It is time to get Ruben in Japanland back up and running, to be on time for the final farewell. The drop-off in posts has been due to a very good reason. I have been torturing myself in writing a book. Actually, I lie; writing the book was incredibly good fun. I would spend hours sitting at Mister Donuts tallying up the points on my pointcard, leaving not when I run out of ideas, but when I felt I had overstayed my welcome (usually at about 3 hours or the 8th cup of free-refill coffee. I almost have enough points to claim a Pon de Lion Teddy bear, which will be a great souvenir of my last half year in Japan.
It was unfortunate that something had to give, and that it was Ruben in Japanland. However, now is the beginning of the end. My Japanese lessons have finished, my English lessons have finished, my basketball team is finished without me, and I am starting to say my first farewells.
I am not sad. Thursday was a great example of this. I was teaching a full day of older elementary school students (10-11 years old), and I decided to play a fun game with them, instead of playing bingo, as usual. Unfortunately it required the students to use initiative. This is apparently a gene that was weened out the Japanese DNA during the 400 years of national isolation (along with Christianity). I simply required that the students choose 8 letters of the alphabet at random and write them down. It didn't matter what they chose, and I explained this to them with English, Japanese, and gestures. Hell, I even wrote the entire alphabet on the blackboard in case they forgot the shape. How could this possibly go wrong?
"Ruben sensei! What colour do I write it?"
"Ruben sensei! Is this right? Look at mine!"
"Ruben sensei! He is out of his seat!"
"Ruben sensei! I don't understand!"
An exercise that I planned for 25 minutes took the entire class. Class after class, the same questions, the home room teacher attending to the one kid who is valiantly attempting to not do anything despite the teacher's best efforts. One kid was even running away from the teacher. And the teacher was chasing him! Then, he would come back to his desk and be safe. Seriously, once he got back to his desk, he was immune from punishment. At the end of the day, my knee ligaments strained for standing pointlessly at the front of class all day, I looked around at the chaos and the uninterested kids, and I looked outside. I knew which I'd prefer.
Luckily, I have a few more weeks of classes, which admittedly are better than usual, and then 1 1/2 months of unemployment in Japan.
Anyhow, just because Ruben in Japanland is back up, don't hold your breath for my book release. I will realistically pursue it and in the off chance anything comes of it, it could take a while. Otherwise, it will be my most precious memoir of this time in Japan. Well, my 2nd most precious memoir:
"Ruben sensei! I don't understand!"
