I was invited to the graduation ceremony at Mishima Elementary School today. I have attended plenty of these before but always as a member of staff - today I was a guest. And probably the youngest guest by a good ten years. I sat and drank tea with the other guests - local policiticians, Board of Education representatives and PTA top dogs. The men wore suits. The women wore black. All black. With pearls. And corsages.
We were lead into the gym and sat down. I sat next to a guy with the biggest mole I have seen in my whole life. It was the size of a large purple grape. It was BIGGER than the mole on the face of Fred Savage in Austin Powers: Goldmember. I was both transfixed by the sheer gargantuaness of the protuberance and impressed by the gumption of the man who, rather than submit to a simple operation, had chosen to wear this growth like some black fungoid badge of honour. To distract myself I buried my head in the programme guide.
The ceremony was ye typical military style, ruthlessly rehearsed event, with the graduating year 6 kids standing to attention so fast it was as if a marrionette puppeteer had jerked them up from their seats. Despite my deeply ingrained cynicism over the overly rigid nature of the affair (the children's marching made the average soldiers look like hippies) I had to admit to being touched by the younger kids calling out messages of thanks to their departing senpai, and the final "sayonara" of the year 6 kids, however practiced, made people all throughout the gym sniffle and weep.
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