window into school

I've just been battling boredom so walking the corridors at school. Exams (termly tests) finished today so some students are doing club activities, but most have just gone home.
I walked through some wafty music as members of the brass band did their individual practice. (They were there in the same positions a couple of hours earlier too, I might add!) As I was walking past, I'm not sure what annoyed(?) me more: the fact that these girls practise so hard for hours on end, or the ticking of the metronome. Possibly as an off shoot of their clockwork precision, punctuality and perfectionism (?), the [Japanese] musicians in my school are a sucker for metronomes! Used when playing scales, studies, pieces or even en 'tutti' in brass band, they are ever-present, tick-ticking away.
I found myself walking along to the beat of the metronome on my way back to the staffroom...

I had been walking en route to the classroom where I will start 'Rifu English Corner' tomorrow (after school at 4pm). I'd been thinking of a basic plan of action: get to know you games/ warmers/ something more substantial. But I came adrift slightly when I remembered one of my earliest lessons here last year. I had intended to start off a lesson with a name game to attempt to find out/ learn the names of the 40 students in the class. The game is a bit like a puzzle. I say something like, 'My name is Hannah, and I like hamburgers', or 'My name is Hannah and I like going to the hairdresses': basically a name and something about yourself. But this is all disguised as a trip to the moon... students can come too if they say a perfect name and sentence about themselves.
What they are not told is the rule, so students go round, saying their name & sentence, getting frustrated & trying to work out why some people can come on the rocket and others can't. The rule (in case you hadn't guessed, is that the bit of info about yourself must match the first letter of your name: hence hamburgers and hairdressers). But it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped last year. ---Sensei, the oldest of the Japanese teachers of English in my school, and quite a sucker for the old style way of learning English -via translation, began translating my instructions when we weren't far into the task. About 5mins later, the translation was still going, and by the time I eventually got round to asking a student to speak, and it turned out the guy had translated not only the essential info, but the hidden rule, the key to the game! I was gobsmacked. So every student came out with a sentence, 'My name is___ and I ____'. - But some stumbled if they were fortunate enough to be blessed with a name commonly beginning with Y - "do you like yoghurt?...or yachts?" !

Well, after never wanting to touch that game with a barge pole after a miserable experience last time, I actually might be brave enough to give it a go tomorrow. I just hope that ---Sensei doesn't show up (or that students from his class last year don't come, tho i'd be surprised if they remembered it at all to be honest!)...