Junko Randall

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A True Samurai

Junko Randall, St. Margaret's second ever, but arguably its most important, Japanese teacher, was remarkably similar to the Samurai warriors from her native country's history. Seldom seen, heard or even recognized, she traveled in the shadows and seemed to content herself behind a veil of anonymity. As a result, only those that took her classes or had other reasons for frequent contact with her could adequately speak her tale. Her's is undoubtedly not the most important of stories, but it is nonetheless one that demands to have its place in the annals of St. Margaret's history.

Biography

Quite reserved with her personal life, the most any of her students ever seemed to obtain from her was that she was born in Japan, chose to leave the country at roughly age 17 in pursuit of knowledge of both the English and Spanish languages, which she did achieve. She traveled to Spain at some point, but eventually settled in Southern California. After a couple jobs she eventually put a Master's degree to use as both the Japanese and Spanish teacher at St. Margaret's.

In The Classroom

Though she probably surprised many St. Margaret's students when they stepped into the classroom for their first day of Spanish, as a woman of "The Orient" lecturing in the language of the Spaniards, her teaching of Spanish was usually limited to one class out of the total of five that she taught at any one point in time. Those other four classes were Japanese, and were taken by only the bravest and/or fondest-of-anime students that had matriculated in St. Margaret's haven of learning.

Junko Randall could be any of the following at any given time: strict, unreasonable, overly scrupulous, fun, hilarious, a great teacher and/or troubled with the English language. Student's opinions ranged from "I hate her. She's so.... ummm....stupid" to "She's tough but she's good." Those that got past her often shy or vexed exterior, reached an only marginally less shy and vexed version of that original level, but they also got to know that Junko Randall had an interesting history, a surprisingly honest explanation of things, and a generally good quality about herself.

Abroad

The First Trip

At the conclusion of a two-week summer trip with her classmates to Japan, Mrs. Junko Randall allowed her students to roam freely about Shinjuku, a very commercial and high-tech area in Tokyo, for 2 hours while she had dinner with her parents, whom she had not seen in at least half-a-dozen years. She placed her trust in her students to not deviate from these guidelines, as she was allowing them more freedom than many other stricter chaperones would have. She made one crucial error.

Michael, a jovial student, chose to make himself the only student who left Shinjuku to travel all the way to the other side of Tokyo, all for the purpose of buying "Domokun," stuffed Japanese dolls that were worth appreciably more in the United States at the time of this trip. After assuring the rest of the students that "it was all cool," Tedori headed off using Tokyo's immensely complex train system.

Michael was wrong. The two hours passed after the intended Shinjuku meeting, and he did not return like the rest of the students did. The rest of the students told Junko Randall what happened. She became immensely worried, because she was liable for his safety and faced huge consequences should Michael not be found. Another hour and a half passed before the students and a tear-drenched Junko Randall had to retreat to the hotel with a mixture of vain hope that Michael would return intact and an deeper desire that Michael perhaps reaped what he had sown and was in some dungeon of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia.

The reader might also question why, in the year of 2002, Tedori could not have used telephone techonology to save himself. In perfect order with his careless however, Michael had failed to obey the requirement by Randall to take down the emergency phone number to call (no one had cell phones that worked in Japan). With a terrible memory, a weak knowledge of the language beyond the expression "Excuse me, I have a question" and an inherent tendency to get himself into harmful situations (earlier on the trip he had drunk copious amounts of Holy Water from a Buddhist Temple and had ended up with a stomach virus), Michael seemed absolutely helpless.

As Junko Randall and the other students arrived at the hotel, Michael Tedori stood on the steps, both hands holding bags full of "Domokun," with a vaguely apologetic facial expression. The story goes, had not the other students restrained Junko Randall, she would have actually torn off Tedori's head using an ancient Japanese martial art technique.

The Second Trip

The next summer, another group of students also went on a similar trip to Japan with Randall as their leader. It came to no surprise to anyone that the trip was, in comparison to the first one, severely stricter.

Speeches At School

When assigned, Junko Randall made speeches for Awards Ceremonies or the occasional convocation. This was typically the only time that students not enrolled in her classes got to learn anything about Randall. Though in the classroom and in small groups of people, Randall's English was remarkably unaccented, and did not conform to the stereotypical Japanese tourist asking for a picture dialect. For whatever reason however, when presenting almost all of her speeches in front of the entire school Randall seemed to devolve instantly back to a struggling and nearly comical accent. This probably made impressions of herself in the heads of those not acquainted with her very simple and something along the lines of "When did she move to America?"

The End

Abandoning her favorite team, the Anaheim Angels, and a few close friends in Southern California, Randall made a quiet exit from the St. Margaret's scene after the 2005-2006 school year. She chose to move to Kentucky over the summer, and those did not involve herself in any of the general hoop-lah of the departing teacher. The discreet exit was fitting considering her stealthy and well-mannered conduct while at St. Margaret's. Which is too bad, because now all Japanese students are stuck with Takako Izumi, and couldn't string together a sentence if they tried.

BUT...........IS IT TRULY THE END?????? MRS. RANDALL IS STILL THE GREAT ANGELS' FAN AND KEEPING A CLOSE EYE ON HER FORMER STUDENTS!!!