So my final classes have crept up on me out of nowhere, as today I said farewell to the first of the last of my last Year 9 classes. I say out of nowhere - you’d have thought the fretting and griping by other ALTs along with the variously sincere laments about my departure voiced by other teaching staff since around March would have gotten me good and ready for sayonara time. I’ve even been having recurring dreams about the day coming for me to leave and me being completely unprepared and distraught. Have I acted upon such worthy anxieties? Have I heck. Fran has arrived.

The sadness accompanying these sayonara-classes is multi-faceted. It would be nice to be able to look back on this year and to be able to say to the teaching staff ‘thankyou for your kindness’, but that isn’t possible, at least not at my base school (even though I’m eaking out a speech in Japanese at the moment saying just that, a process akin to pulling teeth). It would be nice if they could say to me, ‘Thanks for all your hard work’,  but that isn’t possible either. They haven’t let me work hard, and at times seem to have actively kept me away from the students. So when I told Year 9, who I am just starting to form a bond with, that I was leaving, there was a strange question in the air, a sort of ‘Are we sad? Yes, we’re a bit sad. Why are you leaving now?’

 The real annoyance with this situation is that despite the slight improvements in office and class life since April at this school, all the songs and dances (goodbye ceremonies, leaving parties of the most awkward variety) are still insincere and farcical. I’m leaving too soon for it to be sincere.  No-one here knows me, apart from the vice-principal, who has taken time out from the start to speak to me every day.

This slight bitterness is only really directed at my base school, and to place a positive spin on it, it makes leaving all the more bearable. I’m not sure how my departure from my other junior high school will feel. I have a closer bond with my students there, although one that would still benefit dramatically from another year spent with them.

Fran’s arrival couldn’t be more timely. It’s bringing into focus all the wonderful things about going home, and all the wonderful things about Japan, and is bridging the gap perfectly between the two. I’m starting to get a sense of how I will look back on this past year; the ruminating thereupon can wait until my return home….

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