Talking With Students

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Today was a really, and I mean really, slow day at work. The students are all in exams so I quite literally had NOTHING to do all day. I graded papers but you can only do that for so many hours before you want to stab the pen into your eyeballs instead.

Wound up heading over to the library with the intention of talking to one of the teachers but chatted with a few students instead. They are all studying their asses off for their exams. I feel bad for them. A couple were telling me the other day about how they haven't slept in days. 😞

They take test scores SO seriously here. It is actually the only part of their grade that actually counts. They do assignments in class, they participate and do homework every week but it doesn't actually count for anything. All the school and students care about at the end of the day is what their test score is after the exam. It feels like such a weird system coming from Canada where at every level of education the importance of doing assignments and participating in class is shoved down our throats. Working in a completely different education system has been an eye opening and really interesting experience so far.

But back to my students...

So the girl I talked with first is a third year. She's incredibly smart and always has some of the best work I mark each week. She pulled out one of their most recent assignments and pointed to the stamp I'd used on it. It's a cute little Hello Kitty stamp with an apple - very fitting for school I thought. There was some kanji above Hello Kitty's head and I didn't know what it said but figured it wouldn't be too bad.

So the student points to it and goes "Do you know what this says?" I said no and asked her to tell me. Apparently it means "Remember to hand it in!" which led the students to laugh (according to her). I had to laugh too. Considering how many of them hand their sheets in late it was pretty fitting in my opinion, but I could see how they'd find it funny. Well, I guess I won't be using THAT stamp again! Back to the good ol' reliable smiley face 😊

There were a couple others I ended up talking to, too while I was flipping through a movie magazine. They had all these articles about Twilight: New Moon so I was taking a minute to read them. The girls came up to me all giggly, pointed to the magazine and confessed their undying love for Twilight. And there a friendship was formed! Not really, but we did have a little gab fest about the movies. They're going to see it this weekend, I believe. I told them it's really good and they should definitely go. Apparently the movie is huge here, according to the paper, but you wouldn't know it based on the nearly empty theatre I sat in last week. Granted, I saw a 3pm showing and most people go at night but still.

Anyhoodle, after some more marking, recording a listening exam and going over a script with another prof, I finally went home. Now I'm sitting toasty warm under my kotatsu, playing with the fabulous heating pad things they sell here to keep my hands warm and am looking forward to a night of writing and planning a trip to Kyoto for New Years. Fabulous!

Talk to you guys soon,

XO

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