12:35 in 日記

I complain about being bad cop and the next day my coworker asks me to be her enforcer.

One kid was particularly bad on Wednesday, so, she created a plan where the child would sit out the entire day on Friday. This day was “special day,” meaning no school, work just fun.

Instead of having fun like the rest, he would be doing worksheets all day. Before he arrives, she continuously updates me on when he will be here. “Oh, R will be here in 15 minutes.”
“R is coming in 5 minutes.”

There I was thinking she was mentally preparing herself to lay down the law.

He arrives, she ignores him. He passes by her and she has no reaction. He puts his stuff away, she looks at me from across the room. Her eyes felt like she was asking me “What should I do?”

I grab the decently thick set of worksheets she prepared for him and brought them to her. “Do you want to talk to him and explain in Japanese why he’s in trouble?” Without any eye contact she replies,

“No, I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know what to say.”

I tell my boss, another Japanese teacher, and she just holds her face in her hands. “Can you talk to him for her?” she asks.

I’m discovering both of the Japanese bilinguals at my school care heavily about what the kids think of them. It’s super important to them that they are seen as the nice, fun-loving teacher that isn’t strict or “mean” to a degree.

So, I get to be the bad cop again and serve this kid, essentially, jail time. By the end of it he was crying, and of course, they asked me to console him. After all, I am the one who did this to him.

I guess?

Well, I really made a reputation of being a hard-ass this week.

Enough of that bullshit, here is a nice yellow tree I found earlier this week and the massive hole (? cave?) that is forming behind my apartment.