Time is flying by

I am sad, one by one my friends are heading home and returning to their respective countries. It has not really hit me yet that in September I will not be able to just ride over to their houses and visit them. It feels like everyone is just going on summer vacation or something, not like they are leaving Japan for good.

You go through so much here together and your friends are the ones that make sure you do not go completely bonkers on those really bad days in Japan. Trust me, there are many of them.

Oh, I am sad that everyone is leaving and that I have to leave too.

My kiddies...as awful as some of them were in class, they never listened and never did any work....but yet I know that I will miss them a lot. They are my kids and I love some of them to death. They are what has made my time in Japan memorable.


There was a point last September when I thought my contract would never and I could not leave fast enough. I had just returned from Canada and thought that I could not possibly endure another year of being in Japan. I was homesick as soon as I stepped off the plane and really did not want to be in Japan. Well, that was 10 months ago and now I cannot believe that I will be leaving in a little more than a week. In a complete reversal of feelings, I have pangs of homesickness for Japan when I think about leaving.

The 2 years have gone by in a blink of an eye and I am having a hard time with packing and leaving. It has been a great adventure. For the first time I was living entirley on my own in a foreign country not speaking the language. I figure if I can survive Japan I can probably take on many things. Heck, I taught almost 900 hormonal teenagers in 2 years. That says something about learning to cope and survive....

Anyways, just a reflective mood I am in..............

"Take me out the the ball game"

In Japan, baseball is their third religion behind Shinto and Budhism. Summer is the peak of highschool baseball with prefectural baseball championships. Every higschool baseball player dreams of going to the Koshien (the mecca of highschool baseball), to play in the National championships.

Busloads of students are shipped to baseball stadiums where accompanied by the school band and megaphones everyone cheers their school team on.
Yesterday we had our first game of the prefectural tournament. We all loaded into the bus to go to the stadium, or band, cheerleaders, leader club (sort of pep club), along with several large drums. Once we got there, megaphones were handed out and the coordinated cheers began. First you do a cheer for the opposing team and bow to them, wishing them good luck. Each player that bats has their own cheer, song or dance. The pitcher has a cheer too. I cannot believe the utter madness of it all. My normally shy and reserved students show their true spirit. They never get to yell and scream and be normal kids unitl now. It was so much fun to be a part of the baseball madness. It is insane to see 500 people doing the same dance at the same time.

I must say that all along my baseball boys have been some of my favourite students and this is a great way to spend my last two weeks here, cheering them on and being a part of it all. You know you are in far to deep when you are just as worried as the players when you are behind, or when you yell at the umpire cause you think your player was safe. It was like it was me out there playing. You have to experience highschool baseball in Japan to know what I mean.