It was revenge of the 2nd year junior high school girls ... different girls but the encounter was eerily similar to the one that occurred outside Starbucks.
Took the train to Hakodate for the lesson because A) my car is not in fantastic shape at the present and B) I wanted to keep my options open in case I wanted to go out later on.
As the train slowed towards the station immediately after mine I caught a glimpse of one of my students decked out in a yellow t-shirt. She was neither exceptionally great at English nor particularly outgoing but had just enough presence in school to be recognizable. Fingers were crossed that she wouldn't make eye contact.
Being the periphery of the periphery in Japan, the train was a one car affair. The girl and her friend (another student from the same school who I could only vaguely recall encountering before) entered at the back of the train. I was sat alone in a booth facing the front of the train. It was beyond the after school rush so there were quite a number of spare seats to be found.
The girl's friend passed by without a glance and took a seat on one of the benches at the front. I was troubled by the non-appearance of the girl ... being the only naturally blonde-headed male in a city of 50,000 I was not the least bit conspic- "It's David!" A piercing shout at highly un-Japanese noise level. I turned and offered a polite hello and acknowledged the friend who had turned to look my way. Whatever, I thought, but then I was troubled ... the girl hadn't moved a step. She motioned to her friend and suggested they sit across from me in the booth. The friend, obviously the more reasonable of the two, smiled and shook her head in a way to suggest that it probably would be better not to. A Godsend ... but the girl repeated her suggestion and to my dismay the friend acquiesced.
I decided to hopefully make this a beneficial experience (for them) and initially started conversing in English, then English with Japanese translations, and finally just used Japanese.
I suppose I was a little frustrated that a genuine opportunity to put their years of English language education to practical usage bore little fruit. Although about half to two-thirds of a given class can perform adequately during conversational activities, 5 is the upper limit for the number students that are willing and able to have an unscripted conversation outside of class.
At the very least, these two students enjoyed the experience and remarked to each other how interesting it was to meet me outside of school. The girl in the yellow shirt took a candid shot of me with her cellphone and I have to begin to worry what's going to happen with all these pictures. The worst of it is, if these students consider me to be 'cool' I can't imagine how they'll react around a person worthy of the descriptor. Minds may be quite literally blown to smithereens.
The record attendance for this term so far is 3 students!
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