I’d like to let you all in on a little conversation I just had with one of my JTE’s today:

JTE: Uh oh, Toyota-San got a 35% on his test.

Me: That’s right. He failed.

JTE: That’s not good. That means he fail the class.

Me: Makes sense to me.

JTE: Let’s look at his attendance.

Me: (Sigh) Fine. Says here he showed up 30% of the time.

JTE: Oh no. Not good.

Me: That’s what, three of our ten classes?

JTE: That’s right. Let’s look at his notebook.

Me: Fine. Here’s his notebook score...Well will you look at that! He doesn’t have one! He never turned it in!

JTE: He might have for the last class, let’s check the class box.

(runs to check class box)

JTE: Here it is! He turned it in!

(flips through it)

JTE: He filled out everything for the three days! That’s a 30%!

Me: So? That's a fail in my book.

JTE: Let’s make 30% a pass!

Me: What? 30%?

JTE: Yes!

Me: You’re telling me that all anybody has to do to pass is show up 30% of the time and do 30% of the work.

JTE: Yes! And look 35% on test, 30% on notebook, 30% on attendance...Toyota passes!

Me: Unbelievable, what a surprise that is.

JTE: What?

Me: Fine. Whatever. He passes.

JTE: And what about Honda? Honda got a 34%...

Me: ...

JTE: ...

Me: (sigh) What do you think?

JTE: I think he should pass!

Me: Wonderful. He passes. They all pass. Happy Midterms to everyone.

And trust me when I say that if Toyota had a 20% on everything, 20% would have been the benchmark.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s right, it’s Midterm Test time. The time in a JET’s career when it is no longer possible to ignore the fact that every single child would be shuffled through the school anyway, regardless of if you’re being here or not.

This kid Toyota, he never did anything. That’s right! Nothing! Nothing at all! He never turned in a notebook, he never participated, and he got a 35% on his test by being able to tackle difficult questions like the one that asked him to correctly identify a picture of a cat, a pizza, a pencil, a cake, a lion, and a piece of cheese when I said them in English.

Incidentally, for those of you who don’t know, in Japanese, “Lion” is pronounced Lion, “Pizza” is pronounced Pizza, “Cake” is pronounced Cake, and “Cheese” is pronounced Cheese.

No matter. Move him on up.

On a totally unrelated and awesome note, the Toyama Charity Show was this past weekend, and it went splendidly.

Together, Geoff and I were Trees:

And Ninjas:

True to character, the two of us started celebrating early with champagne at the final dress rehearsal before the play, and a heavy Cabernet during the scene breaks of the actual play. It kept us loose. Trust me when I say that the antics we did, we would be unable to do correctly when stone cold sober. Also, all of my stoner hippy friends in college used to always say to each other whilst watching cartoons and eating bagel-bites: “Well, you know dude, they say that if you were stoned for all of your studying time, you should get stoned for the test, ‘cause it’s like….it’s like, your brain…right, you’re brain is used to bein’ exposed, man, to the weed and the material at the same…or something. So look, it’s no worries, man, you’re supposed to get totally stoned for the test, ok?”

Well, we took the same lesson to heart with booze! And it worked! Everything went perfectly! And here I thought all of my friends were just washout, tie-dyed-in-the-wool communists. That’ll teach me.

Our jackass antics on stage garnered nonstop laughs, as well as 2000 dollars for each of the charities to which we donated, including that one with the adorable guide dog that looked absolutely terrified on stage and kept slipping all over the varnished wood while it tried to escape the monster foreigners.

Well done, everyone. Applause and after-show cigars all around.