More Firsts

Today was another first visit of the new year to one of my schools. I teach at this school every Friday.

So, as you might expect, I was again surprised by the changes. Gone is the adorable old lady vice principal who was always so excited to practice English with me. She left me a Burberry hand towel as a goodbye present. In her place is a male biology teacher. During first and second periods today, all the other teachers vanished to conduct health checks on the students. The only people left were me, VP, and another older bio teacher. We bonded over microscopy images. Swoon.

Also new is a fresh-out-of-school English teacher. Finally, someone more nervous than me! He's 25, and friendly, so I suspect we will become good friends. The first year class is enormous - 26 students! Normally my classes at that school are between 12 and 17. They're a lower academic school, so the kids can be pretty wild.

Today I went around and asked all of their names, and then shook hands and said nice to meet you.

Quote of the day goes to this kid:

CMT: Hi, what's your name?

Student: My name is... Capybara.

--cue class erupting into laughter--

For those of you who don't live in Japan, Capybara is the little stuffed animal up there ^^^.

He's an adorable "character" as they call these things (everything from Hello Kitty to Choruru is a "character").

I knew of capybaras before I came to Japan... they're the world's largest RODENT. Why Japan has chosen to cute-ify something so gross is beyond me, but hey, this is the country where you can find glitter stickers of steaming piles of poop.