The Graduates

Today was graduation day for the 3rd year students. They just finished their high school entrance tests on Thursday, and they will find out where they will or will not spend their next 3 years next Tuesday.

I didn't take any pics like I did last year. I'm just more or less numb and apathetetic to the whole designer tear-jerking experience. I didn't even bother to go to the post-graduation enkai with the rest of the staff and opted to stay home, because deep down I know that my graduation experience is not going to be the same as the students' or the teachers'.

I have watched these kids for 2 years. Even as an observer, I can see the growth and maturity that are happening to (most of) them in these critical years. But, "observer" is the key word--just how much of my non-involvement has a tangible effect on these kids' lives?

The students cry at graduation because their lives as they've known it for the past 3 years are coming to an end, the teachers cry because their years of labor and dogma are coming to fruition, I cry because I just haven't done all that I could for them because of my own disenchantment about my place as a gaijin in Japan.

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(updated 3/13/06) It seems that I may have been a victim of the opposite of the Spellbound by Japanese Exocitism Syndrome.