I thought there was a system

But the system is us.

Okay. So. In my prefecture at least (prefectures to Japan are *kinda* like states are to America), the teachers move around kinda like the military. Every few years they might get a new ‘assignment” at a new school. This happens especially because of the islands. Most teachers don’t want to work in schools on the islands, even teachers *from* the islands. So every teacher has to do a stint away on a island for a few years then they get to go back to the mainland, and so on. This though is complicated by the fact that each teacher has a speciality, (Japanese, English, Math, Science, etc), so if say, a science teacher leaves a school, another science teacher has to be available to replace him/her. So this means that some teachers get left out on the silands for a while, and other teachers are switched around like ping pong balls to replace other teachers leaving.

In my school, 8, count’m *8* of the staff in my middle school are leaving. The principle is leaving. The vice principle is leaving. A social studies teacher, English teacher, music teacher, art teacher, Japanese teacher, and science teacher are all leaving. Unforutnately these are also most of my allies, so I am quite sad to see them go. And as both the principle and vice principle are leving, it means the rest of my time here could be radically different from these past 8 months, because the principle and vice principle really set the tone for how teachers act and such.

But more on that on a differnet blog. This is about the moving system.

So in Japan, spring is the start of the new school year. The kids graduate at the end of march, and then have about 2 weeks of spring break, before school starts again in April. This is try for all schools, even for college. How kids get enough time to go from one school to the other is beyond me, but there it is.

And then there’s the teachers. The teachers don’t find out if they are leaving or not until the *very* end of the school year. AS in they just found out about 3 days ago if they were leacing or not, and they need to be at their new school by April 1-2. So they really only have about a week ad a couple of days to get everything together. And because you don’t know if you will be leaving you can’t start prepacking, because you might not go. Or you might be leaving one school but going to a differnet school in the same area. One of my English teachers is leaving my school, but going to another school on the island (Dad, the area with the hardwarestore), so while she’s “moving” she not *moving*.

Anyway so I figured that, due to these extraordinary circumstances, that the prefecture probably made arrangements for the teachers to be moved from one area to another, kinda like with the military. I figured there was a system.

And there is. Only the system is us. While the prefecture pays for the travel expenses, packing and shit? That’s us.

And by us I mean us the teachers, and us the kids. Yesterday all the teachers got schedules of when teachers would be packing up and when they would be leaving. I (naively) though this was just so that we would know when we’d be able to sya our last goodbyes, or whatever.

Ha ha and also….ha.

So today I came in with all these grand plans. Even though its spring break, the kids still all come to school for their club atctivities for at least half a day. And today was the first day in a long line of days that dawned sunny, if a bit windy and spring-time-cold, rather than rainy and really cold. So today I had this great plan to go outside and watch and or participate in some of the club activities. Fate seemed to be with me with that plan, because when I woke up today I felt good. I’ve had a cold for the past week and a half, runny nose and a bad cough and being tired, but today I was finally feeling good. I had a lingering cough, but it was *dry*, not the muscusy shit I’ve been hacking up, and my nose was clear for the first time in days.

Today, I thought, would be a good day.

I biked to school, feeling invigorated, even more so when I looked aordn and saw there werne’t all that many teachers here today. But considering most take vacatin days during this time I wasn’t surpriosed. The less teachers meant the less I had to feel awkward cuase I had nothing to do. I could play with the kids for half a day, then just relax and surf the net after lunch until it was time to clock out.

And then my English teacher comes up to me, and points to the packing/leaving schedule.

“Today is the H-sensei and I-senseis packing day.” She tells me, “We are all going to help them pack, as well as the boys baseball club and the girls basketball club. You’ll help, yes?”

Well of course I’d help. You can’t really say *no* to that can you? Especially not when its apaprnelty a group thing. Oh Japan and their crazy groups. All for one and one for all to the *extreme*. But as she continued talking to me and a gew other teachers, it didn’t seem like things would take too long. After all this was Japan, and Japanese people are extraordinarly cclean and tidy. And this was teacher housing, which was extraordinarly small. How much could their be to pack?

So a group of teachers went to I-sensei, the music teacher’s, apartment, and the last three of us, my other englihs teacher, me, and the other Japanese teacher, went to H-sensei’s apartment. He is the social studies teacher who is leave.

Hol.

Ly.

Shit.

You people think *I’m* messy? You people think *I’m* bad? ??

I have never seen the like in all my 23 years of living. And from the wide eyes, and gaping mouths of the other two teachers, neither had they. It was as if the apartment hadn’t been cleaned since it was first built. There were layers upon layers of dust and cobwebs hanging fromteh celing. THere was dirt and grass littering the floor. The kitchen was almost black with grime, and the dishes, dear god, they weren’t fit for a wild boar to eat off of them, let alone a persn.

It was the single most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Not only that, but he had a *lot* of shit, a lot of *useless* shit, most of which we thought was trash but he insist was not and that he wanted to take it with him. The baseball club and a couple of male teachers were already there, working on the upstairs, bringing down furniture and such, so it was up to us three to try and start the downstairs.

Never was there a more hopeless task. We just stood there for a while, trying to figure out where to even *begin*.

And it didn’t help that he had all the doors and windows open, probably to try and help with the smell, but it alsmot meant that a very cold wind was blwoing right through the living room right next to the kitchen, and thus right through me, where I was working.

My cold suddenly came roaring back to life.

But you can’t just leave. You can’t be like “Fuck man, you made this mess you clean it up!” to the sensei. This was a group thing. His mess is *our* mess, and it was our job to do our part.

Especialyu because the moving truck was coming *today* to get his stuff, and he had to be out of the apartment by *today*.

And by the looks of things, he had done _nothing_ before hand to prepare. Which was bullshit, because he was the only teacher who knew a *year* before hand that he would be leaving come March. Even I would have cleaned up before now!!!

As it was, it was such a day of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was happy that I was invited to go along on this all together packing excursion. Foten all the teachers will go somewhere at school or have some sort of meeting, or something, and not invite me at all. And even if its something I wouldn’t understand or whatevr, it makes one feel the outsider, driving home that while you’re a teacher you really aren’t a *teacher*. And then not to mention the fact that in Japan your expected to not only hold up your own weight but take on everyone elses as well if need be, to kept he group afloat. I often feel like I’m not doing my part, just because I never have anything to do when everyone else looks so busy all the time. Part of it is that they’re not giving me work to do, but in Japan the thought is that youshould know what you need to do and volunteer to take on extra responsibility without anyone needing you to ask. The problem is that I don’t *know* what extra stuff I could do, so its just a downward spiral.

So at least here and now we were all doing this group teacher thing together.

But on the other hand.

Dear _god_. I just wanted to go home. It was so disgusting, and I felt so sick lol.

In the end, we got reinforcements. The people who went to the music teacher’s house finished in like 30 minutes, because her palcve was clean and organized, so they all came here. That’s the rest of the teahers and the girls basketball team. While it was a bit awkward cause these aprarmtnets aren’t meant to have that many people trooping thorugh them, at least ther was enough hands to get things done quickly, and Japanese teachers are *nothing* if not efficient.

Though both my English teacher and I almost fell over in disbelief when we opend up the bathing room to find *dishes* sitting on the floor there. Wet dishes. In the tub.

As it was, I was really wishing for mom and dad during that first hour when it was just me and the other two female teachers working downstairs. There was a lot of times where I had no idea where to even start or what to do with this mess, but I know Dad would have taken one look at the situation and known exactly how to best get all the furniture and such packed away, and Mom would have been able to know how to get some of the stuff cleaned and wrapped up in paper to be packed in a box with the least chance of beign broken. It got to the point there where we all just started stuffing paper into things and tossing it into boxes lol.

But now we’re back, at the school and all is well. We spent the next hour telling stories about the amazingly horrid state of the apartment, telling the other teachers who hadn’t gone (someone had to stay cause kids were having clubs), all about it. Both the two female teachers said again and again they were so glad I went, because just the two of them would have been way impossible, and *everyone* assured me over and over again that most Japanese did _not_ keep their apartments in such a state and to please don’ judge them, just judge H-sensei haha. I got to share in the tale-telling and the joking and teasing which was quite nice since that deons’t happen as often as I’d wish. And I even still got to hang out with the kids, even if it was while cleaning.

And H-sensei spent the rest of the day apologizing and bringing everyone coffee haha.

A random day this, but not a bad one.