Oi

I will finish the China adventure posts (and the Kamakura and Tokyo adventure posts) just as soon as I shake this nasty cold.

Nasty cold or not, classes will go on, and I found myself in one today during the third period. Noises in the classroom next door started to get louder and more boisterous. Then they got louder and more boisterous yet. Then came the sound of a door slamming, and a desk being thrown.

Everyone, including the JTEs I was giving the lesson with, froze. I have never heard such utter and perfect silence in the school building before in my life.

"Yakamashiyo," complained one genius girl in the class, whom I will thank forever for breaking the tension.

Of course, the aftereffects of of her quip were rather spoiled by the second desk, and then the chair, that came flying out of the classroom next door to crash and skid down the hallway. Then we could hear Takeuchi-sensei screaming at the top of his lungs. Astute readers will remember that this is the man who freaked me last year out by punching a student in the staffroom.

My JTE paused for a second, then resumed teaching. The screaming continued. And continued, and continued, for fifteen straight minutes. Then Takeuchi-sensei was joined by Aoshima-sensei, and they both continued screaming for another ten minutes. And when I say screaming, I mean uninterrupted, eardrum-shattering, lung-blasting, fires of hell screaming.

Class continued and the screamers took whomever they were screaming at down the hall to scream at him at a greater remove from the rest of the classes. Their voices could be heard faintly over the scratching of pencils and scrape of chairs across the floor.

Class let out, and I poked my head into Takeuchi's classroom as I walked by. He was standing at the front lecturing as though nothing had happened. Back in the staffroom, he and Aoshima-sensei had a good chuckle with my JTEs about something. Everything seemed to be perfectly normal.

Damn, I wish I know who had done what.

In other news, school lunch today was three squishy, unidentifiable green blobs. Really. I have the pictures to prove it.

That will be all.

Ah yes...

And lest I forget to mention, the original impetus for writing the post below was this: it was perhaps due to the distraction posed by the vocal fireworks and flying school furniture next door that one of my students penned an essay about how much he likes to prepare and eat "cumy rice."

Yes, you read that correctly. Cumy rice.

That will be all. (And really, what more is there to say?)