and the US. I was kind of nervous going into it, but it was pretty fun. I tried hard to impress upon them that I wanted them to participate, but they were still pretty shy. The teacher I'd been in contact with had told me to try to use English and Japanese. Although he had said something like 「高校一年生だから英語が。。。できる」　（They're first-year high school students, so they can speak English) I was kind of skeptical of the actual level of Japanese 16-year-olds' English. At first I tried to talk in English about half of the time, but they didn't seem to follow very well, so I went to ~85% Japanese after about the first half of the first class. I was very happy, as well, because some of my jokes actually came across in Japanese. That feeling of "yesss, I actually made sense."
From time to time here in Japan I have moments where something that someone says is so unexpected that I assume I didn't understand (a reasonable assumption, really), even though, in fact, I did. For example, the first time I met Minami, I started talking in Japanese and he said something like 「えっ？なんでしゃべるの？」（"Huh? Why can you speak [Japanese]?）. Why? Why? Just because I'm a westerner, jeez... (though the perception that foreigners necessarily cannot speak any Japanese is, in my experience, pretty pervasive, and is maybe a topic for another discourse). Anyway, I had such an experience today. "If you were a girl, what would you want to do?" One of the students asked me this in English, but had a strong accent, so I asked him to repeat it a couple times, before, starting to accept what my ears had heard, I rephrased it in Japanese, and he confirmed it. XD+ Maybe it was my fault for saying, in my desperation when no one would raise their hands, that anything at all would be okay. I said something dodgy like "Well, I think boys can do pretty much anything girls can do, so there's nothing, really..." and then I asked him the same question, to which he replied that he would wear a dress. XD

After the classes ended, I ate a bentou they provided for me with a couple other international students who had come to talk at the same time. Only one other, from Malaysia, was from Toudai. It was kind of fun to talk to them. Three from Vietnam, one from Iran, one from Bangladesh and one from India, I think.

Although I prudently left the dorm with plenty of time in the morning, I got all the way to Kichijouji station (cycling and then walking, of course) before I realized I didn't have my wallet or any money, and thus couldn't get on the bus. Fff. The first time I get past the dorm gate without my wallet since I've been in Japan and it's the one day of break I really don't want to be late. But I biked like the wind back to the dorm and then back to the station/bus stop, and got on the bus at about the time I was supposed to get to the school. I even parked my bike illegally on the side of the sidewalk at Kichijouji for the first time, so that the walk (actually run, in this case) from there to the bus stop would be shorter, to save time. Although hundreds of people do this every day, I was pretty sure the world would end and my bicycle would disappear forever. But, luckily, it was still there when I got back, without so much as a ticket on it. XD
I was supposed to meet the principal and such at nine and then start with the first class at 9:30. By means of literally running from the bus stop to the school and then up the really long entryway to the school building, I got there just before 9:30. So, at least the students hopefully didn't know I was late. I think I'd never really run in a necktie before. It's pretty silly, with it flying all over the place. XD

All in all, a very good experience, though. I would definitely do it again. I was also glad to have to have the chance for several reasons. One part was just curiosity - I pass Japanese schools all the time, but of course I can't just go in and see what they're like. And, though I didn't think about it ahead of time, it was one of my first experiences talking with anyone younger than a first-year university student in Japan, which was interesting.