Another year, another speech contest, another gross violation of justice, of good ears, sound judgement, fair play. We were robbed.
Bless her, Megumi’s got a lot of fight in her. She being Nanachu’s contestant whom I have coached through her speech, ‘What a waste!’ for the last week and a half or so, a job her English teacher Kikuchi Sensei had done over the preceeding summer holidays. We three took a cab, we three ate packed lunches and one pair of hands spent the build-up wringing out nerves on a skirt.
The contest took place, Megumi didn’t get placed in the top 4 of 14, and again I found myself cursing the judges, with nothing much to say by way of commiseration in English, let alone in Japanese.
But there was something else that really stung me to the quick.
I’m going back now, to during the contest, to the recitation part, in which younger students took part and when Megumi sat with Kikuchi Sensei and I. Before that, even, in the morning when we had our last practice at school before we three took that cab. And then way way later, after the taxi driver- who happens to be the old secretary’s husband and a very happy granddad to boot- had taken us back to school.
She didn’t talk to me during the recitation part, she looked down during the morning practice and she didn’t make any kind of eye contact at goodbyes, instead conversing exclusively with Kikuchi Sensei.
I can’t help feeling that at some point, she lost faith in me, comprehensively. But then, it is really my place to trample on her disappointment with my own throwaway complaints?
Hey Guy, just found your blog.
ReplyDeleteI looked back at the paperwork from that day, and your student did very well on my end. But scoring that competition was dreadful- two sets of ties! She should be proud that she did so well, even if she didn't place.
-Heather