Another Day, Another School

I had to say goodbye to Arao #2 Middle School on Sunday, my last day. It's hard to imagined how attached I'd become to the kids at that school in only three weeks. They had to get a staple remover, superglue 'undue', a hammer and two different sized wrenches to remove them from my sides.
For my goodbye ceremony, the principal stood in front of the body of students and told them how he had wanted to say many things to me in the past several weeks. He continued by saying that he hadn't been able to communicate nearly as much as he would've liked because of his lack of English language ability(and my lack of Japanese language ability, I might add). He then urged the students to learn English as best as they could so that they would never experience similar circumstances. He said he missed his chance. He thanked me for my work, and asked me to come back and visit. I assured him that I would.
I was also asked to make a goodbye speech. The principal handed me the microphone. I began by telling the students that I expected that maybe they were surprised because I hadn't told anyone that it was my last day of classes. I told them it was because I wanted to pretend it wasn't true. I asked them if they could see that English would be useful to all of them in the future, and would be extremely useful to some of the them. I asked them to enjoy their English studies, even if they 'hated English'.
Afterwards, two students came up to the front and, to my surprise, gave a speech in English, saying thank you and goodbye. They presented me with a huge bouquet of roses and lilies. Several of the students had bought them for me. I was asked to speak. In my response, I told them how much I enjoyed being with them, and how lucky they all were to have each other. Finally, I had the opportunity to express gratitude towards the fantastic teachers at the school and the students, who seemed exceptionally bright as a whole. It was quite a satisfying farewell.
After school, after the goodbyes with the teachers, I changed into my gym clothes and joined the tennis team for practice. It was freezing outside. I, who was freezing my butt off, wore a hooded sweatshirt and long pants. The students wore thin, long-sleeved shirts and shorts. Their stamina and resilience had impressed me from the start, but sincerely impressed me on that day. We had a good practice, and I went inside to grab my things.
And finally, I headed into the gym to watch the end of basketball practice. Then, quietly, anonymously, I slipped out. There was no final goodbye.

This morning I was late for my first day and Arao #3 Middle School. You should see the map I use. It's really, really bad. But, I live in a land of no excuses. I commited a terrible sin on my first day, and I noticed that several teachers at my new school gave me quite a cold shoulder all day long. What a great way to start my new life for the next month! I'm just lucky the principal was at a meeting!! ;)
I felt down all day. Very sad, and it was only being with the students that cheered me up a little. Unfortunately, however, I had four more self-intros to give today, and I barely had the energy to go to class, let alone be a cheerleader for English. Bash, this is what my mom calls this 'character-building'. I think it sucks.