Tokyo Nishi Public Nishi High School (3)

Takagi: Our school is a feeder school, so the teachers think we're all going to college.

Ikeda: Yeah. They think we're all going to college. Doesn't that bother you? I'm sure there are those who'd rather go to a technical school.

Nagamori: But doesn't everyone think of Nishi High as being that kind of school, that we'll just go the way the school does?

Inao: But our school doesn't do studies for entrance exams.

Moori: What do you suppose we're actually studying for?

Uehara: This school only does regular school study, so there's no way you'll get into college. It's impossible. Everyone who's going to college goes to cram school.

Ikeda: I rebelled when I was a junior. I thought, why am I doing math (seeing as how I'm in fine arts)?

Kawakami: I'm studying the regular school coursework.

Takagi: And you're not the least bit suspicious of it? I think it's really dangerous just to swallow it hook, line and sinker like that.

Uehara: I agree.

Takagi: You've got to stay suspicious at all times.

Uehara: I think that the kind of people who go to Tokyo University or places like that are those who study without having any doubts about what it is they're studying. People who stop to ask whether it means anything or not probably can't make it.

Ikeda: But you're trying to get in, right?

Uehara I'm keeping my suspicions, though.

Ikeda: When I was in junior high, I thought study was just something you did. I wasn't the least bit suspicious of it.

Moori: It was like eating and drinking, perfectly natural.

Ikeda: I never even thought of being absent from cram school, or playing hooky, either.

Takagi: Wouldn't you agree that we need to be suspicious about everything?

Nagamori: I don't think we should let suspicion keep us from doing anything, though.

Takagi: No, I think we should stop. And think.

Nagamori: We need to think, but I still think that that's not the same as just standing still. It wouldn't be good to worry whether we need to study, and then quit school or something...

Takagi: But I believe we need to think about these things. Then as you get more and more distant, that's where you find your life.

Nagamori: Thinking is OK, but I'd draw the line at worry.

Uehara: I think worry is necessary too.

Nagamori: Worry makes you go round in circles. It isn't a positive thing.

Ikeda: Like being sealed off?

Anno: A moratorium?

Ikeda: I think it can be a good thing to be sealed off. I get the feeling that if you're not closed off to some degree, you can't get anything done.

Takagi: I think that we need that too.

Uehara: There's freedom in that.

Moori: School itself feels like it's imposing a moratorium on us.

"How Soon Do You Want to Become an Adult?"

Uehara: But nobody wants to be an adult. That's how it looks to me.

Ikeda: I want to be an adult, and soon.

Takagi: Me too.

Uehara: Not me.

Takagi: Now is all right as far as it goes, but adult society is an unknown world. That's why I want to go there as soon as I can.

Ikeda: The possibilities are infinite. The world might well open up drastically if I became an adult now. I might be able to hold it in my hands. You better believe that that's where I want to go.

Moori: You'll become one anyway, whether you want to or not. I didn't want to become a high-school student, and yet here I am studying for my college boards. See?

Uehara: Time flies.

Ikeda: Sometimes you're amazed at what you realize. Three years. But I'm running as fast as I can, so that's fine with me. I can't stop.

Takagi: I wonder.

Ikeda: I worry while I run. Does that make any sense?

(From the June 25, 1998 edition of Mainichi Intermediate-School News)