La maquette

Pendant ma jeunesse, j'ai étudié mes leçons étaient conduites en français. Quand j'avais 10 ans, j'étais en cinquième année chez l'école Lamira Dow Billings. Je me souviens d'un projet bien intéressant sous la direction de Monsieur Tremblay. On avait l'opportunité de faire des recherches concernant un pays étranger: le Japon.

Chaque étudiant avait fait une maquette illustrant les îles qui composent le Japon entier. J'ai utilisé beaucoup de pâte modèle et de la peinture. Au fin du projet, notre classe a payé une visite chez l'ambassade du Japon. Je pense qu'on a fait de l'origami et on a reçu des livres dont le sujet était le Japon.

C'est bien drôle que je me suis rendu au Japon juste lorsque j'ai célébré mon 24ième anniversaire. Je n'ai jamais rêvé de déménager ici, travaillant comme ALT. Ça fait presque trois ans que je me suis fait parti de cette petite communauté plein de riz... et de riz.

* That's right. I wrote the above blog in French, mostly to see if I can still express myself in that foreign language. It's funny how I've dabbled in various foreign languages, but I can't say I've mastered any. French. Spanish. Cebuano. Japanese. I can understand all of these languages to varying extents, but I'm not fluent in any of them.

Do the chicken dance

The accordion music started blaring on the CD blaring, producing wales of laughter from about sixty first-graders at my school. I didn't explain what was going on; we just started doing the chicken dance. It was pure hilarity! Kids flapped their wings and spun round and round. In the end, they didn't think they looked like chickens. In fact, they thought the dance looked more like we were all getting ready to take a bath.

It's funny how they can't exactly do their morning greetings in English without some help from me. But as I was handing out reward stickers, one of the little boys yelled "Bonjour! Bonjour!"

Kids say the funniest things.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

And so it begins. The countdown to going back home.

My looming departure felt real when I told my two JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) about my plans to go back to Canada this summer. It happened today during break times. I always walk back to the teachers' room with either Y-sensei or S-sensei after our lessons. It was the easiest time for me to let my secret slip out. They both seemed saddened by the news. S-sensei even invited me to his family's new home, and said his daughter is looking forward to playing with me! (I gave her a really cute polar bear last year for Christmas. I'm cool in her books.)

Every February, The JET Programme asks current JETs to submit their intentions for the following contract year. Friday's the deadline.

I have my reasons. I want to spend time with my parents and brother. I want a job that challenges me in a different way. I want to leave the JET bubble. I want to live daily life with complete knowledge of what's going on around me. (Although I've lived in Japan for three years, my Japanese skills are really limited. I've improved leaps and bounds from when I first got here, but things are still shades of grey.)

I will miss a lot of things about this place. The friends I've met along the way. The lovely people in my town. My Pretty in Pink Apartment. Haruto the Car. The gas station attendants. But most of all, my students.

Today, I was going over class lists and writing out the club activities each graduating student has completed over their time at 2chu. M-chan was like "What?! You can read all of our names in hiragana? And you know what club we've all joined?!" Yup, I'm going to miss them. (Not gonna lie - M-chan had to correct me. I thought some of the computer kids were actually part of the table tennis club, ha!) I will be using that info to write about 95 graduation "postcards," wishing them all the best when they graduate in March. An epic feat, but I really like the kids. (Although last year's graduating class was something special. Awww....)