First if the Lasts

Last Friday was my last day at Nishi Chugakko, one of my favourite schools.
It has 3 badass kids that never come to class, just sit in the corridor looking hard. Apparently they threw a slipper at my predeccesor (!) but they've always been alright with me. It annoys me that no-one does anything about this and lets them terrorise the other kids but apart from that its a pretty cool school...I met my best j-pal Kayo there when she was a teacher last year and one of my fav teachers, Nishihara sensei is the Kyoto.
So today I had a fun lesson writing tanabata in English with the kids. As the class finished Nishihara made a nice speech about me being a good ALT and stuff which i was smiling along with until i realised some of the kids looked really sad...then she started choking up and stuttering her words and I felt awful. What made it even worse was one of my favourite girls was getting all angry and burst out "NAN DE???" (why?!) and looked like she was going to punch someone. Then a student stood up and read a really nice speech to the tune of "We always looked forward to your lessons. You are very kind. We will never forget you." ect. i managed to not cry but i felt like i was crying if that makes any sense.
The next class was more fun. At the end the kids all said something nice about me in turns, stuff like "you are nice" "you are cute" to "i like you hair", "I like your voice" and (all together) "we will miss you!" Bless. That was really nice. When I left they presented me with a massive (A5) card with lots of cute letters on them and origami (*^_^*) The teachers said some of the kids never speak in English class except when I'm there and get really angry if I visit and don't get to go to their class! I was pretty taken aback by all this praise as its not like I'm ALT of the year or anything...it makes me feel a bit guilty as if I would have really given my all to the job I guess I could have made a huge difference in their attitude to English. Next year I'm not being replaced by another JET, they're going to get someone freom INTERAC instead which means the kids won't see them so much...a real shame I think.
On a final note when I left some students gave me (awkward) hugs and one of them said "Welcome to Japan!" I've taught them well...