Summer School Hell – Layer IV – Realm Of The Mother Of Reason

Yesterday I told of the young child who decided that my lower regions were threatening him enough to warrant an attack and thus with his best Forman jab made my testicles retreat briefly into my body. It was painful, eyes watering painful and I had to use every fiber of my restraint to not burst out with a stream of obscenities that would still be lingering over Nara tonight. Instead I dried my eyes, too in a deep breath of air as surly if I were to have tried to speak after such a drubbing I would have only been able to produce a feeble squeal and I continued on with the lesson moving a little slower and keeping an eye on the little Japanese nut puncher. I have now had an entire day to recuperate from this and plan ways of thwarting further attacks. Thus far the only thing hellacious about Summer School has been the amount of energy I have to exude to keep going on with this marathon and the class with the nut cracker kid. I figure wearing a steel codpiece would teach that kid a lesson should he make another attempt at rendering me sexless but where are you to find a steel codpiece at 8am on a Monday morning in Nara, Japan. Sadly, Codpieces R’ Us hasn’t made it big over here yet. One day…one day. Instead I practiced my dodging and evasive techniques. If this kid made a bullseye of my jimmies today I’d be ready for him.

Could this be? A stroke of luck? It was 15 minutes into the lesson and the boy and his brother hadn’t arrived yet. Had the mother been so ashamed by their behavior yesterday that she was going to no show? Fine by me, I thought! Ah, but I was no to be so lucky. As I was getting into the groove of the lesson the parent arrived late with her terrors in tow and my groove went out the door. Let me use this time to say how I am really starting to become frustrated by late parents, some who are obviously abusing the company and using me as a babysitter. It is not so bad when they pick their kid up late after the last lesson of the day but when it is in between lessons it really throws things off. I get in a mindset and now it is deviated as I have to give attention to the kid waiting for a mother or father that is now late. Sometimes 45 minutes late! During my regular lessons I have a 15 minute time frame in which to get things together for the next lesson. In summer school I only have 10 but when you factor in saying goodbye to parents and getting everybody out the door I really only have about 4. When a parent shows up late for summer school it really gums up the works, especially if there are multiple lates as is often the case. Two of the three lesson types I have to teach for Summer school need very little prep time but one of them needs a lot of organizing. I am very good at getting all needed materials together well before the lesson starts but I still have to lay them out and change CDs and toss on my bear outfit and such. This is not an easy task when you have three kids waiting for parents that are hounding you to play cards or tennis. Now, when a parent arrives late DURING the lesson I have to stop everything, hand out their attendance card and get them up to speed. This sacrifices valuable time which is very sparse when it comes to how the Company has laid out summer school. You really have to hit your exact marks or you are floundering to catch up. With this late as well as being the person who spawned the ball crusher this mother was not in my good graces. She would go on to redeem herself, however, in a surprising turn of events.

The jewel appraiser (what, you try to write about your nutsack getting crushed in various ways in which to entertain and see how far you get?) was at it again instantly. Him and his brother started a small war in the middle of the room with the older of the two jumping on another student who had been well behaved until these kids came into the room. Now all three of them were screaming and wrestling as they had yesterday. I looked over at the mother. Nothing. I continued onward keeping my eye on these kids. In doing so I made a mistake in taking my eyes off the other kids who were well behaved. Because the small class was filled with parents, students and siblings I had little room to move around. When you add three of those kids wrestling around on the floor in the middle your space is further monopolized. Because of this kids had a small gap in which to get back to their parents when I asked them to do so and two of them, trying to avoid the fighting boys, smacked into each other. It was lightly, no real damage and only a few tears. Now, I pride myself on not having any accidents thus far and keeping my classes run in a safe manner. This smash up in the middle of the room really got my ire up and finally, mother in the room or no mother in the room, I loudly told these boys to stop. The testicle taper choose to respond to this request by kicking me firmly in the leg with a half roundhouse. Man, is this kid training to be Chuck Norris? I told him to stop nicely with a nice fake grin plastered on my face. “We don’t kick,” I said. He kicked me again. “Stop,” I said a little more forcefully. I then turned my back and tried to get back into the lesson to make up for the lost time all this had caused. Another kick was delivered to the back of my leg. That was it. Enough was enough from this kid. I turned ready to let him have it only to see a blur rushing towards me. It was the mother, red faced, eyes showing rage, heading towards her son with the speed of a Serengeti cheetah. She grabbed him by the arm and spun him around saying something angrily in Japanese. She then yanked the boy away from me with great force shouting at him all the way back to her seat. I swear it looked like his arm was about to come out of the socket. There she shook him and again reamed him out. The cry produced by this kid rivaled the thousands of bugs in the trees outside. Man, he had been told with AUTHORITY! When the Japanese discipline they mean business! The kid would squirm in his mother’s lap trying to get away but she had a vice grip on him. With him detained I was able to finish the lesson with relative ease. After class the mother apologized to me in Japanese and offered me a very low bow (a sign of sincere embarrassment) over the behavior of her children over the last two days. I told her, against the protesting of my testicles, that it was alright and all was fine. She would apologize and bow yet again before heading into the elevator. A very nice gesture. Another mother would ask me how many more lessons I had to teach that day, maybe noticing how tired I looked. I told her three. She looked astonished and said “Oh, I’m sorry.” Somebody felt my pain. The mothers, even though silent for the most part, have been great so far. It is nice to bond with them and show them that I really care about their kids and what they get out of the lessons. I hope they can see that. Today it felt as though they did. And now, on the fourth layer and looking up, I feel relieved. The worst of this is over and the packed days have ended. The next four days are not as clustered. This is the halfway point. It is all downhill from here.