"Only 24 hours from dawn till dawn."

A Japanese comedian has mastered getting ready for work in five minutes. (I think that he could be faster if he wasn't trying to be so clever, and I am squicked that he doesn't change his underwear or brush his teeth after eating.)

 

I've probably posted a version of this but it never gets old: the Algorithm March from a kid's show, guest starring a soccer team and mascot. Also as performed by almost a thousand prison inmates.

 

I am now a card-carrying member of the Kinki Kids fan club. Which I know is ridiculous, but makes up for it in money I can save buying tickets through the official means.

 

We had yet another goodbye party for the leaving teachers. Not that I'm complaining, but it seems a bit excessive as they've been gone a couple of weeks and things have almost settled down at school. We got to catch up on their new positions, and tell them how the students are doing so far.

"How's your new school?" I asked K-sensei, my favorite in part because she is utterly unable to hide her emotions.

You know the face cats make when you spritz them with water to keep them from doing something bad? That's the face she made. "Not... bad," she said. Her friend pointed and laughed, "that face!" and she admitted, "Not good, either."

Another teacher asked how her replacement was, and my own face must have said much more than I was willing to.

Was last year better? Probably not as a whole - the grass is always greener, and we prefer what we had or could have to what we do. Some of the new teachers are very nice, and the new first-years are very cute. But I still wish I had that one person who made class something to look forward to, who made simply sitting at our desks next to each other something delightful.

 

Today we had the club activities demonstration to tempt the first-years. Possibly the most memorable part of this event last year was the swim club. There were only four members as the school's pool is closed the foreseeable future, and so they had to resort to desperate measures to interest recruits. They couldn't show off their club as the ball sports could, so the third-year member hastily stripped down to small swim-trunks. Sitting at the back, we were highly amused to see a wave of girls stretching their necks up for a better view - evidently this third-year had quite a fan club. Well, he graduated, and this year there are only three remaining members. I was curious if the new senior would repeat the stunt. After a moment of clearly battling his shyness, he did - but didn't get quite the positive response. Perhaps he hadn't built up quite the fan club. I wonder what the current 2nd years - a very shy little boy and girl- will do when the time comes for them to be the senior members. I also wonder if they will ever get to swim in the school's pool.