Sing Ho! for a Graduate

I've never sent the likes of it before. The staff room is in an uproar. Teachers are taking Super Bowl like victory laps around the desks. Even our principal crawled out from his dark and foreboding chamber on the first floor to heartily slap the men on the back and kiss the women on the cheeks. People are laughing without reservation!

It seems that a first has occurred on Ojika. All six of the graduating seniors who took their (apparently) very difficult university entrance exams have passed. (I guess this is the first time that all of the students who took the exams have passed.) Two of the girls whom I spoke with yesterday said they were off to the nether parts of Japan to study law and international economics, respectively. Wow.

The news just in reports that two more boys are off to study at Hiroshima University -- a big feat for little fish from the rural Gotos. And, one of our seniors has won a place at Kyushu University in Fukuoka. The most prestigious places of learning in this area of Japan.

I wish I could take even a little credit for their success, but I never taught any of them. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever even saw any of them. They were all too busy in extra-long study sessions to socialize with the weird ALT.