Sensei and Sensibility
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Sayonara to Ikuno Town
I remember coming here three years ago. Everything was so difficult! I didn`t speak Japanese, and I didn`t know how to teach. I couldn`t go grocery shopping or talk to my neighbours. I remember becoming very frustrated with simple things like driving, and using the microwave. I also remember thinking that this was a great adventure.
Over time, my life slowly stopped being an adventure and became normal. Then, I began to make friends, and to join in community events. I came to care a great deal about my students, my colleagues, and the people of Ikuno town - I was proud to live here. When I first arrived, I was worried about things like how to use a Japanese-style toilet. Now, I am worried about how to say good-bye to my home, my friends, my students, and my life here. I thought that coming to Ikuno would be the hardest thing that I have ever done. I was wrong.
Leaving Ikuno is much harder.
Thank you for hosting me for these three years. You have been wonderful to me, and I have come to feel not so different from you. Because of you, Ikuno has become my home. My heart is breaking because I have to leave. In my broken heart, though, I know that this isn`t good-bye forever.
So for one last time, I`ll say, "See... you... later!!!!!"
 Sabine . 7:06 PM . Comments
Goodbye Speech to Elementary Schools
I have come to visit Ikuno Shougakko almost every Friday for 3 years. I have always looked forward to seeing your bright smiles and happy faces! You made me happy every week! I have so many wonderful memories with you.
Three years ago, we sang "Hey Jude" together. We learned about Vancouver, Nepal, and Cambodia. We played the "Go Fishing" game, sugoroku game, hamburger game, and English Olympics together. During our lunch breaks, sometimes we played soccer together, sometimes dodgeball, and sometimes, we just played on the swings. We sang many songs together, and we danced together often. You taught me many things about yourselves and about Ikuno. I saw you in Toyoda, in Lawson, and at Matsuri`s.
You became more than only students to me. I care about you as if you were all my brothers and sisters and my own children. I am very sad because I can`t play with you like that anymore. I can`t sing and dance like that with you anymore either. I must leave Japan and go back to Canada.
I am very, very sad because I won`t see your smiles and hear your cheerful voices anymore. Please don`t forget about me. I will never forget about you. I will miss you!!!!
you for being kind to me for 3 years. Thank you for the wonderful memories. Thank you for making me so happy in Ikuno!
So, for the last time, "See...you...later!!"
Sabine . 7:01 PM . Comments
Goodbye Speech to Ikuno JHS
When I came to Ikuno 3 years ago, you were all Shougakko students. Now, you are all young adults. In elementary school we sang, danced, and played many games together. In Junior High School we did our best to learn grammar and vocabulary, and we tried to use it to communicate with each other. We have spent three autumns, three winters, three springs and three summers together. We have spent three undokai, three bunkasai, and three sotsugyoshiki together. I have watched you learn and grow, and you have seen me learn and grow. Over the years, your English has become better, and my Japanese has also become better.
I will never forget you. I will never forget the many memories I have at Ikuno Chugakko - the Canada exchange, Australia, dancing the Yosakoi dance. I will never forget your cheerful greetings and your happy smiles, and the way that you looked at me in class. I will never forget dancing with you, playing volleyball with you, and seeing you at Aki Matsuri and in Toyoda.
We studied hard, we played hard, and we laughed a lot. Always remember this in your life. Work hard, but don`t forget to play! Don`t forget to laugh! And please, don`t forget to help each other like you helped me.
Thank you for these three years. Sometimes I was a teacher, but usually I was a student, just like you. A student of the Japanese language and culture, and you were my teachers. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I will never forget you. I hope that you too will one day remember the crazy foreign English teacher who danced and sang, and I hope that you will smile at that memory.
Please be kind to the new teacher who will come. Please teach him many things about Ikuno, like you taught me.
Your smiles and laughter always made me happy. When I am sad, I will remember these things about you, and then I will be happy again. The memories that you have given me are a precious gift. I will never forget them. I will never forget you. Thank you
Sabine . 6:59 PM . Comments
This is it.
The day has arrived. I have been neglecting my blog, neglecting much about life, thinking that if I neglected everything, then the clock wouldn`t move.
I was wrong. The clock kept moving (darn Energizer!), and now the day has arrived. At 1:45 pm, I leave good ole Ikuno JHS to go pick up the new guy.
Not that there`s anything wrong with the new guy. He seems quite nice. We got along well on the internet, and he hasn`t complained about the fact that I am invading his first week here (I`m still on contract till the 5th, so they are using me to bridge the gap between him and the town/job). However, there is something surreal about all this.
I`ve been packing up my apartment over the past couple of weeks. Now, I am living at Yoshi`s place (old, smelly, full of cockroaches, and the water heater in the shower might just explode any day now). Usually, when one packs, one places all one`s belongings in boxes and moves them. The apartment becomes an empty shell of what once was a home. However, on this programme, when one packs, one takes only the most basic things with her. Sitting in my old apartment is my bed, bedding, couch, table, TV, pictures, some art, dishes, even food in the fridge (oh, I remember ordering that curry paste from FBC!) - so many things. AND my satellite TV!!!!
So when I left my former apartment, it broke my heart. Why? Well, for one thing, it didn`t look like my former apartment! It looked like MY apartment, my home!! I am just handing the new guy my home and my things along with my job, my friends, my students, and my life!!!!
It was the last nail being hammered into the coffin of my realization: we don`t own anything. Everything is borrowed. Friends, things, jobs - there were others there before us, and there will be replacements after us.
And so I`ve been sitting here, feeling a bit like a hobo must. Borrowing the very chair that I am sitting on. Borrowing space on the internet to express myself. One day, be it in a year or in a hundred years, someone else will own the words "sabine.ca"
And in the end, when all is stripped away, we are left with but one thing that is irrevocably ours: family.
So, that is my plan for my return, at first. To reconnect with friends, and to seek solace in my family.
It`s been an up and down three years, hasn`t it? At first, trying to figure stuff out, then, as my Japanese became better, trying to keep up with all the action around me, and then finally the wind down that has happened over the past few months.
I still have many things to post, so Sensei and Sensibility won`t die out. I`ll no longer be a sensei, but I will have many senseis over the next few years, so the name will stay the same.
I always wondered if coming here was a sensible thing to do - I guess I`ll find out when I return.
So, stay tuned - for once I will have time to write about the past few months - I`ll be in Japan until the end of August - finally relaxing. All will make sense soon enough. I apologize for the recent HUGE gaps in postings. Alas, quality time with the people I`ve met here took precidence over quality time with the computer!!!
Finally, for this post anyway, I want to thank you all for joining me in the adventure that teaching in a rural Japanese JHS was. I will never forget this experience. I hope that you had fun reading some stuff too. Maybe you learned something, maybe you taught me something through your comments. I honestly can only recount things from my perspective, in this one town, in this one area of this one country. It is only the tip of the iceberg. I`ve enjoyed hearing about things from your perspective too.
So, thank you. The adventure will continue, the blog will not end. However, like all things, it will change a bit. Perhaps there`ll be less about school life and more about life as part of a Japanese family... ;)
I`ll say it to you, as I`ve said it to my students at the end of every class for three years. Put your hand up to your brow in salute - "See...... you......LATER!" (and then blow a kiss....)
:)
Sabine
Sabine . 6:22 PM . Comments
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