会者定離

Since John hasn't explicitly issued me a challenge for a couple of days, but I have to avoid digital hypocrisy, enjoy this non-musical post.

Today was my last day of work before spring break. In Japan, the school year is divided into three sessions (trimesters?) instead of two semesters, with the last one ending with spring break. School starts again in April. On a side note, I struggle to come up with the English names for months because I've never been very good at connecting the month name with the number, and the current Japanese system for months simply names them by numbers, so I had to think about that and wanted to type 四月.

I'll still be here for another few months, teaching through the first trimester, but this is probably the second saddest part of the year because some of my favorite students are graduating to junior high and some of my teachers are inevitably going to be moved by the forces of Japanese bureaucracy to other schools, maybe others in my town, but probably not. That's compounded by the fact that the ministry of education has decided that English education should be mandatory for fifth and sixth graders, meaning my job is going to change to teaching at two schools a day and only to the upper grades. :-(

But such is life. On the plus side, I get to give speeches to kids that aren't old enough to understand why it's sad to see them move on, which gives me a chance to use Japanese sayings like 虎穴にいらずんば、虎子を得ず, "If you don't enter the tiger's cave, you won't get the tiger'z cub." Or, as in the title of this post, 会者定離, "all those who meet must part." All good things...