Cookie Kat: Going to Mito 3rd Jr. High School

Friday, April 17

Today we were given our official Mito City contracts in a New Personnel Appointment Ceremony presided over by the superintendent of Souken, the superintendent of the building, and other Souken officials. We practiced for the ceremony and learned the right steps and procedures (it required much respective bowing in the right direction in the right order to the right people). The ceremony did not take very long, but it was very nice and official and in the end, we got our contracts. We are now officially civil servants of Mito City. That means we have to behave as proper adults when moving about the country, but it's not like I'm much of a delinquent anyway. Just don't drink and ride your bike. You won't be a civil servant after that.

We also learned how to introduce ourselves and say which schools we would be working at (we would be reciting this later in the afternoon when meeting our vice principals). I have two schools: Mito City 3rd Jr. High (commonly called Dai San Chuu or just San Chuu) and Shiraume Nursery (hoiksho). The Jr. High will be my main school. I will only be going to Shiraume on Wednesday mornings (starting mid-May).

Once we had our introductory spiel down, we went through a few of the offices at Souken and introduced ourselves en masse to a bunch of employees who probably had no idea what was even going on or who the heck we all were. They were good sports about it, though. I'm sure they were just as relieved as we were to see it end after all 20 of us tramped on through.

When we went back to the sushi place for lunch, I got a bit daring and finally tried a food I had been hesitant to touch since I first heard about it.

Natto.

For people who have never seen or been in the same room as natto before, let me take a moment to describe it. Natto is made of fermented soybeans. It's a traditional Japanese food (Mito is famous for it) with an acquired taste. Its texture and smell can be a bit off-putting to many foreigners (and even some Japanese). It's very sticky and stringy and hangs from your mouth and chopsticks worse than gooey mozzarella cheese. It actually reminds me a bit of how you can't seem to get rid of cobwebs or spiderwebs once you walk into them. I might be describing this food unfairly (again, some people love it), but I could tell as soon as I saw it that natto would not be my favorite food (horrible pun, groan, whatever).

I popped the natto into my mouth. "Actually, this isn't so bad," I thought for about two seconds. Then it kinda hit me all at once. Taste, smell, texture...it tasted like feet. I really had to force that mouthful down. Elena asked me if I was crying. I said no. I'm a terrible liar.

Don't let it trick you into believing it's sushi. It's not. It's a lie.

Karina's face explains exactly how I feel about natto.

Near the end of the afternoon, we finally made our way to one of the lecture halls in Souken and got ready to introduce ourselves to our future superiors. After a small orientation and our introductions, the vice principals (or kyoto-sensei) came down to find out which AET they would be taking back to their school. I met my head English teacher, Ms. Hirotsu and my kyoto-sensei at the same time. Hirotsu-sensei drove me to San Chuu (which is fairly close to my apartment) and guided me through the school up to the teacher's room. I saw a few of the students along the way. As soon as they saw me, their eyes lit up and they exclaimed, "Oh! Kyasarin-sensei!" It was so exciting! They actually knew who I was before I even got there!

The previous AET left a beautifully clean and organized desk.

Dai San Chuu's front gates

A tiny intersection near the school with a park.

A view of the little canal that runs through the school's neighborhood.

When it came time to leave, I told Hirotsu-sensei that I would be able to walk back in the direction of Mito Station since she had given me pretty good directions on how to get to San Chuu in the first place. I got back there with no trouble and took some time to walk around the station before heading back to my apartment.