This weekend, I went with my students to the National Science Museum in downtown Tokyo. I was really looking forward to the trip, but dreading it at the same time because it is kindof a nightmare trying to control 87 kids. But the trip actually went pretty well, with no tragedy of any kind. I don't think that we could have pulled off this trip with the second graders, but the first graders are still pretty innocent and studious. We went there to do research for the cultural festival, the theme of which is, in a bit of circular logic, "What We Learned at the National Science Museum." There were six main topics that we studied, dinosaurs and extinction, sea life, land life, genetics and DNA, tools and methods of science, and space. As these are pretty broad categories, our reporting will necessarily be pretty shallow, even for 12-year-olds. I was a little disappointed and the lack of depth of the museum overall, with only one spaceship, one plane, five or six dinosaur skeletons, and a few simple hands on physics lessons. But I guess the only other science museum I have ever been to is the Smithsonian, so it's hardly a fair comparison.

So, I just had my first Father's Day as a father. Nothing really interesting happened though. No fabulous presents or anything. It was a Sunday, so I got to stay home all day and hang out with my daughter; that was pretty cool. And I talked to my own dad on the phone for a long time too. But I was disappointed, because I am not going to be able to go back to the US this summer. I had found some tickets that were not quite cheap, but at least reasonably priced. But with all of the airport fees and fuel charges and landing fees and baggage fees and oxygen fees and everything, it got to be more than I could ever pay. The fees were more than the price of the ticket! So I gave up. I don't think that airline prices will ever bee cheaper again in my lifetime either, so I guess I won't be getting back to the States until I get really rich, or save up enough vacation time to take the boat.

Hey, it's Saturday morning and we just had an earthquake. This is nothing new or special at all. It didn't feel very strong here, although it was pretty strong at it's epicenter up in the north of Japan. The cool part was the early warning system. We were watching crazy stuffed animals dancing around on TV, when an earthquake report came up on TV. At first I thought that it was a report about an earthquake that had just happened but that I hadn't noticed. But on closer inspection I saw that it was actually a prediction in advance of an earthquake that was about to occur, with an epicenter in southern Iwate Prefecture. And about 30 seconds later, it happened exactly as predicted. As it was so far away, I didn't really have to take any precautions. But if I had lived in northern Japan, I would have had plenty of time to turn off the gas and get in the bathtub.

The other night I went to a punk show with some of my old students. I knew them from junior high 3 years ago, and sometimes I have run into them around town. I recently ran into them at the station and we got to talking about music and stuff, so they invited me to a show that their friend's band was doing. And it was pretty good. Japanese Punk has a California feel to it and doesn't usually get much heavier than Sum 41, and it's pretty meaningless and fluffy too. It's definitely a far cry from the Fugazi and stuff I grew up listening to in DC. But it makes for a pretty good live show in a small club. I am not sure if I would buy the CD though, because even unknown third-rate punk bands try to sell their four-track, garage recorded demo CD for $25 in Japan. But it was good live. The show consisted of 7 unknown bands, and they all put on pretty good performances actually. There was lots of mohawks and mosh pitting and all the other punk stuff you've seen on TV. It kinda felt like a bit of an act, but since there were seven bands and only one playing at a time, a large portion of the audience was made up of other punk band members, so it wasn't too bad. And I met this random Chinese dude there, who was just in Japan for the weekend and picked a live house randomly out of the paper. He was pretty cool though, and he took some good pictures of the show.

So my students are already taking midterm tests. Astute readers might already know that the school year starts in April, and think that's a little bit early to be having tests. And it's true; we haven't had time to teach the kids anything really yet. So far, my students have learned the names of the classes, the days of the weeks, the months of the year, and how to say their favorite foods and sports. But we're having midterm tests. From this year, my school has moved to the trimester system that is so prevalent in Japanese schools. Which means that the first semester begins in April and ends at like the end of June. The high school has been running on this system the whole time, which I guess is the reason that they're switching. But I haven't seen too many problems stemming from the different schedules over the past two years. All I see is little kids stressed out about having to study for exams after having been in junior high for a month. And I'm worried about 6 exams a year cutting into class times. And I really don't want to correct all those exams!

So the last few weeks, my brother has been here visiting me in Japan. Okay, he's really not here to see me at all. Actually, since I've had so much work, I haven't seen too much of him. But he had enough airline miles to come for free, so he came. I have managed to show him some of the more important cultural aspects of Japan though. For example, the first night he got here we went to Pachinko. We put in 1000 yen for him, and the bastard hit the jackpot almost immediately. He came out with more than 7500 yen, and he could have won more if all the scary employees didn't keep coming over to say that the place was closing. Still, it's a pretty auspicious start to the visit.

After that, we mostly have been either doing tourist stuff or just hanging around. We ate some fancy sushi, and some eel. We went to Kyoto for two days (my eighth visit) and I showed him some of the sights there. We went to a soccer game and a baseball game. He even went up Tokyo Tower, although I think it's a waste of money. We had a lot of fun, but I don't think any of it surpassed that initial thrill of winning at pachinko.

So my students are baaack from the Orientation Camp. As I predicted, they are a lot crazier now than they were before the camp. The girls in my class are still pretty shy actually, and the boys seem to be dominating the question-answering and things like that, but that will change too. Girls seem to be more dependent on social support networks to give them confidence than the boys, so as the girl get to know each other better, they will come to answer more than the boys. My class already seems to be more well-behaved and studious than the other class, according to all the teachers. This is a first for me as I have always had the class with all the discipline problems in it. Only time will tell if my craziness will lead them down the path to delinquency, or if their innate goodness will stick with them despite my best efforts.

So the new school year has started, although it's been a little hard to tell the difference because I worked every day over break too. The first day of school was just for teacher only. It was interesting because it was the first chance to meet all of this year's new teachers. We got six new teachers in the junior high who are fresh out of college and have no experience teaching. So it should be a challenge with all these beginners, but I think that the young atmosphere and energy will benefit the English education aspect of the school at least. But I am worried that it's going to be a lot of work taking care of all of them.

The next day was called 登校日, which is the day when existing students are elevated to the next grade level. First graders became second graders and second graders became third graders. So they all come to school and find out their new classes and meet all the new teachers. Obviously there was a lot of whining and flipping out as kids found out that had been separated from all their friends and placed with teachers they hate. But it was also their first chance to see all the new teachers, so they all crowded around the teacher's room and watched us continue trying to move all our stuff to our new desks.

The day after that (today) was the 入学式, the school entrance ceremony, held at the big performance hall up the street. Which I always found a little odd, that it's a school entrance ceremony but the students don't actually physically enter the school. This ceremony mainly involves all the new students having their names read by their new homeroom teachers. The junior high and the high school were done together, so that means my new 12-year-olds had to stand up individually in front of a thousand high schoolers; needless to say, they were scared shitless. Almost none of them exhibited any personality at all. My old students of the past two years were also there as high school first graders. Since they were the only ones who already knew each other, their corner of the hall was loud with chatting and mucking around while the rest of the place was perfectly quiet for the entire grueling three hours of name-reading.

From tomorrow, I will actually have homeroom with these kids. This weekend they will go to Orientation Camp in Izu and get to know each other. Until then, they will probably be really shy. But when they come back, they will be completely crazy, if last year's first graders are any indication. Then the fun can begin.