Graduation

Graduation was on April 1st. There wasn’t nearly as much build up at my school as I would have expected. Many of the seniors were studying up until the last minute and the vast majority didn’t even know if they were accepted into college yet. I was most surprised at how seriously the event was treated. There were few smiles during the ceremony and certainly none of the shouting or cowbells that I remember from my graduation.

Sadly I didn’t know the 3rd year students nearly as well as I know the 1st years. This has come back to haunt me recently as we were on vacation recently and many students came home to Nagasaki for their vacation. Inevitably a few of the 320 ex-students would bump into me at the park, on the train, or out shopping and instantly shout “Daniel-Sensei” while I searched my memory to try and place a name and age on the face.