Through the Eyes of a Vagrant

The rules in Japanese junior high schools are quite strict.  I’ve been warned against many things so far as I’ve committed many faux pas.  I’ve decided to write about this topic as a result of what happened today.
As you know today is Halloween.  So, I decided to buy some chocolates to hand out to the [...]

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To begin, this is a long entry. I’ve been thinking about this one for a couple weeks now and this is the final solidification of such thoughts. If you are going to read this one, grab a beer.
Well, the time to give my decision to recontract is fast approaching and I really wish I had [...]

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So after being here for a while I’ve heard that there are quite a few gaijin bars in Sapporo. Feeling kind of bored, I figured I had some money to blow and wanted to check out at least one of them. It was a very spur of the moment decision type of thing and I [...]

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So today I woke up thinking that today would just be some normal day at school. I would say ohayou gozaimasu after I walk into the teacher’s room and we would have our regular morning meeting and start the day. Nope. Not today.
I walked into the teacher’s room after greeting everyone and [...]

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Today I taught a similar lesson to the one I taught on October 2nd. But, as I was walking up and down the aisles, one student hadn’t written anything yet and just sat there uninterested. I asked him why he hadn’t written anything yet and he responded with, “I don’t want to study [...]

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One of the schools I teach at is not the greatest school.  It’s actually known to be one of the worst schools to teach at in all of Hokkaido.  Apparently close to 50% of all the students have single parents (which is a rarity in Japan).  Not because of being widowed or the like, but [...]

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On Sunday I went to Nishi no Sato’s school festival. As always, there was a bazaar this time. As I was standing in line to grab the food I had ordered previously, I saw two students doing janken (rock, paper, scissors) over something. The one girl won, but then the other girl [...]

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