I know most of the entries on here are about strange things I’ve encountered or about things that might annoy me but now that I’m nearing the end of my time in Japan I am getting more nostalgic.   This is due in large part to the fact that I know my time here is just about up.  If I had another year to go I would surely still be griping.

Since I visit so many schools, I have for the last two weeks been having “last classes” with my students.  I just have four more days of school to go and I’m really really looking forward to finishing them all up.  But while I won’t miss my job, there’s plenty about the students that I will miss.  In many of the last classes I’ve taught, the home room teacher has made the students write me good bye notes and passed out a sheet with English sentences they might copy down so that at the end of class I have a million notes that say:

“Dear Tessa,

Hello/Hi/Good Morning!, (guess they don’t understand yet that “/” means “either/or”)

I think you are a very nice teacher.  Thank you for teaching us.“

And several notes like this:

“I don’t want you to go back to Canada.“

Hmm, can’t very well go back to somewhere I’ve never been…

But always, within the stack of dutifully copied drivel, there are a few students who have actually written something from their own head, including:

“Please take me to France!“

“At first I didn’t like English but thanks to you, I like English.“

“Your class is very fun.  I enjoyed English with you.”

It’s these notes and those students that make me sad to leave.  (Not so sad that I’ll actually stay though)

Yesterday, two students came to deliver a sealed note, decorated with stickers and tiny origami cranes and inside were cartoon pictures of little girls holding hands that had been drawn and laboriously cut out.  It said “Dear Tessa, We had a lot of fun with you, good luck in France, don’t forget us, we’ll miss you.” And then they handed me a tiny stuffed Mickey Mouse as a present.  It’s THESE cute gestures that warm my heart. 

So as my days here near their end, I can think back more readily to all the good times I’ve had and all the things that I will miss.  But there are more things beyond Japan that I’m looking forward to and of course, my nostalgia grows only as my time here shrinks.