School Daze Part 1: Learn me a Book... and eat me some lunch ^^

So summer vacation is over for the kids, and it's time to go back to school. Well, Japanese kids can't technically go back to school, seeing as they spend almost every day of their summer vacation there anyway. Discipline and obligation are cool, if it keeps the kids off the streets. Anyway, the first junior high school I've been assigned to is just next door to my apartment, so it's either really easy to get there on time or equally as easy to oversleep and be massively late.

Mondays are half days here, and after the weekly assembly with various announcements and performances by student groups (great choir.. like wow), the kids get the enviable task of helping to clean the school. In fact, they do this with alarming frequency. Back in my time, students were rostered to do a little bit of cleaning during recess every day. Here, everyone gets involved all over the school for about 15 minutes at the end of every day, and the rostering bit only applies to the lucky few who get to help clean the teachers' room. So like it or not, if you're a Japanese student you have to get into the habit of cleaning house every day you're in school. Great way to save on the cleaning bill, since it's pretty obvious that a little cleaning a day means that you don't have a major headache at the end of the year... so sez the person whose carpet in Sydney was invisible under a thick layer of junk, used clothes, CDs and possibly the odd hamster.

I was asked to do a self introduction slide show as part of my first few classes for the second year students. So I told them about kangaroos, crocodiles, wichetty grubs, vegemite and how tasty they can be (eeeeeh~?!), rugby, cricket and Ian Thorpe (ooooh...), the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House (kirei...), oh and a few little things about sg. Most of the kids are pretty good, and even the most inattentive ones stay in their own seat at least and don't bother others. Man, if I ever take up teaching for real back in Australia, it's going to take some major adjustment.

The other thing about Japanese schools is lunchtime. School lunches are provided, and students take turns to distribute freshly cooked food to everyone in their classroom, and to collect used crockery and cutlery afterwards. Hygiene is important, so there are strict rules on food handling and serving attire, which includes an apron, face mask and hair cap. The menu changes every day even though everyone eats the same food, and from a quick look at this month's menu it looks like they never get the same lunch twice in a single month. How's that for variety?

This was my first school lunch ever:

Mmm curry rice, with a bottle of milk and yogurt fruit salad. All calorically dense, nutritious food for growing bodies and minds. Mighty tasty too, I might add. Gotta watch that waistline or I won't be able to fit in my own apartment. Everyone (including staff) gets a bottle of locally sourced fresh milk with lunch, which is a great concept, compared to the opt-in system in my day where subsidized artificially flavoured UHT milk (yuck) was only available to those who could afford it. I wonder if the system has changed back there, now that sg is a first world country with enlightened principles and all that crap. Meh.

Today's lunch was pork, bean and vegetable stew with white bread, cucumber and corn salad, a slice of pineapple and yes, milk. Tasted like a non-vegetarian minestrone soup. Damn but I miss having freshly cooked lunches. Shocked a few students by squeezing jam and margarine straight into my mouth, but hey, I had to break the ice somewhat, no?