Familiarity

   It's strange going back and reading my blog posts from the past.

   Fujimi has treated me much better than Azuma ever did. In a way, it feels like everything is almost more "real" than it was at Azuma. I feel like I drifted in and out of school at Azuma without really ever affecting anything; the principal didn't really like me, so that was probably a large part of it.

   At Fujimi, though, I'm really involved in the school life. I go to judo tournaments to cheer for the kids, I occasionally go to judo practice, I occasionally go to art club, I help with after-school English study, I enjoy going to the drinking parties the school has, and I have a lot of fun talking to the kids. I feel like I actually have an impact on people at Fujimi, for better or for worse, and it makes me feel like I fit in a lot more.

   That doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt when I see my old students from Azuma and they don't seem to care or try to avoid me, though.

   One difference still bothers me, though; the students at Azuma all had plastic nametags with their first and last names printed on them in readable kanji. The students at Fujimi don't have those; their last names are embroidered on their clothes, but some of them pick off the thread. It doesn't matter much anyway, since nobody seems to use last names at Fujimi!

   But it makes it a lot harder to learn their names when there's nothing to learn from. It really bothers me that I can't learn their names as easily as I did at Azuma.

   There are a bunch of students whose names I know because they're unique or I run into them a lot -- especially the kids in the judo club -- but in a school of around 700, that's not a lot. For every student I know well, there are at least 10 others I don't.

   So my new goal? To look up their official pictures and start learning their names. I should have done this a long time ago.