Good morning from Japan,

Well, we have just finished a long weekend here. They have holidays for all the equinox days.

Anyway, on Thursday they posted the names of the teachers who are to change schools. A very interesting time. So all the teachers had a long lunch on the Thursday about one and half hours. (I have that everyday as no one knows if I am here or not) So at exactly 3pm the list gets faxed to the principal. This list includes changes of principals, vice principals, school health nurse, everybody. So the vice principal puts the list up and everyone gathers around and checks to see if their name is on it or not.

This takes a long time as there are a lot of teachers. Once they have found their name they walk away either happy or sad depending on the news. If they are leaving they say to everyone they see along the way, Thank you very much, obviously in Japanese and then you know who is staying and who is going. Some teachers even cry or shake as they can be moved anywhere on the island.

There are about 12 teachers leaving from our school including two English teacher whom I don't work with but they are part of the team. There are three teachers from my block which is the group of people I work with who are leaving and moving to the countryside. They are not so happy about that. Karna's friend who he coaches rugby with is also moving about one hour away from the city. So his school loses their rugby coach and so no team. He is going to an academic school so there will be no rugby there.

At exactly 3.30pm all the mobile phones go off and it is the family and friends of each teacher and they are asking them what is happening. It was a musical mobile nightmare. They go constantly until I left which was about 4pm. They probably kept going after that I don't know. So now they have one week to clean up, leave their apartment, find a new place to live and say goodbye to their friends and family that they will leave behind.

The part time teachers won't know if they are leaving until the 1st of April. By saying part time I mean relieving teachers. They call them part time over here. So they get about five days to move if they are changed. Very interesting.

Today everyone is saying goodbyes and giving out small gifts etc. They also have to tie up all loose ends and clean up which they only do once a year. This is a dusty country so there is a lot of dust everywhere.

We decided not to go to Hong Kong for our trip. I just got over a really bad flu or whatever it is so it is not worth it. We wouldn't have been able to enjoy the trip so much because we would always be worried about the pneumonia so we will go next year. Instead we are going on a road trip down to a beach and will do some surfing and swimming etc.

Bye, bye..

Mrs Luke.