Graduation is nearing!

Today was another day at the middle school. And I had yet another surprise! This week is full of surprises for me! Today I thought that I would have the normal class schedule of 3 classes in the morning so I talked with one of the English teachers and he said "Oh, no...sorry, today's schedule is switched with Friday's." So I thought that was fine and continued on with my business. I had the first 2 hours free so I started working on some pieces to put up on the bulletin board that would should congratulations to the 3rd graders for graduating. I worked on that and for the 3rd period I headed up to the classroom where I was to teach. I saw all the students lined up with their chairs in the hallway and they were walking somewhere. So I asked the students where they were going and they said they were going to the gym for "ceremony practice!"

Well, confused and baffled, I walked back toward the teacher's room and saw the same English teacher and he said, "Oh, sorry, Kento! I forgot to tell you that today is graduation practice for 3rd and 4th period, so there are no classes!"

Well, I was alright with that! So a day where I thought I'd be teaching once again turned into a day without a single class. I'm starting to like the end of the school year! Haha...so I attended the graduation ceremony rehearsal and got to see what it will be like. For starters, the Japanese ceremony is VERY different from an American one. I will post videos and pictures of bits and pieces of it once I get footage from the real ceremony next week. But in short, it's a very serious tone to the ceremony and everyone walks in unison, wears the exact same thing, and does the same thing. It's interesting and I am looking forward to experiencing it first-hand next week. But at the same time, I was thinking today and it's very sad. I am going to miss the current 3rd grade class. The kids are awesome and they were the first ones to have greeted me and talk to me. I had first contact with these kids when I initially got to Japan...and soon I will have little to no contact with most of them after they're gone! It's crazy to think about it...they will be moving on with their life while I'll be at the same middle school teaching next year.

So I spent the afternoon continuing on working on the bulletin posters and was starting to print the final poster. But!....when I printed it, the pictures and everything came out but not the text that consisted of a quote in both English and Japanese....that's strange! On the print preview, it was showing how I wanted it to come out, but when I printed, it didn't come out that way! So one of the teachers who basically knows how to fix anything instantly came over and started helping me. He was running all these tests on the printer and checked the print settings and options (which helps because I can't read all the Japanese to understand where to troubleshoot). So we tried printing a couple times again and still no luck....I suggested that maybe there was no black ink in the cartridge but he insisted that wasn't it. So we tried a couple different format options and put the text in a text box to ensure that it would come out black. But still no luck! Finally, the teacher checked on the cartridges and the light for the black ink cartridge was blinking, meaning that it needed to be replaced....haha!!! So I was right! The black ink was out, which is why it wasn't printing correctly! Then the teacher humorously said, "I guess it would have been faster and easier if we checked that first like you said!" At least he was humorous about it and we had a good laugh out of it. Well, we got the problem solved and I was able to finish printing and laminating all the things I wanted to put up.

Well, only 1 more week until the kids graduate and then it's Spring Break and a start to the new school year!