graduation!

high school graduation, a day most students spend their entire primary school time looking forward to, that is, unless you are a japanese high school student.  the harsh realization that fun time is over has come and it is time to hunker down and get real with life.  today was the end of that childhood for my kids and there were smiles and tears, though i saw more tears from students than smiles.  mostly the teachers are smiling that they have successfully run another class of students through the wringer and gotten them out safely on the other side.  hooray! 

this is the number one most important ceremony of the year in high school and there is traditional dress to go with the formality of the ceremony as well.  many in attendance were kimono clad.  my kocho sensei (principal) who is always one to dress the part, wore her most beautiful kimono for the ceremony and let me take her picture this morning. 

(i dont know why the pictures are doing this now.  they were right side up when i uploaded them...darn it.  sorry)  anyway, this is tamaru kocho and she is one fantastic lady.  one of two female kocho senseis in all of nagasaki ken.  she will be leaving naru in a few weeks for another school (none of us know where yet, of course) and i will be so very sad to see her go.  she can out do anyone around here and drink any man on this island under the table, ive seen it done.  her kindness has really been a great blessing to me while i have been here.  thank you tamaru kocho!

and next we have mr. iriguchi.  he is technically my supervisor, a.k.a. the person i am supposed to go to for whatever i need around here.  but he is also in charge of the senior students and spends around 12-14 hours a day at school helping them.  so whatever i need usually takes a back seat, though he has really helped me out on some funny occasions too.  he is a good guy and has been a breeze to work with, mostly because he lets me do whatever i want when we teach high school classes together.  i like that. :)  cheers to iriguchi sensei in his finery today!

and finally after the ceremony was through and the staff had unwound a bit from all of the preparations and taking down of the preparations ect, tamaru kocho pulled me into her office, literally.  she asked me about what was on under my turtleneck and what i had on under my pants.  ok, a little weird, but ive been here long enough now to know that this was leading somewhere fun.  she was going to have her way with me for about ten minutes and dress me in her fancy kimono that she wore for the mornings ceremonies!!!!  waku waku!  so after much turning, tying, holding arms out and standing straight and tall she was done with me and i was the new tamaru! 

fancy stuff, eh?!  what a wonderful woman to do that for me and to lend me her beautiful kimono for awhile.  she took me around the school showing off how nice she made me look all the while telling everyone how easy it was to get me in it and how it fits me perfectly and how my figure is so "porportioned" and i should be a kimono model and on and on.  this made me more than a little uncomfortable, but i smiled away anyhow and knew she had good intentions.  these pictures were taken in the staffroom and what you can see here are the other six or ten teachers standing opposite us taking our pictures.  i cant remember the last time i felt like i was in front of the papparazzi.  oh only in japan.

well thats it.  ive changed back to my regular, boring suit clothes and now we are all getting ready to go celebrate the success of the day and the year.  time to enkai!  (that is japanese for eat and drink til you cant anymore, or something like that.) ;)

be well take care out there in this big world. 

namaste