Jan. 9, 2012 - First Day of School

Today was our first day at the American School in Japan.  Earlier start than the kids are used to - their bus picks them up at 7:08.  All students at ASIJ, elementary, middle, and high, have the same start and end times and ride the same bus.  The same bus thing was handy since our across-the-way neighbor is a ninth grader at ASIJ and walked with us to the bus stop this morning.  Drew and I rode the bus with the kids to attend the New Family Orientation.  Greer and Cooper sat down together, but the seats were a little small for me and Drew to share, so we made them split up and each one sit with one of us.  So embarrassing - to have to sit with your parent!
As soon as we got to school, Cooper was whisked off to his classroom.  We didn't realize we could go with him, so we had to wait until later in the day to meet his teacher.  Then they gathered the middle school students together and took them off for a technology orientation - they give them laptops for schoolwork.  I'm not sure what happened with the high school students - I wasn't really paying attention to them.  Then our orientation started.  We met lots of people, there was lots of talking (transportation, health center, activities, etc.)  We got to meet the principals of the various divisions as well as the other new parents.  We had invidual appointments with the kids' counselors.  These appointments were scheduled throughout the day, so depending on when your appointment(s) were, you might miss other stuff.  For example, we missed the president of the PTA talking, but that was okay since I'm NOT volunteering this year. :)

The appointment with Cooper's counselor went smoothly, but after all, it's elementary school.  He wasn't with us since he was in his class for a regular day of school today.  Greer's appointment did not go as well.  She was with us since she doesn't start classes until Wednesday (they need Tuesday to get all the middle-schoolers' schedules ready).  She was with us for part of the day and the other part of the day she was with peer helpers or at the tech orientation or getting her locker or something similar.  We got two disappointing pieces of news during the appointment.  First, the kids in 6th grade strings have a year playing their instruments before they start 6th grade strings.  Greer was going to meet with the strings teacher later in the day, but it didn't sound promising for her continuing the cello at school since she didn't start until this current school year.  Second, and this was the big one, they weren't going to be able to place her in a Japanese class.  We thought they would do some kind of mid-year accommodation for their new students, but they only do that in elementary school.  So she will not be able to take Japanese at school until next year.  Of the four of us, she was the most excited to learn and she knows the most words already.

Now, for how we dealt with those two disappointments.  Greer did meet with the cello teacher and when she looked at the music they were working on, she decided it was much harder than what she'd been doing.  They have to take a music class, and the other choices were band and choir.  She definitely did not want to do choir, so she chose percussion in band.  She figured it would help with piano.  However, then we were told by the counselor that there'd probably be a problem since the kids had already been playing their instruments for several months.  She knew how upset Greer was and she promised she would talk to the band teacher.  She called us with the good news the following morning - the band teacher was happy to have her and said the other percussion students would help her catch up.  The strings teacher was also willing to have her if we would be getting private lessons for her.  However, Greer decided that was a lot of pressure, so she chose band.  She still wants to get cello lessons so that she can join strings next year at school.  As for Japanese, we're going to be following up with Exxon to see if we can arrange some lessons for Greer.  We're pretty sure it's going to work out.

On a positive note, Greer joined the middle school swim team.  We didn't know if she'd be able to join since their season started the beginning of December, but she met with the swim coach at some point during the day.  He was happy to be getting a good backstroker and invited her to practice after school that day.  We all went (and Cooper didn't even complain much since he had his iPhone :) ).  She hasn't been swimming since the end of November, but she did well!  They have a meet this Saturday, and the coach is definitely going to have her swim backstroke.  She's happy to be able to swim for her school!

ASIJ runs late buses with modified routes to accommodate after-school activities.  So the four of us caught the late bus at 4:30 and got off at the stop we'd been told.  Now this was of course not the stop where we'd caught the bus this morning, and we had only a general idea of the direction of our apartment.  But after much fiddling around with iPhones, we were able to map out a route home and made it safely there a mere 2 hours later (just kidding).


Japanese word of the day:  gakko  (click to hear pronunciation) means "school"
I also saw the spellings "gakkou," "gakkoo," and "gakou."  Maybe all are acceptable since the Japanese word would actually consist of characters (which I'm still pretty far from learning).  Despite the uncertainty, Greer and I felt strongly that "school" needed to be the word of the day.  Once we start lessons, we'll have somebody to consult. :)