When teaching is good, it's so SO good! Of course the reality of teaching 19 year old slackers is that its usually not good. Entertaining, yes. Energy filled, YES YES YES. At times hilarious, maybe, yes. But good, not necessarily. The first lesson I ever learned as a teacher is you can't be friends with your students. Regardless, no matter how tough I try to be, I always end up reaching out to them on a personal level that breaks up this essential "I'm the teacher and you're the student" relationship. I've done it yet again, being too friendly, a hard line not to cross in a class geared on speaking English. It's led to many stressful ranting sessions in the teachers room about why the students revere their Japanese professors so much and yet feel comfortable proposing to me in the middle of a lesson. With an immense amount of discipline necessary just to get attention and have them follow directions, I suppose I am learning what it is to be a real teacher. These (mostly male) students are aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed, and they go from these extremes of having way too much energy to falling asleep standing up (no joke, it happened during a student presentation!) 
Japan's education has such an emphasis on test taking, as studying for middle schools entrance exams begins at a 1st grade level, replacing any fun extra-curricular activity and that continues until entering university. Seriously, I see 7 year olds on the train in their school uniform at 10pm, first going home. Once they finally reach university, it's the first time in their whole academic lives they can slack off... so slack they certainly do! Having a well-renowned Japanese high school attached to the university has been a huge insight into Japanese education. I walk through the high school hall, peaking my head in the classrooms and I realize what my students are used to. Being quiet is a virtue, revering the teacher by sitting silently in the back never daring to ask a question while the teacher faces the blackboard as he talks is the norm. Half the students are asleep, and the teacher does nothing. Now I understand why no matter how many times I say it, they just can't seem to understand the concept of "a wrong answer is better than no answer." There are a total of 8 foreign teachers I work with, which is honestly my saving grace. We are constantly in the teachers room complaining about students, impersonating all the ridiculous things that occur on a daily basis.
Some funny encounters with my students:
1. Lax Super Rich! The Japanese language doesn't use the sounds "l" and "r" in the same way that English does, and it's really quite remarkable when I say words like curry and curly and the words truly sound exactly the same to my students (Me the other day: "No Daiko you do not have curry hair. Please repeat: Curlllllllly. No, try again. Again. Ok never mind.") So, I had my students brainstorm words beginning with l and r on the board, and afterward we went through them, me saying and them repeating.
I get to one student's L words and I see the phrase "Lax Super Rich." Asking what it is, they tell me LAX is a Japanese shampoo. Not asking any more questions I keep reading aloud and as soon as I say "lax super rich" everyone starts cracking up. Why? "Oh my got, oh my got, you like commercial teacher, you are commerical, say again please please say again?" My saying this in a totally normal voice was to them the equivalent of some foreigner on the commerical advertising the shampoo with energy and pizazz, like a ridiculous Herbal Essence Commercial. They all start flipping their pretend hair saying it again and again and finally I did a little mini performance by exaggerating my words as I use their Super LAX expression and my goodness did they laugh. Now every time that boy walks in the room he says "hello lax super rich." Afterward they asked me, "teacher, hair paint," pointing to my hair. When I said no I don't dye my hair one boy got a really solemn look, saying, "teacher, respect, respect," as if I just told him I've won the Nobel Peace Prize. 2. Instead of the typical bye bye I taught the students different ways to say goodbye and the majority of them love "See ya lata alligata," with the exception of the one boy who manages a respectful "peace out," said right as he gives me the deepest bow at the end of every class. It's the most contradictory thing I have ever seen, and I just wish I could see some New Jersey wanna-be thug say his peace out as he bows.
3. My greatest accomplishment this term is bonding with a student from another class, Kota. I share my classroom with another teacher, and as we have only a ten minute window between my ending and his start time, theres always a few minutes where everyone is in the room all together, and it's pure madness. One of my favorite students, Snoopy (more to come but all good students are now referred to as "the Snoopies") always stays behind to ask questions and I randomly caught this student from the next class pushing my little Snoopy up against the wall. Although I was told not to react when I encountered bullying because it will only make it worse for the student, I naturally pushed through them as if I didn't even notice and I needed to get by, introducing myself to this student as a distraction. After it happened a second time I pointed him out to a co-worker who has taught at the school for a few years. "Oh, yay, that's Kota. Last year he smashed a kid's head into the locker." So, being naturally protective over my student, the way I decided to deal with it is that every time I saw this Kota, I would talk to him, just to distract him from my students trying to leave the room. One time saying hello, he started telling me how he's not happy because he has no friends. I was completely shocked to hear him open up to me, and I told him, "we can be friends." Without realizing the commitment ahead, I just earned myself a full-on student/friend relationship, and from that moment on he stops by the teachers room anytime I don't catch him between classes to talk, get some love and attention which he clearly doesn't get at home, shake my hand, and then runs off. And the best part is that him and Snoopy have slowly started to say hello/goodbye to each other, since I'm always with one of them and the other says hello/bye to me. Whenever we see each other we say "hi friend," and it makes me feel like I'm making a difference.
4. Ohhh, Snoopy class. Where do I even begin? This class is 4 upper level students, and we just sit and talk. I love these guys. One of my co-teachers calls Snoopy my chia-pet when I talk about how I have the best student in the world, but it's true. He's that perfect student who works hard, tries to truly express himself in English and makes an effort to talk to all the teachers... all the females can back me up that he is just the most innocent, sweet 20 year old I think I've ever met. I call him Snoopy because he wears a Snoopy T-shirt or tie every day. Literally. I've already decided he has to marry Kelly. Shes agreed (kindof) and I haven't proposed it to him yet, but I certainly will. Those boys are so great because they take the class from simply learning English to being a real cultural exchange, where we are all learning from each other, as foreigners. Video below! Snoopy's class wrote letters to Kelly and Carrie and they've all decided to permanently keep them in their wallets so they can read them every day.
And PS. the post it notes in the student pictures was a competition review of body parts!
