The other day one of my co-workers caught me muttering a cuss word during class, this after the kids sat in silence, refusing to repeat my phrase of the day, for the third time; "fucking crazy kids," i muttered. Now, I probably shouldn't have done this, and I wouldn't have if I thought that a single one of them could understand me. I know for a fact that very few of those children understand the difference between 13 and 30, much less a muttered slurry of words, so I was a bit taken aback by my co-workers response.

"Don't say that," he said.
"What?" I said, knowing damn well what.
"That word."
"What? 'Crazy'?" knowing damn well that he wasn't talking about "crazy."
"No, swear word."

I was confused for a bit, until i realized that he pointed out my swearing largely because he wanted to show me that he could point it out. Sure, he might have worried about the virgin ears of the juvenile delinquents (pshaw), but I bet he also wanted to show me that he could catch it.

You see, this guy is without a doubt one of the most entertaining characters I have met in my life, let alone in Japan. He came to me later that day and asked me to define teacher for him:

"Well," I said, jumping at the chance to be usefull, "I would say it means 'one who instructs'."
"No," he said flatly, "Not here."
"Well, what does it mean then?" I asked.
"It means Slave" he said, shortly, just before bustling off.

Today I was wandering about during an off period, bored, when I found him and an assembly line of students in the teachers room, fixing errors in hundreds of pamphlets.

"What is the pamphlet for?" I asked.
"Advertise for kids to come to Koho High School."

I sat back in my chair and watched the kids work. Obviously the pamphlet was designed to make the school look appealing the potential students.

"It's a lie." he said, a minute later.
"Excuse me?"
"The pamphlet."
"Oh."

a minute later:

"It's not just a lie, its a malicious lie," He said. He actually used malicious.
"Malicious?"
"Yes."

I sat back and pondered the insanity of this conversation. A minute later:

"It's like kidnapping," he quipped.
"Kidnapping? How can a pamphlet be like kidnapping?"
"We use the pamphlet for kidnapping kids, and the school fees are what the parents have to pay for ransom."

Don't you think this is all a bit of an exaggeration? In my opinion its the other way around. The parents will do anything not to have to deal with these kids all day, so they schlep them on us. We ask one thing of them: don't be disruptive. And half the time they screw that one up. My eccentric friend has it all backwards, we teachers have so little power over these kids its laughable. Its more like they've got us by the balls.