Even when you know it might happen...

I come to school this morning and the tension is palpable in the teachers' room.

The second year teachers are huddled, and no one returns my super happy "Good Morning"s...

The huddle breaks and my second year teacher comes back to her desk (It's the one next to mine)

"That seemed serious..." I say.

"One of the girls in my class slit her wrists and is in the hospital." She says...

My eyes grow as big as plates...

"Is she okay?"

"Now, yes."

"Who?"

She tells me... then I think about it, and I can't bring a face to the name... It's not a girl I know...

"Was she bullied?" I ask.

"We don't really know now... It will take some time to get all the details."

Japan has a really high suicide rate. The pressure to perform at 140% here is enormous. Even on us foreign teachers, whom are generally thought of as outsiders. It's astonishing.

And the kids... They are under amazing pressure to perform here. At the end of third year, they test for High School... should they do badly on that test, they end up at a dead-end high school, one which may not have any real option for college (Because, lets' face it, if you didn't do good enough to get into a good High School, how could you possibly be good enough for our college?). If you go to MyTown High, you are doomed. It's the lowest ranked High School in the area. You'd almost be better of quitting school. So, at 15 they must make the decision that will make or break them. This society isn't designed to allow people to "Rise from behind" like American society is. If you end up working McDonalds, that's where you will be for the rest of your life. You could realize you were doomed as early as second grade (Junior High, 8th grade for you Americans, and Grade 8 for you Canadians :D). Now, I have always been a proponent of the "14 is the age of adulthood" version of kid-growing-things... but society sees it differently; and these kids are a product of this society... even if they have the potential to be adults about it, they are not tapping said potential...

Add to that bullying (Which is totally out of control) and there are only so many of us to watch those kids... and they aren't stupid; They don't bully each other when we are around. Add the fact that both parents typically work sometimes as much as 16 hours a day... you have a really bad mix for the kids.

...

You know, we were warned about suicide during training... Told that it might happen at any time... relayed horror stories of other teachers who had been involved when a child decided to take their own lives...

But it hadn't happened to me...

I am most bothered that I can't seem to bring up a face to match her name...

I'm sure that if I saw her, I'd remember her...

But if she had succeeded... I wouldn't have remembered her.

I know it's asking too much of my brain to memorize all 400 kids, but it is damn frustrating not being able to pull a kids face out of a crowd... especially when she is having trouble...

---Whoever I am...

Drums

So I read a news report today that indicated that Japan was going to transferr 20 F-15 Eagles from Tokyo to Okinawa in 2009 to replace the aging F-4's stationed there (Which are almost at the end of their 20 year service life anyway) because China continues to threaten Japanese Airspace in the south.

This report hits me in three ways...

first of all... this is frightning... With F-15's stationed in Okinawa (Mind you there is a major American Air base there, with all mannor of nastiness, including 50 American F-15's), this means Japan is prepared to go head-to-head with China if something happens... to which I have a mixed reaction; on the one hand, good on ya for taking your own matters into your own hands... on the other hand... China... I think China would give the US a headache... the Japanese Self-Defense Force would be a speed bump... slowing the Chinese down just long enough for the US to get their birds in the air... Of course... I shouldn't count out Japanese F-15's... they are probably at least as good as the US 15's stationed in Okinawa... Either way, this is ugly...

Then I took issue with the planes they are replacing... F-4s? F-4... Phantoms? Airplanes designed to prove that given enough engine even a brick can fly? Airplanes designed in 1961?!? These planes were the heart of Viet Nam... What in Buddha's name is Japan even doing with F-4's? This is a first world country... heck, even Afghanistan is flying 1980's era aircraft...

Then... at the end of their 20-year service life... what?!? That means somebody (I'd like to think Grumman has better things to do than this) in America is still making these monstrosities... Or at least was in 1989... what in the world? We have retired two generations of aircraft since the F-4 flew in combat...

Don't get me wrong, F-4's were a work horse of Nam... but I mean, really... It's like using WWII era B-17's to defend West Virginia... It's really kinda odd...

Okay, politics and aircraft tirade over :D

--Me.

The Beep heard around the world (Happy Space Day)

It is yet another public holiday for Guy. I tell you, if it were up to me today would be a public holiday.

Anyway, exactly 50 years ago to the day on the cool Russian Steppe a massive, overpowered (for it's time) R-7 Semyorka Ballistic missile sat on a launch pad in the (also at that time) super-secret Star City (Baikonur cosmodrome) launch facility. At the tip lay not a nuclear warhead as the Semyorka was designed to deliver, but a small, 58 CM wide sphere filled with gas and a single, beeping radio transmitter. The Semyorka was powerful enough to put a nuclear warhead onto American soil so it seemed reasonable to assume that it could also propel the small sphere into that great unknown area of space. If the math was right, the sphere might even stay in orbit.

The Semyorka had already had a few... glitches prior to October 4, and the Russians were a little nervous (one flight was rather fiery and explosevy...), but as dawn approached, the button was pushed and the little sphere was sent to make history.

Sputnik literally means "Satellite" or "Orbital Companion", but its simple beginnings set in motion an amazing series of events. That little sphere orbited for 11 days before reentering in the Earth's Atmosphere.

In the next 50 years, mankind would go even further;

Landing on the Moon, building a space station, and reaching out with mechanical fingers to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and even beyond the Solar System.

We have looked inward, outward, and strange-ward (I love Quantum Physics :D), and we have nowhere to go but up.

Yep, 50 years ago a sphere just a little over 2 feet in diameter opened the door for these very things.

It's a Global Holiday! :D

Happy Space Day, everyone! :D

---Me.