Proud

Yesterday the loopy professor came to see me before class, to tell me that she would probably not be able to teach next week, as she has been invited to attend a lecture given by the Australian Prime Minister at Kyoto University. She asked me if I would mind teaching both classes together.

I said that would be fine, and complimented her on her new haircut. She glowed.

Then she told me that in the last class, in July, I would not have to teach the class at all, because she had arranged a special lecture about how to explain, in English, the method of putting on a kimono, for those students who will go abroad to study in the summer. The lecture would be for all the students, though, whether they were going abroad or not.

That made me happy. A morning off!

At lunchtime she came back to the teachers' room, told me the same things again, and also wanted to arrange when I would do the oral tests for the students. By this time the teacher had arrived with whom I share the afternoon classes. She was looking harassed and anxious. I knew she was finding these classes a real trial. The loopy professor micro-manages the Japanese-taught classes. The other teacher is far more qualified and a better teacher than the loopy professor, but is constrained by the loopy professor's bad ideas and ridiculously overoptimistic syllabus. Last year (her first year there) the other teacher was keen and dedicated. This year she has been flagging. The students don't like her classes, and she knows it. She knows what to do about it (give the students something challenging they can actually do instead of something they can't understand at all) but can't. She is becoming more and more cynical, especially since learning we are not allowed to fail anybody.

She is a very nice woman and a good teacher, at least from what she tells me about what she would do in the class if she was allowed to.

I decided to try for a little extra something. The loopy professor and I are not the only ones who need a break, and if she wanted me to teach her class for her she owed me something in return.

"Let me make sure I understand properly," I said. "Next week I will teach both classes together, and I will need to do the oral testing in the first two weeks of July because of the public holiday. I do not need to teach the last class of semester at all in the morning, but I will need to come in for the afternoon classes, right? The afternoon classes are not getting the special lecture, are they?"

The loopy professor stared at me, smiling uncomprehendingly. I had asked a negative question and confused her.

"I mean, the special lecture is only for the morning class, not the afternoon classes. Is that right?"

"Oh!" she said, as she finally arrived at the point I was ever-so-subtly trying to get her to. "Do you think the afternoon classes should have the lecture as well?"

"Not necessarily. Only if it's useful for the students," I said, innocently. "Is it only students from the morning classes who are going abroad?" (I knew it wasn't. We handed out the information leaflets about the study abroad program a couple of weeks ago, in all our classes. It hadn't occurred to the loopy professor because she wasn't teaching in the afternoon. She had arranged the special lecture to give herself a day off, not us.)

"No, some are going from the other classes, too," she said. "Oh! Of COURSE they should all have the lecture! I could ask the lecturer to do the afternoon classes as well." She frowned. "What do you think? Do you mind?"

"I'm fine with it," I said. "I think it's a good idea. I nodded over at the other teacher. "But you had better ask the other teacher."

The loopy professor bustled over to the other teacher, and a hurried conversation ensued. The other teacher nodded seriously. She told the professor the special lecture sounded like something the students would appreciate, and that she could adjust her teaching to compensate for the missing class. She tried not to look too overjoyed.

The bell rang, and the loopy professor left. The other teacher stared disbelievingly after her. Usually when the loopy professor wants to talk to her it is to set more ridiculous requirements, or to complain, or to demand even more detail in the already detailed two-weekly reports she has to submit about her classes. I have a lot of freedom in my classes, but the Japanese teachers have almost none.

As we were walking over to class, I noticed that the other teacher was looking less harassed and anxious. Also, she had developed an extra little spring in her step and could not wipe the grin off her face.

"Isn't that nice?" I said. "A whole day off at the end of semester!"

"Yes!" she said, emphatically. But then she looked a little embarrassed. She is new, still. Some of her ideals have not yet been completely erased by the loopy professor's sabotaging of her classes.

But I am not embarrassed at all to have nabbed an extra day off for her (and for myself). In fact I'm quite proud of myself.

(Im)moral support

I found out today how my Monday/Wednesday university is going to prevent us nasty gaijin from failing students without actually ordering us not to. As usual, I got this information from the one Japanese teacher who treats me as a professional equal rather than as an English-speaking parrot. (Unfortunately she is also a part-timer.)

She told me that she had been told (by the loopy professor) that when the grades are being given for these classes (which are taught half by a foreign teacher and half by a Japanese teacher), the grade is to be calculated so that forty percent of the total comes from the foreign teacher and sixty percent from the Japanese teacher. This means that nobody gets the embarrassing task of explaining to the foreign teachers that the university has no academic standards. I can give a student zero points if I want to. The Japanese teacher will then give the student sixty points, and since sixty is a passing score the student will magically pass their English course.

This is, actually, a brilliant way around the problem of what to do with fussy gaijin who insist that at a university students should actually do something to earn a grade. Only a cunning, sneaky, underhanded person could have dreamed it up. I had no idea the loopy professor was so clever.

But it is also incredibly insulting to the foreign teachers. These classes are supposed to be for 'oral English.' I teach four of them, along with three Japanese teachers. (The loopy professor teaches two with me, and two part-time Japanese teachers teach the other two.) I am the only teacher out of the four of us who is actually qualified to teach the English language, and in particular, spoken language. (The loopy professor's PhD is, I discovered recently, in Japanese Studies, and the other Japanese teachers' qualifications are in English literature rather than language.) I am still deciding how insulted to be, however. If I protest too loudly I could end up with no classes at all there, and then where will I get all my bird pictures from? This is the university next to the little river.

I also found out today that most of the Japanese teachers' grades will come from a written test that they all have to use, put together by the loopy professor. This test is mostly in Japanese, and how it is supposed to assess spoken English is a mystery nobody dares to question. My part-time colleague is outraged. She wanted to use her own test, but she is also not protesting too loudly. (It was refusing to use this test that cost another part-timer her job.) She and I have decided to get together over the grades. We will collaborate to make sure that students who deserve a high grade actually get one, whatever their test scores. We may not be allowed to fail anyone, but at least we can be as fair as possible.

But that's only for one class, and I was still feeling pretty irate when I got home today. The Man was sympathetic when I told him what was going on. His helpful suggestion was that I should arrange for the loopy professor to slip on a banana peel at the top of a steep flight of stairs.

I found this idea curiously cheering. When things are not going so well at work it is extremely important to have moral support at home.

Or some sort of support, anyway.

Mad, mad, mad

On Wednesday at work my loopy boss came to the part-time teachers' room and the room magically became emptier. It is amazing how many people suddenly find urgent business elsewhere when she turns up. Also, it's just as well there are two exits, because people leave so quickly they would jam in the doorway if they all tried to leave by the same route.

I was feeling stupidly complacent enough to stay. I should have known she had a message for me. She usually does.

"Oh, Badaunt-sensei!" she warbled. "I wanted to talk to you about the tests next week."

"Yes . . . ?" I said, somewhat doubtful but smiling nicely. I always smile nicely at her, but I was fairly sure I would not like what was coming next.

A couple of weeks ago she had told me she needed to see both classes at once on the last day (we usually teach them alternate weeks), and could I do my tests the same day? I had planned to test the classes separately, but apparently she thought it would be perfectly feasible for me to test the speaking proficiency of forty-five or -six students in ninety minutes.

I agreed, of course (she hires me) and adjusted my tests accordingly, making them so short they are useless.

But of course I can manage. I perform miracles on a daily basis. Besides, I already know the speaking proficiency of most of my students, and their 'test grade' will reflect what they have done during semester rather than what they do in the 'test,' particularly because I am fairly sure it is the only grade the professor is going to accept from me. The test is PAPERWORK. I am doing it because she told me to. Preparing for the test is more valuable to the students than the actual test will be.

I could not imagine how she could make the situation worse than it was already, but she did.

"I'd like you to test them in groups of four or five," she told me. "They will have a discussion, and you should grade them on that. It's very important that they know how to have discussions."

I don't quite know how I managed not to hit her. Perhaps it's because I have extraordinary patience when I deal with crazy people, due to the phenomenal amount of practice I get. Or perhaps I was just too boggled by what she'd said. Whatever the reason, I just sat there, grinning at her. I opened my mouth. I shut my mouth. Then I opened it again. This went on for a few seconds as I wondered why she thought it was suddenly a good idea to test the students on something that wasn't in the syllabus or the textbook, that neither of us had taught them, and that they were incapable of anyway. Most of these students are the sort who, when you breeze into the class and say, cheerfully, "Hello! How are you today?" smile happily back at you, then turn to each other and say, "Eh? What did she say?" "I don't know. Did she change her hairstyle? I liked it better before."

I stopped wondering what the professor was thinking. You cannot read the mind of a crazy person. You can only respond as if they are sensible and did not mean exactly what they said. (And if they hire you, the best tactic is to agree with everything and hope you can wiggle out of it later.)

"Well," I said, diplomatically, hoping I hadn't stared at her for too long gaping like a demented fish, "I already told the students last week how the test will be conducted so that they could prepare for it. I can't really change it now, but . . . " I got thoughtful, mostly about the fact that she is notorious for suddenly turning on people she decides she doesn't like, and remembering that I had just heard that morning about the Japanese part-time teacher who is looking for new classes elsewhere next year because she got on the wrong side of this woman OVER THE ISSUE OF TESTING and suddenly found herself jobless.

I pretended to be thinking about her idea.

"Groups of four or five . . . groups of four or five . . . Actually, YES! It IS possible!" I said. "Groups of four or five will be no problem! It will be FINE! In fact, it should work out VERY WELL! What a GOOD IDEA!"

She beamed at me.

But it is NOT a good idea, so I will NOT test them in groups of four or five.

She will not know that, however. She will be testing them on whatever she has been teaching them (or, more likely, on something completely different), in the other room. She will send the students through to me in groups of four or five. I will then test them individually, the way I told them I would, and the way they have prepared for. They will sit in groups, so that if she pops her head around the door she will see that I am 'testing them in groups,' but I actually I will test them one by one on the test questions I gave them to prepare for last week BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I TOLD THEM I WOULD DO, AND I WILL NOT SUDDENLY CHANGE THEIR TEST BECAUSE A MADWOMAN HAD A WHIM. What kind of teacher tests students on something they never learned?

But I understand that it will go down in the records that I tested them on 'discussion,' and that they passed. I have already learned – from another of my 'team teaching' teachers, a Japanese woman who is a part-timer like myself – that we are not allowed to fail students any more at this particular university. They are too afraid of losing students. The foreign teachers are not being told this, however. Instead, we are to give the grades for our half of the classes to the Japanese half of the team-teaching teams, who will fill in the actual grade sheets, and 'adjust' those grades that need adjusting because of the unreasonable gaijin who insist on failing students who sleep through classes. The other teacher told me about this because she thought I should know, and because she is concerned about the effect this will have on student motivation, which is already low. (I like this woman, a lot. She cares about the students.)

But this is the school where I have given up completely on the university ever doing anything sensible for the students' education. There I have learned to do my best for the students, and everything else has to go into the 'irrelevant' basket OR ELSE I WOULD GO CRAZY.

While the loopy professor was wittering on about what a wonderful teacher I am and how good my classes are for the students because they NEED to learn how to have 'discussions' in English (SLAP!) and how much the students enjoy their English classes and are learning such a lot with this marvelous team-teaching system (SLAP!), I decided I should warn her about how the students are using translation software for all their homework. I wrote about this before, and have been worrying about it ever since. I had already told the other teacher (the nice part-timer, who got it right away and was FURIOUS because she'd spent hours correcting machine English) and thought I should tell the professor as well. It didn't seem fair not to.

"It's a shame the students often use translation software to write their homework," I said.

"Yeees!" she cried, happily. "And that's why they need a native speaker like you to teach them! They only learn translation at high school, not real English!"

"Um, I mean, I've noticed that some of them don't use English AT ALL when they write their homework," I interrupted desperately. "They write it in Japanese and then use a computer to translate it."

"Yeeees, that's right!" she warbled. "They really want to learn! And it REALLY helps them to have a native English teacher! Otherwise they don't know how what real English is like! Their homework is VERY GOOD! I am very happy with the way this team-teaching is working out. We work so well together!"

After a couple more tries I gave up. The loopy professor can speak English very well but she has never learned how to listen, in any language.

Black Thursday

(Warning: Very long post, very tired writer.)

The bad day on Thursday started off well. The Man was particularly affectionate when I was leaving. (He has been particularly affectionate recently, I suspect because he is in the middle of translating a book by a truly sloppy thinker, and I shine by comparison.) Also, I left a little earlier than usual. This would mean that I could take time over breakfast, which I eat near the university to avoid the morning rush hour on the trains.

But as I was parking my bicycle near the local station I realized that I had left my lunch at home, so I had to turn around and go back to get it. I ended up on my usual train. Not such a disaster yet, but not a good sign, either.

My first class went fine, too. I had spent the entire weekend marking homework and collating grades-so-far and printing them out for all my classes, so that I would be able to inform those students who are in danger of failing exactly what they need to do to pass. I had also put together the tests that I would be giving my second and third classes, AND made the copies myself. The university insists on us ordering photocopies a week in advance, and since the last few questions in the test aren't even settled until the week before the test, and we have no working computer in the teachers' room (we have two non-working ones, however) this is impossible for me. I have to sort everything out at home. My tests are pedagogically sound but administratively impossible.

Anyway, the first class went as planned. Towards the end, however, I happened to notice what I had written in my notes for the next class, remembered that I was giving tests, and realized that I had left the test papers at home. I had also, I then discovered, left the computer printouts of the grades at home for every class except the first one.

The only bright spot on the horizon was that it was lunchtime, so I had time to panic AND come up with a solution.

When I left the classroom I was already planning like mad. If I plead really pitifully at my second-in-command boss (I'll call him George) maybe he'll let me use the computer in his office to type them up again, I thought.

The first person I bumped into was George, and I put my plan into immediate action. He obliged, as I knew he would (he is my favourite boss out of the seemingly dozens I have), and I spent most of lunchtime retyping the tests, except without the proper easy-to-mark formatting that I had used at home. There was no time for that, and besides, I wanted to fit everything in each test onto one page so that I could then plead for copies from George as well without overburdening him too much. He has a copy card, being a full-timer. We lowly part-time teachers do not get copying privileges. (We get more classes and less support. I am not sure of the reasoning behind this.)

Dear George obliged with the copying as well, RUNNING over to the copying room to copy the tests while I spent the last five minutes of lunchtime inhaling my lunch.

So I gave the test, and the students wrote their answers on separate sheets, formatting them as they saw fit, which will make them a pain in the fundamental tube (as my brother used to say to avoid recriminations from the saintly parents) to mark – but at least I GAVE THE TEST. First hurdle over.

The test was not long enough, and I knew that, so to fill the last half hour or so I had a crossword puzzle (which I had been able to copy in advance). I would have preferred to let the students go, but we foreign teachers tend to be spied on at that university. The Japanese professors of language do not like us, and if they see any foreign teacher's class leaving even only five minutes early there are often complaints.

Unfortunately the crossword I had given the students took them a lot longer than I expected it to take, and they enjoyed it. Class ran over time, leaving me no opportunity before the next class to get back to the teachers' room for coffee and, more importantly, no time to go to the toilet. I desperately needed to pee. I had desperately needed to pee since before lunch, but had not had time.

The next class started.

Normally if I desperately need to pee I get the students working on something and disappear quietly for the couple of minutes it takes to run down the corridor (down two corridors, actually – I am as far away from the toilets in that building as it is possible to be). But I was giving a test, which meant I could not leave the room. Also, although the test for this class was a bit longer than the one for the first class, it would still not fill the entire ninety minutes. I was worried that if I used the same crossword, which had been my original plan, I would not get a break AGAIN, and if that happened I would explode. I would have gone while the students were doing the crossword in the previous class, but some of the clues were tricky and they kept asking me for more hints.

I decided that the only possible response to a situation where the other alternative was to explode was to skip the crossword and finish the class early. I would just have to risk it.

I let the class go twenty minutes early.

It was not my day yesterday. Just as the students were streaming out of my classroom a Japanese professor walked past, saw them, and looked at his watch. I did not rush out and strangle him, however. I rushed out and sped past him in the direction of the toilets. By that point nothing else mattered. I had been holding on for four hours and could not wait another minute.

While I was in the toilet I decided that if challenged I would explain that I had suddenly got my period, and with a bit of luck cause a lot of embarrassment. Or rather, I would send this explanation in an official letter of explanation and apology via my boss, who would receive the complaint via his boss. These professors never complain directly to us. They take it straight to the top. By the time my bladder was empty I was HOPING they would take it right to the top, because if I wrote a letter like that I would also add that I would appreciate it if people who were concerned about my professionalism approached me honestly and directly and did not sneak around behind my back in a cowardly fashion making anonymous and vicious complaints. I would ask The Man to write this in polite Japanese, of course. He is good at things like that.

It appeared that by emptying my bladder I was making room for rage. I conveniently forgot that my excuse would be a lie, and that the real reason for finishing the class early was that I had left the test papers at home and was badly prepared. That was not relevant, as far as I was concerned, and I managed to work myself up into a glowingly self-righteous fury.

But with the immediate potential disaster defused I now had a little time to sit down with a coffee, and I managed to calm down. After all, I did not know that that particular professor would complain. He might not be one of the nasty grumps. Maybe he was just a bit surprised because he thought he must be late for something. And anyway, I could worry about that later. I had one more class to teach.

I decided, while I was sipping my coffee, to abandon my previous plan, which had involved too much teacher work, and instead do something that would give me a break. I had no more copies of the crossword, but in my locker I had a simple logic quiz thing (rather like this one). If I dictated it to the students, then they could solve it. This has always been a popular activity when I have used it before, and involves the students spending quite a lot of time staring at their paper and thinking. This, I thought, would provide a little space in which I could sit and stare at them and NOT think. I had had enough of thinking for the day.

It seemed like a good plan to me.

I started the class with a short test (not one of mine – this is one we have to give almost weekly and which has been prepared for us), and then they had their usual speaking practice time, and then I gave them the puzzle.

They hated it.

This is the class that includes the autistic guy (who I will write about again soon), and he simply did not understand what to do. I did not realize that he didn't know what to do at first, though, because the others were too busy asking questions and complaining that the whole thing was too difficult. We had about thirty minutes to go by that stage, and I noticed somebody hanging around outside the classroom door.

And that was when I remembered that this was the day scheduled for teacher evaluations for that particular class.

I let the guy in, and he handed out the questionnaires.

I did not see what the students wrote. I am not supposed to, and I deliberately did not try to peek. I knew it would be depressing. There the students were, actively loathing what I'd given them FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS SEMESTER, and the perfect opportunity for revenge had presented itself.

I stood there chatting with the questionnaire guy and mentally kicking myself. They take teacher evaluations really seriously at this university, and I suspected that my previous record of ten years or so of good evaluations had just been obliterated.

Everybody except the autistic kid finished the questionnaire suspiciously quickly, and I am sure they did not give me good scores. The autistic kid, however, I am equally sure was fair. He spent a lot of time reading all the questions very carefully and thinking about how to answer them.

After the guy had gone I told the students that when they finished the quiz they could leave. This gave them sudden motivation to actually try it, and they suddenly started focusing, and discovering how easy it was. I also noticed that the autistic kid had been staring at his paper and not writing anything, so I went to him and showed him how to do it. I went over it slowly with him, and he listened and watched carefully. I wrote the first answer in for him. Once I'd got him started, he suddenly nodded vigorously, said, "I SEE!" and off he went. He muttered to himself and wrote rapidly, and finished the whole thing in about five minutes, which I think was a new record for any of my students. Then he went over it again very slowly and carefully to make sure the answers were right.

He was the last to bring it to me, just as the bell went. Everybody else was charging out the door, and I regarded him fondly. He was the only one who hadn't complained.

"Is this RIGHT?" he enquired, handing over his paper. I looked at it and did a small double-take. Then I looked at him.

"It's wonderful," I assured him. "You've done very well!"

"THANK you," he said, and left.

Finally I had finished my work day, but I was finding it hard to leave the empty classroom. I sat there, staring at the paper the autistic kid had given me and still not quite believing it.

Every single answer on his page was wrong except the one answer I had given him at the beginning. Usually when a student makes a mistake on this puzzle they get two answers switched, but he had got them ALL wrong, and then double-checked them carefully and decided they were right.

It was amazing.

But it didn't really matter, either, because the point of the puzzle is for the students to use English to solve a problem, not that they shine at the logic involved. He had used lots of English. All his muttering had been in English. ("If THIS house is RED then THAT house is GREEN and THAT house is YELLOW, and . . . ")

I went back to the teacher's room, taking care to put his puzzle into my bag to take home, to look at more closely later when my brain started functioning again.

In the teachers' room I walked into an uproar. I only listened for long enough to make sure it was not about me. It wasn't, so I did not want to know more. I made my escape. (Sometimes I understand why the Japanese teachers do not like us. Our discussions are noisy and we all talk at once when we get excited about something, and if you do not understand what it is about it sounds like we are about to kill each other. This particular uproar was over the best way to stuff a turkey.)

I met some other of my colleagues at the curry shop for dinner, and ordered a beer first. I don't think I have ever enjoyed a beer so much. I don't even like beer usually, but I liked that one.

Conversation over dinner was an uproar, too.

The excitement this time was over how the one German professor (the one real German professor, I mean, not a Japanese teacher of German) had actually talked back to the Queen Secretary. Our informant told us that the professor had become so angry with her questioning his requests and lecturing him about how to do his job (he had wanted more than one stick of chalk, or something similarly outrageous) that he had given her a full-on, scathingly loud lecture in Japanese about how her duty as a secretary was to support the teaching staff. He had banged on the counter! He had shouted at her in front of her colleagues and in front of the other teachers! He actually SILENCED her when she tried to argue back!

We could not quite believe this.

"Are you sure he is still alive?" we asked, and he assured us that the professor was, indeed, alive and in good health.

"I saw him today," he said. "All his limbs are intact, and there are no bruises. Also, he still has his job!"

This is the same professor who, when I met him a couple of years ago in a corridor one day, had broken his ankle and was having trouble with the wheelchair the office had kindly lent him. This wheelchair had small wheels, and could not be wheeled by the person in it. It needed a pusher. They omitted to provide him with a pusher, however, so he was reduced to trying to use crutches while pushing a wheelchair because he was too polite to tell them this was a worse than useless solution. The secretaries would not let him take the good wheelchair with big wheels because 'it might be needed in an emergency.'

I guess he has finally reached the limits of his excessive politeness. He is one of the mildest, most polite people I have ever met, and I really, really wish I had seen this confrontation.

After a bit of excited, celebratory discussion of this incident, someone finally said,

"But of course he can get away with it because he has tenure. . . "

And we realized, gloomily, that nothing had really changed. We would never be able to do something like that. The Queen Secretary is perfectly capable of getting an untenured teacher fired.

The next time I see the German professor, however, I intend to ask him to do us all the favour of arranging to videotape the next confrontation he has with the secretary, so we can ALL enjoy a little vicarious revenge. Stealing an entire box of chalk (which I did two weeks ago when she wasn't looking, to take to our building so that we do not have to traipse across campus to get chalk) does not give quite the same thrill. (Although I was rather thrilled, I must admit.)

Today I took George a box of chocolates to thank him for helping me out over the test debacle, and also to thank him for not lecturing me over my idiocy (as my first-in-command boss would have done). George told me the chocolate was not necessary as it was his job to help out teachers when they ran into a spot of trouble. I told him that my particular spot of trouble was entirely self-inflicted, that his help had saved me from totally screwing up, and that his lack of recrimination had helped me to calm down a bit and deal with a crappy day. I said that if he did not accept the chocolates I would have to give him a big sloppy kiss instead.

He took the chocolates.

Happily ever after

Yesterday I went into Osaka to find a new keyboard. I did not expect it to be difficult, so I also decided to look for new boots (my old ones are glued together) and get some bread from our favourite bakery.

The short version of this story is that I came home with bread.

By the end of the day I was frustrated, hot (why are shops so overheated?), and very, very tired. I had walked all over Osaka and not found a keyboard that would work on my old computer and satisfy my demanding requirements. Also, I'd forgotten to have lunch, and breakfast was a long time ago. I was walking along in a sort of daze, jostled by crowds and starting to feel a little disoriented, probably from the lack of food. This was why I did not respond very sensibly when a large face loomed out of the crowd and warbled,

"I'm so sorry about Wednesday! Thank you so much for helping me out!"

"Er. Um," I said.

"You must be very tired!" said the loopy professor.

"I am!" I agreed fervently, while my brain went spinning off in all directions. What was she doing here? Was she following me? "I should have remembered that Saturdays are a bad day for shopping," I said.

She looked puzzled, and I realized what she'd meant. She was using a direct translation from the Japanese, and wanted to say that my hard work on Wednesday must have made me tired. "Oh, Wednesday was fine," I added, hastily. "We played language games."

My brain switched into work mode and I hoped I hadn't derailed the conversation too badly.

"Oh, good, good!" said the professor. "Please tell me if there's anything you want to order for the students."

"Oh, er, yes," I said. I was lost again.

"I need to know by Friday," she said. "I can use the department budget."

"Oh, I see," I said. "I'll think about it and let you know."

"Good! Good!" she said, and vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.

I stood there feeling totally lost. I didn't know where I was or which direction I was supposed to be walking. People kept bumping into me. It had been a very confusing encounter. Surely if you happen to bump into a colleague while you are shopping you should be all surprised and greet each other and then move on, not act as if it was a totally normal thing to happen and suddenly launch into a work-related conversation?

I decided to have a coffee, to recompose myself.

While I was having coffee I thought about last Wednesday. The loopy professor had been absent, and had asked (i.e. told) me to teach both her class and mine. (We usually switch students every week.) She had told me to use this opportunity to give back the students' summer vacation homework, with comments, along with feedback.

So I'd handed back their summer vacation homework. I had obediently followed her orders and written one comment on every paper. I had written, at the end,

Good. B.

One one or two, where the students had actually done the homework the way I'd asked them to, I had written,

Excellent! A.

This was because back when the professor told me to give them summer vacation homework, and told me which units of the book to take it from, I had asked the students to write sentence answers to questions in the book. They then went ahead and complained to the professor that my homework was too difficult, so she told them they could write short answers. This meant that most of the students had written one or two word answers lifted straight from the example short answers given in the textbook, which was exactly what I had been trying to avoid. The whole point of sentence answers was that they would have to actually understand the questions and attempt to write something, and I would be able to find out where they had difficulties and use this in future classes, or for feedback. As it was, the homework was useless, both for the students and for me, since they didn't even need to understand (or even read) the questions to answer them.

So when she told me to use the combined classes lesson to give feedback on the homework, I was stuck. She had sabotaged it so thoroughly it wasn't even worth marking. But I know what side my bread is buttered on. I agreed, marked it up with the single word comment for each one (and gave them B rather than the C they deserved because they would have complained again otherwise), and in the combined class played language games using vocabulary straight from those units in the textbook. In other words, I followed the letter of her instructions but not the spirit, which is how things are generally done here.

Only one student recognized the vocabulary. She was one of the very few who had done the homework properly, and naturally, her group won all the games.

As I sat in the coffee shop sipping coffee and eating cake (lunch!), I thought about a joke one of the teachers made on Thursday evening while we were having dinner.

"Our job is like a fairy tale," he said, and we all stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

Seeing that he had our undivided attention, he added the punchline.

"Grim," he said.

Which is pretty much how I felt.

At least that's how I felt until the sugar from the cake got into my bloodstream, at which point I cheered up and went home. At home The Man got onto the Internet and ordered a new keyboard for me, easy as pie.

It will arrive sometime this week.

Brain-damaged

Today I arrived at work twenty minutes before my first class and there was a message for me. I was to call the loopy professor with whom I share two of my classes.

I called. She told me that today the students for both our classes had to have a vocabulary test, for unit seven of the textbook. I goggled at the phone.

"All right," I said, although it wasn't. I am always agreeable with this professor. She hires me.

"It should take about fifteen to twenty minutes," she said, "At the beginning of class."

"Um," I said. "Er."

I was trying to dream up a vocabulary test for unit seven of my textbook while I was listening to her. How could she do this to me?

"I will hand out the papers," she went on. "But I'd like you to collect them from your class. Let the students have about fifteen or twenty minutes to finish."

"OH!" I said. "Yes! Of course!" Then, to make sure, "Er, do you already have the tests prepared?"

"Yes," she said.

I sagged with relief. The test was for HER textbook, not mine.

I did not stay sagged for long, however, because I then realized that my lesson plan was going to take too much time and I would have to prepare something different. Fortunately I had something suitable in my enormous bag. (This is why I have an enormous bag. I am prepared for ANYTHING.)

Unfortunately, the copy machine chose this moment to stop working.

Also unfortunately, in a bizarre effort at cost-cutting this particular school has decided the part-time teachers no longer need a secretary, so while we have a secretary's desk there is nobody sitting at it, and nobody who knows the vagaries of the copy machine, which stop working on a regular basis. One of the teachers, on her way out the door to her class, noticed me jumping up and down and making rude noises, and laughed sympathetically.

"Chotto matte, she said, and disappeared.

I chotto matted, and eventually someone from the office appeared. He consulted a manual, and fixed the machine.

It was now five minutes after my class was supposed to begin. However, the students were doing a test, right? And in any case, the professor was always late for her class, so I was pretty sure it would be all right. I made my copies.

Then I raced up the stairs to my classroom, just in time to spot the professor at the end of the corridor waiting for the lift to go down.

"I have given them the test!" she cried cheerfully. "Please let them have about fifteen minutes, and then collect the papers. I forgot something in my office. I'll be back soon."

The lift doors closed behind her.

Puzzled, I went along the corridor and peeked in the two classrooms where our students were. I had thought that she would put the classes together, but she hadn't. Nor were either of the classes supervised. I went into the wrong one, first (I do this almost every week because we change rooms each week and I always forget where I'm supposed to be) and said hello to the students. They did not seem to be doing a test. They seemed to be having a party. We greeted each other cheerfully and they told me I was in the wrong room.

I went through to my classroom. Half of my students had finished the test and were having a nap, and the other half were still looking up the answers. There were some unused test papers on my desk, and after a couple of minutes two latecomers arrived. I handed them the test papers. They sat down, asked their friends for the answers, wrote them down, and promptly fell asleep.

I looked at the test. There were six ridiculously difficult words on it, three in Japanese and three in English. The students were supposed to write the translation the other way, and of course they were doing it perfectly. That's what dictionaries and textbooks are for.

I could not imagine the purpose of this test. Nor could I imagine how it could possibly take fifteen or twenty minutes. I collected the papers. The students had all written identical, perfect answers.

After about ten minutes of thumb twiddling (me) and napping (the students) the professor came back and I gave her the test papers.

"The students seem to have done very well," I said.

"Yes!" she said, enthusiastically, leafing through the papers. "They're very good students!"

She smiled at me. I smiled back. Neither of us displayed even a tiny hint of irony. We were totally, whole-heartedly sincere and self-congratulatory. Actually, I don't think the professor does irony. It is not in her repertoire.

We went to our classes, and everything went back to what passes for normal.

I can only remember two of the words on the test. One word was diagnosis. The other was brain-damaged.

The hazards of using translation software

While I was collecting homework today, which had been done over the vacation for myself and for the Japanese professor who has my students every other week, I came across this sentence:

It was not clear and lived in every day whether I want to become thing and what which I wanted to do without can have what dream.

I think I must have been here too long. I actually understood what this meant. I know how computer translation software works – not because I use it, but because so many of my students do, thinking I will not notice.

I do notice. Most of my students, however low their level, write better than computer translation software can. At the very least they garble shorter, simpler sentences.

I wonder now whether the Japanese professor realizes that all (yes, ALL – I checked) the homework she has been given has been translated by computer? I looked through what the students handed in before passing it on, and it was perfectly obvious to me that the students had simply copied and pasted from translation software. As I passed it on I also assumed that their professor knows that and has decided to ignore it.

But just now, as I was typing that horrible sentence, it occurred to me that the professor might NOT know. One of these homework assignments was written on the back of an old homework assignment, similarly written by computer and similarly garbled, and the professor (who has a PhD in linguistics) had given it quite a high grade and had written the comment,

Very good effort!

When I saw it I thought, Ha! An ironic comment! How funny!

But just now I thought of the professor, who has never shown any inclination or talent for irony, and started to have serious doubts.

COULD SHE REALLY HAVE NOT NOTICED? I thought. And yes, I thought it in capital letters.

And now I am thinking (in smaller, chastened letters),

In fact it is entirely possible, even probable, that she has not noticed.

This puts me in a very difficult situation, as this professor is my boss and has a PhD, whereas I only have a lowly M. App. Ling. These things matter in Japan.

Should I tell her?

Seating arrangements

On Wednesday, at the women's university, one of the teachers I'm 'team-teaching' with (we teach the same classes on alternate weeks) told me she wanted to switch classrooms this week because she wanted to show her students part of a movie, and while my room had a DVD player, hers didn't. (This was the loopy professor, who is my sort-of boss.) That was no problem, but because I'd left my tape player behind after the first class I had to go into her classroom to get it before our classes started. Our classrooms are next to each other.

When I went in I was greeted with a peculiar sight.

The seating arrangements in the classrooms at that place are horrible, with benches rather than individual desks, and there are three seats per bench, a bit too close together. There are six or seven rows of benches, three benches across, but only 18 - 20 students in these classes. My students generally sit two to a bench, scattered mostly around the front half or two thirds of the classroom.

But in the professor's classroom the students had crammed themselves three to a bench so that they could all fit into the back two rows. They had their bags piled on the desks in front of them, and looked as though they were prepared to have missiles thrown at them. All I could see were their faces. It was hot, and they looked enormously uncomfortable. It was the oddest classroom arrangement I've ever seen, with those rows and rows of empty seats in the big room, but the two back rows crammed full. The professor was not there yet.

I put my hand up to my eyes and squinted at the students. They seemed very far away.

"HELLOOOOO!" I called.

"BadAunt-sensei!" they shrieked, waving.

"What are you all doing back there?" I called. "You won't be able to see the movie!"

They giggled nervously. It was a tactless question, quite aside from the fact that they didn't have the English to answer it. I shouldn't have asked.

The professor wafted in busily.

"Hello everybody!" she said, smiling sweetly. (She never stops smiling sweetly.) Nobody responded, but she didn't seem to notice. I grabbed her by the collar and shook her until her teeth rattled and her eyes bulged.

"WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING TO MY STUDENTS?" I yelled. "THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SIT AT THE BACK OF THE ROOM LOOKING FRIGHTENED! THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE CHATTING AND RELAXED AND HAPPY AND ASKING YOU INAPPROPRIATE QUESTIONS AND TEASING YOU ABOUT YOUR HAIR!"

Actually, I didn't do any of that, but I wanted to.

What I really did was to exchange some wimpy small talk. Then I took the tape player and went back to my own class.

In my classroom the students were scattered around and chatting, all seated fairly near the front aside from a couple of sports girls who were in the back row having a nap. (This university is well-known for its tennis players, and they tend to arrive in class so wiped out from practice they can barely keep their eyes open.)

"Good morning!" I said.

"Good morning!" they answered (except for the sports girls, who continued to snooze). Then I slapped myself on the forehead and corrected myself.

"Oop! Sorry. Good AFTERNOON!" I said, and they chorused back,

"Good AFTERNOON!" and giggled.

(I always do this, and almost never on purpose.)

I looked at them, grinning. Up to this point I had felt that things hadn't been going too badly with these classes, but now I suddenly had the feeling that things were going ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANTLY, because my students were not frightened of me. But I must have stared too long, and looked a bit too stupidly happy, because the students started giggling and wanted to know what was so funny.

"I'm just pleased to see you," I informed them loftily, and mentally pulled myself together. I started the class.

It was true. They're not a fantastic class or anything like that, but I was happy that they were not all cowering at the back of the classroom looking terrified.

The whole thing worries me a bit, though. I have never seen students looking as uncomfortable and defensive as those students did in the other room. I KNOW that class. I have them every second week, and have had no problems with them. They're lovely. There are three particularly keen students who always squash themselves into the bench right in front of me and interrupt me with lots of (sometimes annoying) personal questions (which I parry with silly answers), and who like to investigate the papers I have on the podium, and try to read my notebook. (Good luck to them. Most of it even I can't read.) When they get too noisy or nosy I ask them to stop it, and they always do, AND apologize. They may overstep the boundaries now and again, but at least they do it respectfully, sort of.

But even those three brash young ladies had seated themselves at the back in the other class.

I don't suppose it is something I should be so proud of. That my students are not afraid of me is a fairly negative sort of accomplishment, although it is nice to discover that I am doing something right. I don't think students learn very much language when they regard their teacher as the enemy.

But what on earth has the loopy professor been DOING to them?

Another first day

Yesterday I had three new classes. I think they'll go well, aside from the everlasting student who I've already failed before. I think she's in her seventh year. She has a very hard time staying awake or attending class.

When I went back into the teachers' room after that class, I was chatting with some of the Japanese teachers. They asked me how my class went, and I told them about the everlasting student, naming her. Every teacher in the room started and looked up, horror written all over their faces.

"Her!" said one, and didn't need to say another word. We all knew what she meant.

I intend to treat the everlasting student as though this is a new beginning and as if she has never fallen asleep in my class before. At least I will from next week. Yesterday I went around chatting with each student and when I got to her she smiled pathetically at me and I couldn't resist asking if she was sleepy. That was naughty of me, but she was in one of my courses a few years ago and the only time I ever saw her awake was in the first class. After that she would stagger in at least half an hour late, apologize, sit down, and fall asleep so fast her head would hit the desk with an audible thud. The reason she gave for being so tired, when I asked, turned out to be that she watched TV until four or five in the morning. After five or six weeks she stopped coming to class altogether.

Word is, she is going to graduate, NO MATTER WHAT.

At lunchtime I was chatting with a foreign colleague and she told me that over the vacation she had read back over my blog.

"I recognized myself in there," she said, and I gulped. What had I written? I couldn't remember.

"I never use real names," I said, defensively, and she answered sternly,

"And you shouldn't! You've written stuff in there that ... that ... !"

Words failed her, but I knew how to end the sentence. I've written stuff in here that could get me fired.

It turned out that she didn't mind what I'd written. It was true that her class had made her happy.

"I can't stand the ones who just sit there like dummies," she said. "I MUCH prefer a noisy class," and I knew exactly what she meant.

In between classes, Professor Hatayama (or whatever her name is), one of the full-timers, bustled in and told me excitedly that she wanted to talk to me about next year's schedule. We've only just started THIS year. I think she's still stuck in November, which is when she told me she had me down for a first period Wednesday class because I was such a WONDERFUL, DEDICATED teacher. The funny thing about this was that she told someone else first about how WONDERFUL and DEDICATED I was, and such a CHARMING person, while I was sitting right there, unrecognized. Introducing myself was tricky when she'd just been talking loudly about me as if she knew me. I had never met her before and she didn't know who I was. Perhaps I wasn't being charming enough.

That Wednesday first period class never materialized, and she seems to have forgotten about it. Several OTHER classes materialized, instead, and not from her.

I told her I had a class about to start so couldn't talk about next year's schedule right now, and she said, smilingly,

"Oh, of course. We'll talk later."

She waffled around the room patronisingly, chatting randomly with various teachers. It was like having a visit from a celebrity.

After classes finished, I hung around for a while sorting papers and preparing things for Wednesday, along with a few of the Japanese teachers. I asked one of the teachers how her spring vacation went.

"I crashed my car," she informed me, grinning broadly

My mouth dropped open. She had done that before, and had to get punctuation.

"Oh, it was just a small crash," she added, waving her hand airily. "I drove it into a wall."

She seemed to think it was terrifically good news.

"Was anybody hurt?" I asked.

"No," she said, still grinning. "It was a low wall, and I was parking and didn't see it."

"But..."

"Wait! Listen!" she said, looking positively gleeful. "My car was old anyway, so I decided to buy a new car! The insurance paid something, so that was good. I drove my new car for the first time today, to work - and it's my birthday!" She chortled. "My birthday present to myself is a new car!"

"Happy birthday," I said, weakly.

Professor Hatayama bustled in again just after we'd congratulated our colleague on her crash and her birthday, and I waited expectantly for her to tell me her latest bit of misinformation. But instead she rushed around opening cupboards, opening the copy machine cover, checking in drawers and rubbish bins, and muttering and laughing and grimacing and giggling about how SILLY it was to lose her glasses, where did she leave them? After a few minutes of chaos as we all halfheartedly looked for and failed to find her glasses, she left again, still waffling on and giggling.

In the sudden silence after the door closed we all looked at each other. One of the more proper teachers converted a snort into a cough, and I stared at her. Was it possible that I was not the only one who thought the professor was mad? She looked back innocently. In fact everybody looked innocent. Too innocent.

"I thought she wanted to talk to me," I said, finally.

"Maybe she couldn't see you without her glasses," said the proper teacher, solemnly, and we all nodded wisely and went back to our work. But thought balloons appeared over all our heads at the same time:

ALSO, SHE IS COMPLETELY LOOPY.

It was a pretty good first day back.