it's always funnier when you can you can relate to something.
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Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Magic Happens
It’s been a special day, and not just because I rode to work in bike shorts and forgot to bring underwear. Today a small miracle happened during third period English.
Our speech repetitions were suddenly interrupted by a crash on the hall window followed by a little brown wren slamming into a boy's shoulder in the back corner before ricocheting off onto the ground and feebly fluttering in circles on the floor. Immediately my heart sank- the bird was a goner. I'd seen this before. I exchanged sympathetic looks with the handful of students comfortable with openly expressing emotions as my teacher, Kawaguchi Sensei, tenderly gathered the injured bird into her hands. She then cupped it firmly between her palms and slowly paced back to the front of the room, resuming the lecture as she walked. The students seemed to accept that class would go on as normal as their teacher held a perishing kamikaze bird in her hands.
Kawaguchi Sensei then asked me to lead a few pages of reading while she carried the bird out to the sink in the hallway. Was she going to put it out of its misery by drowning it? Let it struggle harmlessly around the sink basin until class ended? Turns out she was just giving it a little drink and smoothing its feathers.
Reading aloud from the textbook, "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi", I couldn't help glancing over to watch her curious efforts with the doomed bird. Teenage voices repeated "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi" back in the usual narrow spectrum of monotones, though the attention of several students was openly fixated on the sink outside.
"Hi, Takeshi. I'm Andy". Kawaguchi Sensei now had the wren on its side, balanced between her two open palms, and was shifting its weight back and forth. "Hi Takeshi. I'm Andy."
"Hi, Andy." The bird was upright, standing on her finger. "Hi, Andy."
"Are you a soccer fan?" She held the poor flightless bird out the window, looking like she was about to fling it into space and let it arc down like a feathery stone into the ground two stories below. "Are you a soccer fan?" I didn't have a great alternative in mind for disposing of live birds that crash into the classroom, so I looked on with trepidation out of the corner of my eye and continued reading.
"Yes, I-." One final launching swing of her hand and the bird suddenly and miraculously took off through the air, flying up freely into the blue sky! I literally stopped talking in mid-sentence. The class laughed as I tried again, "Yes, I am", and Kawaguchi Sensei reentered the room.
"What- how did... Sensei, did you just heal that bird?"
She smiled cheerily. "Re-ha-bilitation, ne?"
"Rehabilitation? That... was magic!"
"Hahaha, yes! I am magic."
I went from wondering if my teacher was picking the broken wren up to snap its neck, to watching it effortlessly take off with a rapid fluttering of functional wings in five minutes. It made me uniquely happy to witness that. Even some of the students appeared to look at their teacher and calm, confident healer of our wayward animal friends with a new sense of respect. At least the class behaved itself for the last ten minutes, a small miracle in itself at this school. So you never really know when magic will happen.
Our speech repetitions were suddenly interrupted by a crash on the hall window followed by a little brown wren slamming into a boy's shoulder in the back corner before ricocheting off onto the ground and feebly fluttering in circles on the floor. Immediately my heart sank- the bird was a goner. I'd seen this before. I exchanged sympathetic looks with the handful of students comfortable with openly expressing emotions as my teacher, Kawaguchi Sensei, tenderly gathered the injured bird into her hands. She then cupped it firmly between her palms and slowly paced back to the front of the room, resuming the lecture as she walked. The students seemed to accept that class would go on as normal as their teacher held a perishing kamikaze bird in her hands.
Kawaguchi Sensei then asked me to lead a few pages of reading while she carried the bird out to the sink in the hallway. Was she going to put it out of its misery by drowning it? Let it struggle harmlessly around the sink basin until class ended? Turns out she was just giving it a little drink and smoothing its feathers.
Reading aloud from the textbook, "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi", I couldn't help glancing over to watch her curious efforts with the doomed bird. Teenage voices repeated "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi" back in the usual narrow spectrum of monotones, though the attention of several students was openly fixated on the sink outside.
"Hi, Takeshi. I'm Andy". Kawaguchi Sensei now had the wren on its side, balanced between her two open palms, and was shifting its weight back and forth. "Hi Takeshi. I'm Andy."
"Hi, Andy." The bird was upright, standing on her finger. "Hi, Andy."
"Are you a soccer fan?" She held the poor flightless bird out the window, looking like she was about to fling it into space and let it arc down like a feathery stone into the ground two stories below. "Are you a soccer fan?" I didn't have a great alternative in mind for disposing of live birds that crash into the classroom, so I looked on with trepidation out of the corner of my eye and continued reading.
"Yes, I-." One final launching swing of her hand and the bird suddenly and miraculously took off through the air, flying up freely into the blue sky! I literally stopped talking in mid-sentence. The class laughed as I tried again, "Yes, I am", and Kawaguchi Sensei reentered the room.
"What- how did... Sensei, did you just heal that bird?"
She smiled cheerily. "Re-ha-bilitation, ne?"
"Rehabilitation? That... was magic!"
"Hahaha, yes! I am magic."
I went from wondering if my teacher was picking the broken wren up to snap its neck, to watching it effortlessly take off with a rapid fluttering of functional wings in five minutes. It made me uniquely happy to witness that. Even some of the students appeared to look at their teacher and calm, confident healer of our wayward animal friends with a new sense of respect. At least the class behaved itself for the last ten minutes, a small miracle in itself at this school. So you never really know when magic will happen.
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