Live from Japan!

So, I had a kind of odd day Saturday, as you can tell from the the title of this post. But let me start from the beginning of the story.

Saturday was Graduation day for the third year students. It is a very important day in the school. (The picture above is a picture of a crying Graduate that came on my chopsticks at lunch. Because, apparently, Graduation is one of the only days japanese people allow themselves to completely lose it.) It is held on a saturday to assure that parents can attend without having to miss work. All of the students attend, even first and second years who are not graduating. They attend, though the first years only sit through the ceremony, and the second years stand for a few seconds to accept the school, as it is handed over to them from the third years. Yesterday afternoon the students worked for four hours practicing for the ceremony. They literally ran through the entire ceremony once, and went over several things, including how to say “Hai” in unison. They make themselves absurdly over prepared for this ceremony.

We teachers are supposed to dress in our finest. In fact in the days leading up to the the ceremony there was some chatter on the Gifu Jet email list about what to wear. Some schools have very strict dress codes, all teachers must wear straight black suits, with only white accents to them. At my school I was informed that this only applied to the teacher actually participating in the ceremony. I could wear any dark suit with a white shirt and a solid light colored tie. (See how loose, this dress code is!) My principal was in a black suit with tails.

Last night I tried on my suit for the first time since coming to japan. As you may know I have lost some weight since coming to japan. The suit that fit just fine upon moving to japan, is now absurdly big on me. I was a bit upset about this, as the suit looks a little bit ridiculous. However, it is the only suit I have so I had to wear it.

That morning I got up and had to be at work much earlier than I normally do because I was working in the parking lot, directing cars. I got off a bit late and had to hustle. I decided not to wear my suit to work, because there was a good chance of rain and I wanted to be sure that I didn’t mess up my suit in the muddy fields where I would be working. Rather than stuff my big suit in a bag much to small for it, I decided to walk to school carrying my suit. The walk takes about a half hour, if I am hurrying. I got to school just as I was supposed to be out in the parking lot. I rushed into the teachers room where my locker is, stashed my suit and ran out to work parking duty.

After a little over an hour of waving a flag to send cars in various directions I was told I could go change and head up to the ceremony. It was now about 10 minutes before the ceremony was set to begin. I walked around the school inside and down to the room where my locker is. It was locked. At this point the school was almost completely empty. I looked around for an english teacher, finding none, I went to the staff office, which was also abandoned. Last, I checked the door to the adjoining office, which shares a “soft” wall with the room with my locker. It was unlocked. I walked through the room, around the barrier and to my locker. I was now getting dangerously close to being late. I pulled out my suit coat and thats when I noticed. I was missing my pants.

When I left in the morning I had done a quick check, Coat, tie, belt, pants. Now I had coat, tie, belt… no pants. I was at a complete loss. I called danielle, she was of course in her own graduation ceremony. I hung up and just stared at my suit coat. What was I supposed to do. I was contemplating this for maybe a minute, when one of my supervisors came to the door, unlocked it and entered, obviously surprised to find me on the other side of a locked door.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, “is something wrong?”

“I, uh, have an interesting problem.” I said. “I have lost my pants.”

He started laughing.

Well, I explained that i must have lost them in walking from home to school. He seemed to think that I would be okay to miss some of the graduation ceremony. He asked if I would like to drive with him along my route to school, and see if we could find my pants. He also offered to go to the office for me and ask them if anyone had turned in any lost pants, however, I decided I would rather look for them myself. I hoped to spare myself some embarrassment.

All the way along the trip to my home my supervisor was chuckling and coming up with various scenarios. What would someone do if the found a pair of pants on the sidewalk? He was particularly fond of the image of someone turning in a pair of lost pants to the office of the school.

In the end, he spotted my pants in a parking lot about 2 blocks from my house. He could not have been prouder. I have a feeling this will become a running joke for us for the rest of our friendship. “I am so happy,” he said. “Never in my 36 year of teaching, have I had this experience, to have someone lose their pants.”

Later that afternoon, in response to an email from Danielle asking him how he enjoyed the last graduation ceremony of his teaching career. To which he happily responded. “I did not attend the graduation ceremony, instead I helped Aaron to find his pants.” I received a call from Danielle only minutes later.