Chaos vs order

That's my theme for school this week. It's a subtle something I've been noticing about life here. There are millions of people in Tokyo, but it's the most ordered chaos I've ever seen. Take for instance, the crossing at Shibuya station. This seething horde of people all cross at the same time, but no one seems to run into each other. I'm amazed.
So, how does this relate to school? The classrooms are pure chaos. I was expecting regimented little Japanese children, all polite and quiet. No, they scream, yell, run around (admittedly, the running around is during games and is sanctioned), and in general give me a huge headache. I like my quiet. But, then, they'll all stand together and answer questions in perfect unison, military drill style. They had an assembly, and all the students stood in perfect lines at military attention. The dichotomy is intriguing.

More disjointed thoughts on school.

There's a song about the rainbow. Is it evil that I can't help but laugh when the kids sing the chorus "I can see a lainbow, see a lainbow, see a lainbow now"? It just cracks me up. On rainbows, do you think it matters to know the colors in order? They know them by the song which orders them red, yellow, pink, blue, purple, orange, green. They must think I'm a big idiot b/c I can never remember the "right order."

I saw a box labeled "home making course" on a teacher's desk. I'm dying to know what the lessons are. Unfortunately, that's probably the only English in the whole box.

I'm a giant. I've said that before, but I realized again how huge I am when the top of the sink hit my kneecap. The sinks in the hallway (one whole side of the hallway is sinks, not sure what for) are even lower.

I left to go home for lunch. I get 2 hours because that's when the students clean the school. Let me repeat that. The students clean the school. I literally stepped over a kid who was on his knees cleaning the floor with a sponge. What a great idea. The built in cleaning crew is a good idea to have children afterall.

The bells signaling the end of classes are another example of quiet and polite Japanese society. They're little tinkling musical things. No abrupt clanging bell like I had in school. Really, does it need to be all that loud and obnoxious?

Back to the colors. The Japanese color for red is akai. However, it's also reh-to which is an approximation of the English word. On top of that they're learning "red" in my class which they keep confusing with reh-to. It just amuses me that they're basically learning 3 languages. Their Japanese-ized version of English is pretty much incomprehensible to me even though it technically is my native language. Yeah, they think, again, that I'm a big idiot when I don't understand them using English words.

Those are all the observations for this week.