ダンボの旅: So that's why they call it an "Academy"...

C6:

I thought life was going to get a little easier after the crash course of Japanese that’s been our last month finished. However today completely wiped away that thought. It also was made clear why this is called an Academy and not just “Training”, welcome to the first week.

Our first introduction to our Japanese Counter-parts, it all started off innocently enough. 8am we clocked in like normal and headed up to the main assembly hall to finally meet the Japanese students who would be studying with us for the next year. As we entered we slowly filed into the open seats in the back row, now to the careful observer the straight legs, hands on knees and bolt upright backs should have given us a hint of what was coming but alas that was all lost on us.


Introducing C6: shortly after the last international student sat down one of the professors began to speak. Or well as far I could tell he was speaking, although the amount that actually registered in my brain made that judgement difficult. At the end of his short introduction the rest of the teachers began to line up on the stage. And without warning the first yelled, what I later realized was a name, as one of the Japanese students jumped out of his seat screaming Hai with equal vigor, and so continued the list. It would be 4-5 Japanese students to 1 International per team. And so began the waiting game.

It’s times like these that I hate the most. Like walking through a haunted house, you know something’s going to jump out and get you but yet it’s the waiting and not knowing when that mentally is the worst. And then someone screwed up, one of the kids up front on the other side of the room hadn’t put enough strength into his “Hai” and now we sat here listening to him try and try again to put forth the effort they wanted. Finally after the 7th try the teacher let him sit, although you could see in his face he still wasn’t satisfied. Great, now my anxiety is ever greater. “Hai!!!” it was almost like some instinctual reaction to escaping from a predator. I didn’t even really know my name but there I was, I had jumped to attention and yelled loud enough to freak out the two students in front of me, but the look of approval on the teachers face was all I needed to see to know I had done it right, and so I became the 5th member of C-6.