また会う日まで、さよなら (until we meet again, goodbye)

This post is more just for myself... an in-loving-memory sort of post.
I had so much I wanted to say to them. I've been trying to figure out what made this class so special to me. Moving to Japan all by myself, I mean, rural Japan and not knowing a soul, I think that helped these boys secure their place in my heart. They became like comfort food, you know, since I can't get mac&cheese here. Such a good job they did, too. On Thursdays, the day I would go to their school, I would always wake up early, always smiling on Thursdays. They were always so happy to see me, always trying hard even though their English skills were lacking. So, for a year and a half, they made even my worst weeks a little bit brighter, and now they're gone.
I had so much I wanted to say to them. I wanted to recount my favorite memories with them, one last time. To thank them for giving me those memories. Being such a small class of only thirteen students it was easy for me to spoil them, to come up with the funnest lessons for them. I baked them cookies, brownies, cakes, I bought each one of them a t-shirt from my trip to Malaysia, I had my darling mother send candy canes for Christmas, jelly beans for Easter, candy hearts for Valentine's Day.
I didn't tell them any of the things I had wanted to. After the Graduation Ceremony the students had one final meeting with their homeroom teacher and their parents. I waited in the hallway until they finished. I took a copy of a group photo I had taken at our last class, I made 14 prints, took some construction paper and made frames for the pictures, laminating the whole thing to make I nice sort of graduation present for the boys. I don't want them to forget me. As I waited in the hallway my eyes started tearing up, I couldn't believe this would be my last time walking into that classroom, to those boys. By the time I walked into the class room I was shaking, I could barely speak to them. I was losing my comfort food, what will I do now when I have a bad week? Who will I spoil - although I'm sure my mom will be glad she doesn't have to mail me candy canes and Valentine's next year. I gave them their pictures, they came up to shake my hand (you know, an American custom) and to thank me. I didn't even take any pictures, I wanted to, but I was just crying too hard.

Top from left: Tatsuya, Takayuki, Daichi, Tomoru, Tasuku, Shogo, Masayuki, Keigo and Masato - Bottom from left: me, Seiya, Michiru, Hisashi lying down and Mitsunori

I had one of those you-had-me-from-hello moments with this class, love at first sight. Of course, I didn't exactly know what I was doing when I first got here, it definitely took me a while to get the hang of teaching... They were cool though, we had fun. I made treasure hunts for them, using the entire school grounds, splitting the class into two teams and racing. I remember the first time I did this was hilarious. I had been so nervous about whether or not the clues would be too difficult, whether they could understand the English. They ended up finished in 10 minutes! I had hoped to use most of the class time, atleast 40 minutes... I was so impressed! and slightly baffled at what to do for the remaining 30 minutes. Did I mention I had spent a week preparing that damn treasure hunt?! And they finished in 10 minutes... those boys. We tried this activity once more a few months later, it went much better. I made the clues much more difficult (^-^) my favorite clue - "Someday I'll wish upon a stars and wake up where the clouds are far behind me..." Now, I know "stars" shouldn't be plural but I need that "s" there so... This treasure hunt went much better, it actually took the kids the entire class, and I think they really enjoyed it, I know I enjoyed watching them run all over the school grounds.

Of course, there was also my birthday, which my first year here happened to fall on a Thursday. I don't think I've smiled that hard in a long, long time. Those boys, they decorated the whole classroom with oragami, they baked me a cake

What a fantatsic group of kids! Better than mac&cheese any day (^-^)

Of course there was the school festival. This school's festival was my first one so I didn't really know what to expect, but it was so fun. Watching the students preparing, decorating their classroom and what not


Shogo, Takayuki and Masayuki

Masayuki, Tasuku and Tomoru

Tomoru, Daichi, Michiru, Hisashi and Mitsunori

Tasuku's fabulous hair, cut specially for the festival. He and two other students from 3S (Daichi and Michiru) all performed a song together at the festival. The band they mimicked, 氣志團 (Kishidan) has pretty weird hair themselves and it was so funny to see the boys done up with their hair like that

Tasuku

3S was a special class who focused on electronics. Personally, I think it's pretty darn neat. They built this solar car and gave rides at the school festival.

Misawa Sensei and Seiya

Keigo and Shogo

And then, of course, there was Halloween and pumpkin carving. I think that might have been one of the funnest lessons ever. Who knew you could use chopsticks to sort through the pumpkin guts and fish out the seeds? Goodness knows my chopstick skills probably aren't that good!

Asano Sensei, Tasuku (hidden), Masato, Masayuki

Keigo, Mitsunori and Shogo

Seiya, Daichi and Tomoru

Takayuki and Hisashi

Now, going home for Christmas and all I just had to get these boys some presents. Of course, I couldn't buy them all t-shirts since they are considerably more expensive in America than they are in Malaysia, but I did buy them candy canes, two bags of assorted candies and some fruit roll-ups. Of course, if I had known how thrilled they would be to see the old Abercrombie bag I used to haul the stuff into the classroom, I would have gotten each of them an Abercrombie bag instead! How adorable? Abercrombie bags... hahaha. They did appreciate the candy though, and I believe they thoroughly enjoyed the blue raspberry roll-ups

Tasuku

Tomoru, Tatsuya and Daichi

Daichi

And then it happened, I mean, I knew it was coming. I knew they were graduating and sooner or later our last class would come, and go. They said they wanted to make American food. I swear, if I had had more preparation time... I would have cooked them a feast. As it was, I only had one week and even though I tried to order food from an online store it just didn't arrive in time - but it did arrive the next day (^-^). As it was, we made cheeseburgers, mac&cheese and cookies for desert. How funny, eating comfort food with my comfort class

Takayuki, Keigo and Mitsunori

Seiya and Tatsuya

Daichi, Michiru and Hisashi

Tasuku

Seiya and Tomoru

Shogo, Tomoru, Seiya and Keigo

Top from left: Masayuki, Tatsuya, Keigo, Mitsunori, Masato, Shogo, Michiru, Tasuku and Takayuki - Bottom from left: Tomoru, Seiya, Hisashi and Daichi

And then they graduated.