keep it simple stupid

A while ago I had to write a short message in Japanese to go in the school album at the end of the school year (April in Japan). I got one of the English teachers to check it because it was important to me and I wanted it to be just right.

That was a few weeks ago. Today a teacher came up to me with a rough copy of the album and told me that my Japanese message was 'too difficult' and they would have to change it. He said, were you just trying to say that you had a great experience here that you couldn't have had in Australia?? NOOooo! I was so disappointed, and a little hurt for some reason. Disappointed that this message I so carefully wrote and had checked was misunderstood, and I guess hurt that they just seemed so eager to cull my message without caring about what I had wanted to say. I showed it to my Japanese teacher this afternoon and she said it could be made clearer by basically just deleting half of it. She did tell me how to express what I wanted to say but by then I was too fed up to care. It's time for me to go eat some worms, but really, noone could care less for my message at this school.

"For all of you, there have been ALTs before me and there will be new ALTs to follow, so I am just one of many to you and my time here has been nothing exceptional in your lives. But for me, these two years in Japan have been a wonderful, rare experience that stand out from my daily life in Australia, and I will never forget it."

became:

"These two years have been a great experience for me. I will never forget it. Thank you all for everything."

Pah. More like, keep it stupidly simple.