Escape from a fiery doom

The other day I had a fire drill at school. But it was not like any fire drill I've had before. First of all, they use real smoke! Masses of it! The whole school was full of it and the kids were coughing their guts up for the rest of the day. It still smells of it a few days later. Also, nobody warned me about the drill beforehand. The first I knew of it was when a teacher ran into the staffroom, blew a whistle and shouted "Run!!". We all ran to the playing field, with me running faster than anyone else because I think I was the only person in the school who thought it was a real fire. The headmaster had a stopwatch and after about 2 mins had elapsed, he started to point and laugh at each child that emerged from the school, and say, "You're dead!"

Once we were all lined up on the playing field, we stood around in the cold while the kids 'reflected' on the fire drill. Whenever anything happens in Japanese school, we have to have a moment of reflection afterwards. For example, every day after the kids have cleaned their classroom, they stand in a circle and say things like, "I think the sweeping went quite well today, but we can do better tomorrow."

I think this post was reasonable. Concise, witty and informative. An appropriate level of whinging about the foibles of Japanese school culture. I'll try just as hard with my next post.