School of scandal

I was meant to have my bonenkai party last Friday night. A bonenkai party serves the same purpose as a work Christmas party would except the focus is on celebrating or "forgetting" the year that is about to end. From what was planned, the bonenkai sounded like a smashing good time: buffet, all you can drink, crash overnight at an onsen hotel whilst partying the night away with more than 100 staff from school. Everything would have been covered from part of the ¥1,500 that we paid for coffee and tea every month. Fun times indeed and it sounded better than any work Christmas parties I had been to before (i.e., really crap). But then...

Wind back a couple of weeks before and I had a first period class on Thursday morning. I hate teaching in the first period for the fact that the students are generally not as awake as they usually are later in the day (i.e., not so much more). But more importantly, I'm not awake as well. Thursday's the only day that I have a class on in the first period which kinda makes the day sucky. But then it gets better because I get to teach one of my favourite classes so I guess it kinda works out. One Thursday though, the 3rd year class that I'm teaching is really dead, even for a first period. Fair enough. Tests are coming up and it's incredibly foggy outside so who would be awake and alert? Hell, I'd be half asleep too...wait, I am half asleep.

Anyway, I go through the lesson like the professional that I am and the lesson ends. It wasn't a walk through the mud but it wasn't a walk in the park, either. On the way back to my staffroom, I make chit-chat with my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English). It's a long hall way (100m +) and a bit of chit-chat is required. I comment that the students seemed more quiet than usual. Must be the tests, right?

"Uh...there's something I was asked to tell you about the 3rd years, John 先生.

"Uh...? Something...ha...uh...but that girl...that student...she promised not to tell anyone about our little secret..."

What in fact happened was this: the 3rd years had been busy applying for their respective university/college entrance exams. To my understanding, Japanese tertiary institutions hold their own entrance exams, unlike other countries such as Australia and the USA which has a uniform test for everyone and for every school. This means that these university entrance exams are designed by the universities and may vary from institution to institution. Depending on the prestige and demand of a university, some of these tests may be ridiculously hard or may be piss easy. I saw an entrance test for the university in town and it belonged in the former category: what the hell is "proxemics" and why is it coming up in a Japanese university's entrance exam (the English part of it) when most native speakers of English won't know what proxemics is?

So anyway, everyone has applied to different universities around the country and some have even done their tests. However, it seems that one of the girls in the class that I had just taught would not be doing a test for her university. It seems that an error had been made in her application form. Because of this, she had been automatically disqualified and would be required to sit the test in February. It was interesting to note that my JTE commented that, had the student actually sat the test, she would have passed since 99% of the people pass the test.

At this point, the actual details of things becomes a tad unclear: it is not me to ask about things that are bad news. But from what I've gathered (it is like me to ask other people about things that are bad news) the school and the student were at fault, though the school would never lay blame on the student. Quite what the mistake was is unclear to me. An "i" that was not dotted? A "t" that was not crossed"? A failure to mention that John 先生 is TBTEⓒ? Who knows? But for a society that likes things to be done properly, a mistake on a form may be a real big deal.

Well it seems that it was a really big deal. When I left my staff room the night before, one of the teachers that sits opposite me was watching the news on her mobile phone. I was about to ask if there was something important on the news, but didn't. It turns out that there was something important and local based: it seems that earlier in the day, the principal had held a press conference in regards to the mistake for the entrance exam. Soon enough, everyone knows, from other teachers in neightbouring schools (I got pumped for information from a teacher at another school that I had never met before) to folks living an hour and a half away who read in their morning paper. After all the explaining and apologising, it seems that the principal and one of the senior teachers got a yelling from someone representing the prefecture's board of education. Ouch.

So how does this affect me? Well, I had my possibly awesome year end party cancelled. Boo. How things go round here is that if something bad has happened round the end of the year, then the bonenkai gets cancelled so not to bring the party down. Fair enough I guess. Other people have had their respective year end party and they ranged from just a night out, to an over night stay at a hotel but at their own expenses. But from what I've heard they all sounded inferior to my planned bonenkai but were still smashingly fun. Double boo.

It seems strange to me that since the bonenkai literally means "forget the year party" then wouldn't it had been the most fitting opportunity to forget this incident and get on with the new year? But it seems that others didn't share the same thinking as me. Still, I did get something from it: since a lot of money had been collected from our monthly coffee/tea money throughout the year to fund for the bonenkai, we all got a refund of ¥10,000. It worked out even better for me since I've only been here for 5 months so I had received part of my predecessor's money. Easy money kinda makes up for all the mistakes, hushed gossiping and a girl's possibly disrupted dreams. But only just.