Congrats

Today is the Year 6 Graduation Ceremony. It's all a bit chaotic over here with people running all over the place frantically. So I decided to just sit here and look at stuff on the internet...

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Here I am several hours later still surfing the net... No I haven't been doing that the whole time! The ceremony kicked off at 10 and finished an hour and a half later. There were thankfully no tears. The teachers seemed just relieved rather than sad to be seeing this bunch of kids off. The ceremony itself was very stiff and dull. A rather long speech by the principal made it slightly excrutiating, he is a man of many words but with little to say. All the parents came dressed up inthe same black garb as the kindy kids' parents last week. Same bunch of flowers pinned to their jackets. 2 mums were dressed in kimono but the rest all looked like mourners. I don't understand why they feel the need to dress in black. It is possible to appear formally dressed in something a bit more cheerful than head to toe black! Everyone must be in uniform it would seem. After the ceremony there was a lot of standing around of course, a staff photo - one of my eyes is half closed in it because of the sun and I look like I have some kind of palsy. Finally it is lunchtime and there is much organising to do - biscuits to be handed out, tea to be made. Finally everything is ready, but no one will sit down and eat, they are all faffing about waiting for the tea and miso soup to get cold. Nothing irks me more about eating in Japan than the whole waiting for everyone else to start eating habit. There are a lot of things that irk me, but that is the most annoying by far, primarily because it ensures that I never have a hot meal.

After lunch I took a book to the English room and have been reading ever since. But my bum went numb from sitting on the cold floor so I came back to the staffroom to warm it up. A job that is too busy is certainly a hassle sometimes, but there is nothing more likely to induce depression and life ennui than a job that is too slow. It just leaves way too much time for self reflection and thinking in general. If I must be at work, let me be run off my feet, the time goes much faster that way.