Departmental welcome party

Tonight was the welcome party for the foreign language department. We got together at Border, the Italian restaurant, which seems to be everyone's favorite. (It's definitely mine.) There were nine of us, with Kim coming along, too.

Fukuda has just gotten his masters from Hiroshima University. Masuda went there, too, so they spent most of the evening chattering away about that. Kim kind of felt left out, because she was seated at one end of the table, with those two across and beside her. I tried talking to her, but didn't want to cut into Fukuda and Masuda's conversation.

Border's food is delicious. (They've recently taken out all their tatami, too--fully western-style seating!) They offer salads, carbonara, arrabiata, and pizzas. Conspicuously absent, though, is any kind of bread on the side. You can order garlic toast, sure, but (as with everywhere else I've been to in Japan) there's no complimentary bread. I've thwarted this before with Joe and Rose by bringing a baguette from a local bakery. However, I felt that might be frowned upon by this group. To make do, I saved my pizza crusts, and used them to sop up the leftover sauce in my bowl. Masuda liked the idea, and did the same.

Masuda is, in my opinion, the best English teacher at my schools. At the same time, she's the most intimidating. She and Satomi spent the past year and a half tearing apart my lessons, helping me build new and better ones. She's driven me to be a better teacher, and for that I'm grateful. In the classroom, she's assertive, engaging, and enthusiastic: she makes jokes, scolds the students with appropriate severity, and makes sure they understand what's going on. In the staffroom, she's equally outgoing, making jokes and coquettish smalltalk with the guys.

Outside of school, though, she's extremely shy. Tonight I talked to her about that, and asked which one is the real her. She explained that she's very shy, and that her school persona is the product of years of effort. She went on to tell me that the hardest thing for her to learn has been how to scold students. (She's a devastatingly effective practitioner of the get-very-quiet-and-make-the-victim-feel-horrible style.)

Takahira sat on my other side, and we talked a good bit. He apologized for having made so many changes to my lessons this year. We've only had one lesson, so I wasn't sure what he had to apologize for. He also apologized for not having kept last year's third-year students in line. This was something that had irked me throughout the year, and we talked more about it. He explained his reasoning, which I agreed with: making a show of abrasively scolding the students, regardless of how much they deserve a reprimand, kills all motivation in the class. I've seen that happen once with Kurokawa and to a lesser extent with Masuda and Satomi.

Murahashi and I talked about my rapidly-approaching departure. He fully understands why I'm leaving, and actually told me they would all be okay. He basically explained that it sucks that I'm leaving, but the world will keep turning. He wasn't being insensitive at all; he just wanted me to know they would be okay, so that I don't have second thoughts or feel like I'm abandoning them. He told me that my leaving is not a mistake, but that it will be a mistake if I get home and regret having done it.

Toward the end of the meal, Masuda and I discovered a create-your-own-drink section of the menu. I ordered a Black Russian, and she giddily ordered a fuzzy navel.