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 | Fireworks!! A brass band!! Cheerleaders!!! A whole parade of elephants and tigers and pokemon!! Battle mechs!!! Power Rangers!!! Godzilla!!! It's a celebration!!!
okay... and that's about it. We coulda planned something more grand for this (unofficial*) landmark of an achievement for our staff-run blog, but with the blog being updated so frequently, it woulda just gotten burried soon anyway. And I doubt many would have cared as much anyway, haha.
* unofficial because even though it's labeled #1,000 in the url, whenever we delete a mistakenly-created duplicate, it still advances the number by one for the next new entry.
moving along...
Coverage Days: Tuesday April 26th and Wednesday April 27th
Schools Visited: Cromartie HS (HS3) and Perfect Dream Academy HS (HS4)
Entry S4.0, Ep16
I didn't write a blog entry yesterday mostly because I was in beyond-desperate need of a break from writing. My high school life has me so unbelievably busy. I don't even get home most days until 6:30 - 7:00pm, and then from then on, it takes me most of the night to write the full entry (I do it in blocks interrupted by maybe 20 mins of eating or 30 mins of watching some show or checking up on my Facebook). But even my weekends are busy now. 3-day weekend coming up in Japan? Not for me.
Friday - Drama Club practice with HS2, Girls' Volleyball tournament with HS1
Saturday - Drama Club practice with HS2
Sunday - Light Music Club concert with HS4
Not that I'm complaining, of course.
But yeah, yesterday was fun, but not like TOTALLYOMGAWSUMSAUCERAWR!!!111!!!11!-awesome. The things you should know...
Tuedsday April 26th: Cromartie High School (HS3)I gave class 2-2 and class 2-3 their 2nd lessons. The only joke I had for this lesson was my fake heart-attack for the "will you take me to the hospital?" part. It's so funny when the students notice one-by-one why I've taken a pause from reading down our list of favor examples. Good to know they'll be quick to respond should I really die in their presence, haha.
I do have to note how stone-cold silent class 2-3 was during their writing assignment. I don't know if it's because I've won their respect this early or the teachers here just exaggerated how bad they are, but I could not have been any more impressed with how diligently they were all working. Haha, how ironic that the biggest headache from my "bad" school comes from the teachers... but even they've been relaxing more and more since I've come. Maybe they're just happy to finally have an ALT who's been capable of taming the wildebeast.
For the 2-4/5 and the 2-1/5 classes, we played my favorite game: "Ships That Do Battle" (as not to anger the fine people at Milton Bradley). I decided to draw a picture of a battleship on the chalkboard so they'd have a better idea of what their little circles represent... and what exactly is happening when their classmates select the square containing those circles... to which I draw a cruise missile coming flying in, then I scribble all over it making childish explodey noises, haha. They love it.
The other activity for these two classes, since they're ahead of the other two classes at this point, was my Fire Dispatcher Listening activity. I had discussed my whole fire department theme for this class last year, but I realized that they were only going to have 13 lessons with me this semester, 3 of which were oral exams, and another 2 which were mid-terms/finals. So cutting out all that paper and making all that hulla-balloo only to be used like 7 times wasn't worth it. Besides, it was meant as a way to control them, and they seem to be pretty easy to handle anyway.
Of course, I'm assuming that I'll only be spending the one semester with them. If I extend into next year, then I'll have many more classes with them.
As for how the listening activity went, they seemed to get it pretty good. Their attention was in-and-out, but I don't doubt that they were enjoying it. I gave them a list of incident locations, each with a building description, an address, and a list of fire apparatus. I'd announce the alarm, same I used to when I worked the radios at my fire department in America, and their task was to decide which incident location they were responding to and which trucks were going by circling the numbers. Very simple activity to challenge their listening.
I did go to the Art Club at this school, but I don't know what it is about Art Club students and being so moody and brooding. They weren't as sociable as I had expected, despite recognizing many of their "inspirations," such as Shana, Railgun, Flyable Heart* and, of course, Haruhi.
* being an H-game, I was surprised this one was chosen by a girl. I don't think she knew and only chose it because Yui Inaba is adorable... and she loves donuts. I only know it because I saw Yui on the cover of a magazine once and had to buy it just to hang the cover on my wall. Oh wait... now that girl probably thinks I'm some H-game afficiando. D'oh!!!
That's all... next time will be their first speaking test. Should be... boring... But hey, at least I don't have to do any planning.
Wednesday, April 27th: Perfect Dream Academy HS (HS4)My day at my beloved agricultural/commercial high school began so sweet!!! Literally!!! I stopped at Mister Donut on the way to work this morning, haha. All this time I've been getting this palty little chewy ring-shaped thing that I don't know if it really qualifies as a "donut", when really I SHOULD have been doing a little more browsing of the selection to find the REAL donuts. Well... as real as Japan will allow. I found one "Americanized" Honey Dip style, and a chocolate-frosted style. The Honey Dip tasted pretty close to home, but the chocolate-frosted was seriously lacking in the sweetness-department. C'mon Japan, have you ever TRIED an American donut?? And what's with the day-to-day varied selection? Roll out the whole stock all at once, would ya?
Anyway, I had no classes scheduled in the first two periods today, but I had some business to attend to. First... talk to the P.E. teacher, DebfromDexter, about what's going on in the physical education department. Ugh... just fitness testing today, followed by a few weeks of Track-and-Field. More like "Boring-and-Just-Shoot-Me." Haha, nothing against all the proud runners out there (hey, I'm a decent spiriter myself... with plenty of stretching, I've now learned, heh heh), but watching students just running is hardly entertaining. If we're not all chasing a ball, then I'm sitting this one out.
Second... anyone who took me up on that bet about all my schools trying to claim me for the same night for those Welcoming Parties, pay up! One of the teachers came up to me today all happy and giddy about the school's big bash... scheduled for the exact same night as the party HS2 wants to have theirs. This is fine, though, because HS4 wants to have a big party for ALL the teachers, so I'm just going to end up lost in a sea of teachers... all of which will be paying 7,000 yen! Yikes! HS2 is just doing a quiet shindig for the English teachers only, where myself and another teacher will be the main guests. Chinese place (since they know I don't like fish) for just 5,000 yen. Much more preferrable.
(HS2 DID have a big party for all the teachers together, but it was one of those things where they told me with just like a day's notice, so I was like... "uhhhhh, I'm gonna sit this one out... too early for me, plus it was at a seafood restaurant, so I woulda just been a pain to everyone, haha).
Third... Mew-chan is girl I befriended at HS2 last week when I was asked by the Drama Club to go watch them perform. She's the super adorable girl who wanted to be my friend, haha. She told me that she has a sister at HS4 who was possibly enrolled in my class. I forgot to ask her if she found out about it when I saw her for our lunch "date" on Monday, but I had my roster in front of me now to check for myself. Ah, yup... here she is... OC-I (C)... she sits in the 3rd-column... in the... 3rd... row...
... wait...
... hold on...
... uh oh...
... no...
... this... this can't be...
... am I thinking of this correctly?
... crap... there's gotta be a mistake...
... dammit, memory... don't fail me now...
... Mars-chan... she's along the wall... so she's in the 1st-colum... in the 2nd-row...
... but... but...
... she talks with a girl constantly constantly constantly...
... like, standing up in the middle of class constantly...
... to talk to the girl... one row behind her... across the aisle...
... that's...
... no... it... it can't be...
... are you serious? Are you kidding me? How is this even possible??
... Mew-chan's little sister...
... is Mars-chan's...
... best friend???????
WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!? D: O: D: D:What the hell!?!?! How does my life become more like a Hollywood drama script than most... Hollywood drama scripts!?!?!??! Who is toying with my life so amusingly!?!?!??!?!?! These coincidences just... can't... keep... happening... like this!!!!! It's gotta be like mathematically improbable!!!!
Okay, well this will be interesting to see if I'm right or now. But, then again, is this really a negative thing? I dunno... it's no secret that both of these girls have made blips on my radar, so to speak. Mew-chan has been sly in her interest while Mars-chan has been pretty outspoken about her opinions. I mean, no one's dating anyone, so it's not like they have any reason to be competing... unless there's something I don't know about it. I just don't want things to get complicated, especially between schools.
But dammit, I just gotta know for certain, and their class isn't until after lunch. Talk about an excruciatingly long wait! I'll need to distract myself elsewhere. Let's just hope the OC-II seniors aren't asleep this time.
I arrived in the room we use to teach this class a little early. This is key, I suppose, since I can use the early moments to fire up the crowd. I saw instantly that one of our students hadn't arrived yet... something easliy noticeable considering we only have 6 students in this class, haha. I decided to capitalize on this. I ask to the general crowd:
"Where is Ms. Rena?"
::they all look at me confused::
(what the hell... you're 12th-graders and you can't answer a simple "where" question? ugh, fine, whatever)
::I try to give them some suggestions for answers::
"Is she in the other classroom?"
::they just look at eachother::
"Is she under the podium?"
::I look under my podium... they giggle::
"Is she hiding in the air conditioner?"
::I point at the air vent. They all turn to look and start laughing::
::Rena enters the room... spoiling my fun, haha:: Oh well, at least they're awake now.
Now that I've memorized the names of EVERY STUDENT IN THE CLASS (again... all 6 of them), I can have a lot more fun with them. Whenever they do something odd or weird or cute or goofy, I can pester them about it, usually by saying their name in a weird way. That usually embarrasses the student (not in a mean way) and makes the others laugh. I kept them alert throughout the period by using this tool.
We played Keyword Game, but they don't really get much into it. There isn't any reward for winning, and without any fired-up students in the room, there is no one to generate interest. Fine then... we're just gonna spend the period re-writing the essays you did in the other class... and then reciting them in the front of the room, haha. This IS an "oral communication" class, afterall.
But first, we had a listening exercise. The topic was "things you hear in an airport/airplane," so I wrote sentences like "Your seat is 17-F. It is next to the window" and "Flight 33 to Los Angeles will begin boarding now at Gate #11," with plenty of blanks for them to have to fill in. When we go to checking the answers together, I was going around the room, asking for students to not only tell me their response, but how to spell the words. One of the girls had to spell the word "seatbelt."
"S... E... A... T? B... E... ... ... L..."
Her last letter was the Japanese "to" (pronounced "toe/tow"). Haha, everyone giggled when I was like "to??", then laughing harder when I wrote "と" on the chalkboard.
"Seatbel と"... is that right?
While the students were working on their essays, I was talkin with the Japanese teacher about the class schedule we found on the wall. Apparently in the 3rd-year of high school, all the students spent the majority of their time in their elective classes, as opposed to sticking strictly with their homeroom classmates. The only classes they have together are P.E., Japanese, and of course, homeroom. I found the most interesting class on the list to be the "pet care" class... which in the 2nd-period!!! Wooo... I'm free 2nd-periods. I'll have to check that out next time. :D
We ended up finishing up with 5 minutes left in the class period. Being as clever as I am, I whipped up a little free-talk time, considering that Golden Week is fast approaching. I told them about my plans for next week, then picked students at random to share what they had in store. Not surprisingly, "sleeping" and "studying" came up a bit, but one girl is going to an amusement park somewhere around here (nice!!) and another girl is...
"I am watching tv."
"what? really? where??", I quickly exclaimed excitedll confused, while looking all around the front of the room to see where this supposed television set was. She realized her error immediately, as did her classmates, but not quick enough to avoid this opening for comedy, haha.
See you kids in two weeks. I'll miss ya!
If you think comedy and cuteness only happens in the classrooms here, think again. I really really need to stress how the celebrity treatment for me is really surfacing as I walk the hallways. I guess now that word has spread of my good and fun nature, all the students have become curious about me. Pretty much everyone I pass now, boys, girls, 1st-years, 3rd-years, nerds, jocks, geeks, beauty queens... they all see it as a huge "get!" if they manage to have any exchange with me at all. The "hello"s and "good afternoon"s I dish out end with swooning and laughing, and of course, endless giggling. Well, the boys don't giggle, but they seem amused, too.
Today, however, I think I caught one girl off guard as she was passing me in the hall with her friend. She saw me, she smiled, I said "hello!', she said "heeeeelllll...."
and she kinda just trailed off, I believe, literally, lost in the moment. She was just entranced by my awesomeness, it seems, haha. I don't even think I'm that great-looking. Average, at most. Not hideous, by far... but not like super-handsome. I dunno though... the girls... they just like my eyes or my smile or something. Damn, I should become a Japanese Idol. I heard foreigners can make a killing in fashion modeling and whatnot.
Selling my love at hourly rates, haha. Oh wait, my grandparents read this blog... I mean... ummmmm... helping clean poverty-stricken neighborhoods.
Moving far far far away from that topic... 4th-period was up next. This was my optional OC-I (D) class with 25 of my 2nd-year students. This one is my wild class, lead by the hyper soccer girl. I wonder if I should just nickname her that. I hate waiting forever to pick out nicknames for people, though giving premature handles out when students end up doing more worthy things bugs me, too. Anyway... I'll think about it.
Usually I teach with a kind older man, but he was out today on business. I ended up teaching with one of the middle-aged women who I only speak with on occassion (I don't know why they seperate all of us... we should have all our desks together). This woman was the advisor to the Light Music Club, so this was a good chance to impress her with my awesome teaching skillz. Gotta have a good relationship with her.
But... wait... what's she doing? She knows this is MY class and I'm 99% in control here. Why is she shushing my hyper students? I know it's her only job here to keep the kids from causing a ruckus, but we can handle a little commotion. I like having a lively class. I mean, even when I called on the chaotic students, they still had the right answers for me. And since we're playing Keyword Game, I rely on that jubilant chaos to inject some energy into the room. Don't shush them... let them cause a ruckus... the more energy they burn now, the better behaved they'll be during the actual lesson.
The textbook listening activities were pretty cut-and-dry. I wasn't getting any volunteers to read off answers, but luckily I have a seating chart with everyone's name on it (I looove picking on students by name, haha).
The main activity, unfortunately, had to be squished into the final 15 minutes of the class. What are we playing? Battle... uhhhhh... boats.... yaaay!!!! So, much like I did on Tuesday, I drew my military-class waterfaring craft with appropriate armaments on the chalkboard, then proceeded with the demonstration of how if your circle gets X'ed out, you're going down. They loved my dramatization with the fire and the screaming... though I could have added more screaming... we were pressed for time... oh noes!!!
During the actual game, though, I could add in more comedy. Anytime a student chose a box that sunk one of my three ships, I screamed in agony... then pretended as if I were immensely angry at the student responsible. That got the laughs going.
In the 5th-period, working with a different substitute teacher this time, I had more time for the Warship game. This time not only was I more dramatic with the boat sinking demonstration, almost getting down to my knees in tragic agony, but I ended it with an ultra-cool chalk tossing into the tray. Just one of those things you do to be incredibly suave... while internally praying that it works, or else you'll look like a totally dweeb. And yeah, it worked. Xeno-sensei is one smooth dude. The ladies surely swooned over that one.
Oh, and I also encouraged other students to enact after-class "revenge" on students who sunk their ships, haha. Haha, one girl couldn't understand me, but when I pointed at the girl who sank her and said "punch," she nodded, smiled, and told me "okay!" Oops... sorry other girl.
But wait... this is the 5th-period. Didn't I have some super mystery I needed to confirm? Is Mars-chan's friend really the little sister of Mew-chan?? Well... turns out...
... drumroll please...
::drumroll::
She is!! It's a small world, after all!! Duff beer for me, Duff beer for yo... oh, wrong one.
But yes, when I walked into the room, I saw Mars-chan talking with her friend standing at desk c3-r3. Hmmmmm... standing doesn't really confirm or deny anything; I'll have to actually go up and ask her directly. I make my approach, kindly interrupt their discussio, and I say to the girl, "are you (name)?" Hahahaha... she didn't even answer me... she just laughed, smiled, and exclaimed "sister!!!!" Okay, I guess that's confirmation enough. I kinda had my suspicious right as I got close anyway considering that she looks almost exactly the same as her onee-san. Wow... double-cute!!! Mars-chan butted in with something else to ask about it, but I couldn't understand much of anything, I kinda just slinked away.
I wish I had got some dirt, maybe like... "she talks about you constantly... she made those cookies especially for you... she has photos of you with hearts drawn all around them!!" hahaha
Getting back to the general class, I must say... wow!! They were so extremely well-behaved today. Throughout all the activities, the textbook and main game, they were all completely silent. Even Mars-chan. Well... she still talked more than anyone else, but even her usual comparison, she was laid-back today. I wonder if she was upset hearing that she has a competitor for my attention now. Awwwwwwwwwwww... don't lose your energetic side!!! You're still one of my favorite students. Hell, any student who's name I've bothered to memorize this early on should be honored!!
Seriously... I've seen, at most, any student 5 or 6 times... and already I've memorized about 20 names. Out of the 2,000 students I work with... out of the 630 enrolled in my classes... memorizing 20 this quickly for me is a HUGE triumph!!!!! I am actually quite proud of myself, haha. I am terrible with names and faces. I've actually improved at something since coming to Japan. I mean, there were students in Fukushima I saw three times every week for over a year who's names I STILL haven't learned (not my fault since I never hear their names), but I've made a good effort here.
I timed things pretty well today and ended up finishing with about 2 minutes left at the end of the class period. This gave me exactly enough time to announce to the students that I won't be seeing them for two weeks because of the Golden Week holiday next Tues-Wed-Thurs. I had to add some last minute comedy for them to remember me by, so as I was explaining this to them, I start fake-sniffling. Then I turned around and put my face into my arms and leaned against the chalkboard, pouring on the dramatic sobbing. I could hear them laughing, of course, but I had more. I stopped suddenly, then turned around to look at them as if I were a child making sure I was getting the attention my faux-tears demanded... then went back to crying against the chalkboard. More laughs. I turned around abruptly, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and announced we were done for the day. The chime rang... nice timing!!!
Oh, and another girl called me "kawaii" during today's lesson, this time loud enough for me to hear it from across the room, haha. It caught me off guard, so I start coughing cause the surprise happened as I was inhaling or something and threw off my breathing rythem, haha.
So 5th-period is over and I'm done teaching for the day. Nice, it's already nearly 3pm. But dammit... there are still two periods left until the club period starts, and with my co-teacher out right now, I don't even know how to plan for the next lesson. What pages does he want me to focus on? Do we even have classes on the 11th or is the school in mid-terms then?
Ugh... well, I really wanted to see what the P.E. classes were up to. This is gonna be a killer schedule once the phys. ed. classes start a sport I can actually enjoy. Argh... I don't wanna watch them take a fitness test!! But... I really... really... have nothing else to do right now. I spent the 6th-period and most of the 7th-period just agonizing over what I had in my desk. Finally I was like "argh, whatever!" and I went to go poke my head in the door of the gym.
Before I could even get to the doorway of the phys. ed. section, I could hear... dribbling? Are those basketballs I'm hearing? Is basketball part of the fitness testing? I turn the corner to look in the small gym and see... a sea... of students... frickin' everywhere. About 85 students... and 8 basketballs, haha. Okay... so the numbers don't add up. I mean, they're not playing any games 'cause they're just standing around, shooting occassionally. So what's the deal? I see one familiar face sitting on a bench in the corner. She was the adorably sweet chibi pigtailed girl from my 5th-period class.
I took a stab at her name... I was wrong. Dang it.
"Why are you not playing? Sick?"
She said something in Japanese that I believe meant she forgot her atheletic uniform, haha. (speaking of which, this is my first school to have red gym uniforms)
"What are the students doing?"
"Free time!"
haha... ohhh, that explains the unorganized chaos in this room.
Anyway, long story short, this was my first time attending a high school P.E. class, though I don't know if it qualifies since it was just free-time. I shot one three-pointer with the boys (and missed horribly), then went over to a crowd of girls that was waving at me. They were being a little goofy and wacky... maybe not a good idea to be taking wild, long distance shots. With so many students and not many hoops, you've probably already assumed a lot of students were just chilling on the idelines... and not paying as much attention as they should have.
Can you guess what happened next? Basketball... long wild shot (not from me, thankfully)... girl... not paying attention... glass... face... bleeding... a thousand apologies... a trip to the nurse's room.
Ouch.
The period wound down, and so off to today's club I go. What's on the menu for today: the Light Music Club. My chance to spend some downtime with Mars-chan. What? There are how many members enrolled in this club??
47!?!?!?!?!?!?
Holy cheeseburgers!!!!!
8 bands!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Holy snausages!!!!!!!
Well, with only one drum set and one amp, it's not very likely that Mars-chan's band will even be performing today. :(
Ah well, the club president was very sweet and attentive to me. She was a very petite 3rd-year girl; very nice, polite, interesting... and... an incredibly awesome drummer. Like... wow... I was blown away. The other members were phenomenal, as well... which had me surprised considering how... ummmm... in-need-of-improvement... the students I saw play at HS3 were. So it IS possible for high school kids to be totally pro at certain instruments. Now if only I could actually HEAR what the singers were singing.
Grrrr... why do rock bands insist on cranking the volume of every instrument up to max? Put the vocalist at 11, okay, but the guitars at like 8 or 9. It's the lyrics we need to hear. It's not like the voices are going to drown out the sound of the bass, haha.
Haha, and remember how I said that petite girl was so sweet and kind? Imagine my surprise when she started to rocking out to a little death metal, haha. The boy... singing?... sounded like Satan incarnate... which I suppose is what he was going for.
An hour and 8 or 9 songs later, my ears were done. In a small room with professional-grade equipment, I was beyond my limit. I was sitting up close, too, because I had first been recruited as... ummmmm... a dancer? I dunno... they told me I had to hop on one foot and wave my arm in a circle for the length of one song. Not sure why, but they smiled when we all made eye-contact, haha. Am I serving a purpose here? Well, useful or not in this respect, I spend the later half holding back the drum set from the front row. Everytime the drummer girl pounded the foot hammer, it would lowly inch the set away from her. I volunteered to be the counter-pressure to keep it in place. Murder on my ears, but I was infatuated with seeing how the drums could make certain sounds. I'm learning just as much as I'm teaching here, haha.
They will be participating in some kind of festival on Sunday afternoon. They asked me to come. I'll be sure to check that out.
And now, I must check into my bed. Sleep... I want it!!!! Tomorrow I teach at HS1 where I'll be seeing my two Handball Club manager friends after their devastating loss in the last 30 seconds of the annual tournament against... my club from HS3, hahaha. How... awkward. Well, 2nd-place ain't bad. Friday I have off, but will be hanging out with students anyway. Monday we have school, then we're off for 3 mid-week days. Back to school on Friday.
Damn you, Japan... just give us the full week off!!!! Help the economy!!! Encourage travel and spending!!! Sheesh!!!
Until next time... see you!!!
P.S. random... of all the anime-series related merchandise out there, the last series I expected to see an item from sitting on a table at a Light Music Club practice was Mayoi Neko Overrun, haha. Nice to know there are some Overrun fans in my midst.
P.P.S. I got my TEPCO Nuclear Disaster Financial Relief application today. I hope someone can help me fill it out soon. News isn't good for the area around the Fukushima Daiichi Genpatsu. The mandatory evacuation area has been increased from 20kms to 50kms now. Families living in those areas must leave within the next 3 weeks. I fear my poor little village in the mountains will be vacated until the end of the year, at minimum, now. Even if we were to return, we can't play outside for years. |
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| (this entry has an important disclaimer at the end... if you're a skimmer, then at least check out that part)
Coverage Days: Monday April 25th
Schools Visited: Fuuka Academy (HS2) and Azumanga HS (HS1)
Entry S4.0, Ep15
Cherry Blossom season was a bust this year. So lame!! Between bad weather and a totally busy schedule keeping me indoors most of the month... and maybe nuclear radition?... there wasn't much enjoyment had with the sakura this time around. Ah well, I had tons of beauty and adorableness to gaze at elsewhere.
Oh xeno... stop sounding like such a perv. You get to enjoy living the anime lifestyle, now don't do anything that's gonna get your sorry ass locked away.
Yes yes, you're right... gotta stay professional... gotta stay pure. The minds of the upcoming generation need to be lead by someone of good heart. I'm here to guide the students, nurture their development, protect their well-being.
Now where are those college girls at??? :D :D :D
Oh wait, I don't have any free time whatsoever to go hunting down campus cuties. Grrr... well, I'll deal with that issue some other time. Let's talk about Monday and the start to my 3rd week teaching high school.
I spent the weekend so terribly sick with a wretched head cold. Just a lot of sneezing, a crapton of coughing, a little warmth and dizziness in my head, and occassional icky nose. I was hoping to be rid of it come Monday morning, but no luck. I mean, plenty of improvement, luckily, but I'm still considerably ill. I managed to keep things under control long enough to enjoy my one class of the day and one very special student interaction time.
My Oral Communication II class with the seniors was first up this morning. Last week, they were noticeably grumpy and just unresponsive to anything. Is it early morning grumpiness? Are these students just unexciteable? Does the weather have anything to do with it? (today it was very windy and cloudy with a few drops of rain)
I guess it was just a one-time thing, because today they were quite sociable and pleasant. The boys got me off to a good start... but I don't know why. They were whispering to eachother while looking at me. I overheard the words "kakui" ("cool") and "Spiderman" ("Spiderman"). Hmmmmm... an audience and an opening. Better appease them...
::shoot a web at them, Spiderman-style... trying not to feel igged out at the theory that Peter Parker's transformation into a goo-oozing teenage boy is a metaphor for puberty I saw floating around on the internet::
They reacted, they laughed, all is good, haha.
Class started. We did Keyword Game again, even though they seemed to hate it last week. Haha, if they don't enjoy it, I'll MAKE them enjoy it. I got a few laughs by pestering the students who weren't being competitive enough. Two girls in the front were just staring at the eraser they were supposed to be fighting over, only causually picking it up whenever they felt like it. No no no... I want to see punching!! I want to see hair-pulling!! I want to see eye-gouging!! Fight for my amusement!! I kept trying to persuade them to punch eachother, but nothing doing. Something about laws or morality or it being just a game... I dunno.
Ah well, I got a bigger laugh when we were doing our lesson on Giving Directions. The Japanese teacher kinda annoyed me though. We were supposed to each make one map: my map was to be the Info Gap map where some landmarks would be left blank so the pairs of students could interview eachother to fill in their map, and his map was supposed to just be a map so the students could practice giving directions... but he made his an Info Gap map, too... and it wasn't easy because his landmarks weren't side-by-side and his streets weren't labeled. Grrrrrr...
That aside, I got my laugh when we used his map. He wanted us to do a demonstration conversation for the students, so I asked him where the ramen shop was. After he told me, I pumped my fists in exaggerated jubilation to get the kids fired up (RAAAAAMEN!!!!), coupled with my pretending to pick up the restaurant off the map and eating it. Haha, they laughed at that.
I mean... they laughed at that? It's such a simple elementary school joke. Oh, good to know ES humor works here, too.
Since today's lesson was mostly a work-in-pairs kind of day, I was free to do some roaming around the room to chit-chat with whoever I felt like bothering, haha. My favorite student in this class actually sits waaaaay in the back. She's so adorable. She has one of those soft, super-girly voices that just melts your heart. Her little "good morning, xeno" to me when I walked up to her and her friend almost made my legs melt. So sweet.
I had to play it cool, though. I couldn't just shower her with attention... I have to pay attention to all my students equally, not just the super-idols! I started off talking to her friend. I asked her how she was, to which she responded with "I'm tired." I suggested she take a nap. She already had a blanket, haha. I then noticed that she had a ginormous box of tissues on her desk. "Are you sick today?"
"No."
Ohhhhhhhhh... kaaaaaay... what's with the big box of tissues then?
"Convenience."
What?? But you're not sick! Wouldn't it be more convenient to NOT walk around the school with a giant box of tissues? I give up... I'm switching sides of the desk and going to talk to the adorable idol-girl, haha. I noticed her pen first. It had a whole bunch of characiatures of Japanese people drawn on it.
"Who are these people?"
"They are comedians."
"Ohhhhhh... which one is your favorite?"
::she looks over them all, slow to decide... she points at a duo and tells me the name::
I instantly respond with, "Chigau!" (wrong!)
haha, her taken aback look was priceless. How could something subjective by "wrong?"
::shes looks over them all again, slowly points out another comedian, tells me the name::
I respond again with "Chigau!" I give a brief moment for it to sink in, then I tell her... "the answer is: xeno-sensei!!" Haha, she smiles and laughs as I take the pen from her so I can explain my characiature is really the silver ball on the top to symbolize how I am above all else in the world of comedy and awesomeness. ^___^V
I had to keep making my rounds to check up on all the students, occassionally quizzing the ones who had "finished" early (to make sure they actually DID the activity instead of just looking at eachother's papers and writing the answers in). Being a small class, of course, it wasn't long until I returned to my idol-san. This time I commented on her CareBears pencil case. Apparently she had no idea that the Care Bears were super super insanely popular in the United States...
... 25 years ago!!!!!
:O
hahahahaa, there, I taught some international culture today.
oh wait, now I feel old -____________-;;
I spent my 3rd and 4th periods just planning for the next lesson. Luckily for me, we're already drawing close to mid-terms (wow, so fast), which means I'll have like a week of no responsibilities... but also extreme boredom. Anyway, so I planned out this lesson to be extremely speaking-heavy. This class is called ORAL COMMUNICATION, and being an optional class for seniors, I'm assuming the students who chose this class had been hoping for plenty of opportunities to use what they've learned. But also, being seniorsn, I expect them to have a high level of vocab and grammar points, none of which I'd want them to forget, so for next week's activity, not only will they be making a conversation about giving directions, but they need to fit in as much English as possible.
How do I do that? Bribery.
If they can make up a conversation lasting more than a minute, they can have 3 extra points on their upcoming mid-term speaking evaluation. 4 points if they talk for 2 mintes... 5 points if they talk for 3 minutes. They can talk about anything... I don't care. Just talk!!! I'm not even going to make them all perform. I'm putting them in groups of 4, but if they write a script for only 2 people, I don't care. Quality is the key here. I want this to be a low-pressure exercise.
Technically I was free around this point to head off to my afternoon school, but today, I had a special engagement arranged for lunch period at my morning school. If you read last Friday's entry, The Cuteness Scale Has Officially Been Broken (which I highly recommend), you'll know that I had a great time with the students in the Drama Club... particularly with two of the sannensei girls: one who I shall dub Translator-chan (since she does all the translating for this group), and her adorably cute friend, who had been suggested as "Mew-chan" because her love for MewTwo... though Mew is a totally different pokemon, so I wonder if there would be confusion (as adorable as Mew-chan is, haha).
The girls (yeah, no boys in this club... go figure) wanted me to come back to visit them, watch them goof around, and talk about anime/music, everyday of the week... however, sadly enough, my schedule only grants me afternoon time with them on Fridays (and even then, not for the WHOLE club period). But I had a good solution: let's meet for lunch on Monday. Since I had no classes to teach at the school in the afternoon, I was technically free to stay as long as I pleased... or so that's what I'm hoping... I mean, no one at HS1 was calling me out on being "late," so I guess they understand how I'll be flexing my transition time.
Anyway... so all throughout the morning (who am I kidding... all throughout the WEEKEND!!) I had been looking forward to this time. After all, it was my first time eating lunch with high school students... actually, my first time eating lunch with a group of my choosing! So of course I was excited. However, I didn't share the details of this plan with any of my coworkers. Not even a mention. You can imagine the looks on the faces of the two teachers sitting in the English Staff room with me when we got a knock on our door, followed by a trio of girls saying they were here to steal away the gaijin.
:O
:O
yeah... that looks about right. heh heh... cya!
So, ladies... where do we dine? The classroom? A special super secret student lounge? A cushy lobby? Out in the courtyard, mayhaps?
Oh... the hallway... the between-buildings access hallway... the one with no chairs or tables... and tons of distracting foot-traffic. Okay... sure. Well, there are... are these crates? We're gonna sit on crates? Sigh... well... I guess it's more about the company than the accomodations. So who's sitting where?
Haha, Translator-san claims her place, apparently deciding on the seating order for everyone. She points at a place nearby for Mew-chan to have, then gestures to the space left between the two of them for me to sit. Mew-chan cheers giddily... the others can sit on the floor and be jealous, haha. Heh heh, gives new meaning to the phrase "lowly underlings."
Unfortunately for me, Mew-chan had someone sitting next to her... someone who kept talking to her about who knows what. All I know is that I didn't get as much conversation time with her initially as I would have liked. Oh well, I got to talk with Translator-san and a whole slew of girls who passed us in the hallways (many surprised students seeing the gaijin kidnapped by the Drama geeks). The lunch break is 40 minutes long, so I guess there wasn't a huge rush to start talking with her right away. I mean, anytime I addressed her, I got an immediate response, so she was putting me as a priority while still being shy. Or she's toying with me, seeing how much effort I'm willing to put in to talk with her.
Okay, fine, I'll play your little teenage games. Oh wait, she's a teenager... so I guess this is appropriate for her age.
First, I made notice her PokeWalker again. I wanted to see how much walking she's done so far today. 1,307 steps? I dunno... is that a lot? It was only 12:30pm. Oh well, I just like seeing her all hyper... and talking about Pokemon makes her hyper, haha.
Next, I commented on her bento. Haha, so cute, but a lot smaller than I had expected. Considering how big the elementary and junior high school lunches are, I would have thought she would have brought something bigger. Ah well... watching her trying to balance the two dishes on her legs was amusing. Wait... doesn't she use this same bento box everyday? Why is she having issues this day? Shouldn't she be totally pro at this by now? Maybe she's just trying to be extra adorable for my sake. Well, she succeeded.
I asked her what she did this weekend. Actually, this time around, I was concentrating on how good her English abilities are. Her understanding is excellent, but her response abilities are lacking, haha. I guess she wants to talk to me more and more for a reason. Luckily she owns the flashiest electronic translator in the group. We've given that baby a workout already, haha. Oh... and about her weekend... apparently she just played Pokemon the whole time.
We were about halfway through the break period when I realized that I hadn't brought out my main event yet: my iPod. I had promised to show her this on Friday. I had finished eating by now, but she was still laboring alone. I held the iPod out to her, which got her totally excited, but I told her that she couldn't look at it until she finished her lunch. I turned to her friend to say one thing, then glanced back at her. Lunch... totally gone. Daaay-uumm!!
Actually, before we got to looking through it together, she had sprung up to go to something... then she reappeared... with cookies!! Homemade cookies!! Hmmmmmmmmmmm... now I'm curious. The cookies were said to be for "everyone," but I can't help but wonder if there was some "special occassion" she had been thinking of in her adorable little heart as she spent the weekend slaving over that hot oven. Were these made with thoughts of me in mind, and she was just using the "ohh... ummm... well... I made them for... everyone... but... you know..." facade. She did seem to offer the most to me. Are they teacher cookies? Friend cookies? Blue-chan's archnemesis cookies?
A
D
O
R
A
B
L
E
!
She smiles constantly, but I don't think I'm supposed to know that because she ALWAYS has her hands up to her mouth. It's one of her charm points. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen her mouth, now that I think about it. That's a common thing in anime, right?
Oh, you know who she is? She's Katsura Kotonoha from School Days... before all the... unpleasantness. Haha, and that's great because she actually knows what School Days is!!! FINALLY!!! I've found the REAL otaku of Japan!!! And not only that, but she knows...
- CLANNAD
- Air
- Shakugan no Shana
- Negima!
- Bakaretsu Dokoro-chan (yeah, I have random images in my iPod)
- Bakemonogatari
... and those are just the ones we covered in like the 5 minutes we spent looking through the cosplay photos I had saved from my US conventions. If we sat down and looked at the whole list, we'd probably find a whole lot more in common. Oh man... I'm nerding out... I've gone 3 years in this country without finding someone who both 1) loved the same anime I like, and 2) had the language abilities to discuss it!!!
And it doesn't stop there. She really is a big fan of Air, which is great for me because it was my inspiration for coming to Japan in the first place. She knows of Kasumi-cho (the inspiratio for the setting designs) and wants to visit there herself (and was awed by the fact that I had been there myself), and even better... she knows the theme song by Lia, "Tori no Shi/Bird's Song", which is my #1 all-time favorite song. She even sang a line of it, but there was so much commotion in the hallway that I couldn't hear her well enough.
Maybe what I said next was a mistake, but with her and her friends all circling around my iPod, oohing and ahhing, I cashed in some more coolness points by telling them all that... I write for an anime website. Oh noooo!! If they find this site, all my supreme nerdiness will be exposed!!! Oh wait, they already know about that. Well... they'll know all my opinions about them... which probably isn't so bad, either. Ummmmm... I dunno... they'll see what issues I deal with in the other schools, giving them an advantage in the great cuteness war that will surely re-energize itself.
But also, a double-whammy. In my iPod, I have some photos I took in Okayama, one of which is a photo of me posing with two junior high school sannensei on the day of their graduation. I made a point of saying that these two girls are not only high school seniors, too, but also that one of them (AmazingEnglish-san) still emails me about once a month.
Uh oh... now that they know I'm open to emailing with students, the lure of privately chatting after-hours has entered their heads. And no, that isn't a bragatory assumption I'm making... it's a true fact. Once I told them I email that girl still, I was bombarded with "I want to email you, too!!!" Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... I shoulda made myself more clear: I only emailed her AFTER she graduated, as in, after she was no longer officially my student (and I'm friends with her mother... actually, her mother was the one who gave me her email... same with Blue-chan). Randomly getting the personal contact information of CURRENT students... errrrrr... let's just say, I was glad someone chose to interject themselves into our conversation at this exact precise moment. Saaaafe...
... but for how long?
The end of the lunch break was fast approaching, but there was something else we needed to discuss: our next meet-up. This coming Friday (the day I spend at their school) will be a national holiday... and curse my luck, the following Monday is a day I have a class in the 4th-period at my afternoon school. So with this schedule, I wouldn't even SEE them again for almost two full weeks. Booooooo~
Well, wait, what about a weekend practice? Every club meets on weekends, even the academic clubs, right? Ah sweet... chance!! Only... they didn't set their schedule for this weekend yet, and I won't be seeing them before then anyway. Okay, well... I only live 20 mins away by bike (5 by car), so I'll probably be dropping by this area that day anyway. I could certainly just stop by to poke my head in to see if there is a practice happening. Problem... solved?
Haha, actually, as we were discussing this, the Drama Club advisor came over to us. Great, a chance at getting a quick answe. But darn, she hasn't decided on the schedule yet. Well, she did thank me for helping them on Friday, and I'm always certainly welcome to drop by anyway. Wait... how did she know I was there on Friday? Was the news so big that the students just had to share it first thing this morning? Or maybe there was a meet-up over this past weekend that I missed out on. Hmmmm...
The time finally came for us to go our seperate ways. I didn't get any overly-emotional good-bye from Mew-chan this time, but I'm hoping it was just her trying to hide her giggly girlie side. And damn, I forgot to ask if her sister was enrolled in my HS4 class... I guess I'll find out myself on Wednesday.
So anyway, we said our good-byes, then I went on to go brave this mighty storm that the weather centers were saying was going to be a brutal weeklong headache. I grab my bag, change my shoes, open the door, and step outside into... bright sunshine with blue skies? Waah?? It has been dark and windy no more than an hour ago, and the internet report I checked said 80% chance of rain all week long. How is the weather so perfect right now? Is this a magical effect of the cuteness? Is she Yuki Nagato? Is she Haruhi Suzumiya? Well, a good sign, nonetheless.
I arrived at Azumanga Daioh High School after battling the damn traffic lights (4 of 4 against me!!) to find just one of the teachers in the English room. I had nothing to do today, so I just worked on one of my worksheets for an upcoming lessonplan. I was counting down the minutes until the end of the 6th-period, at which then I could finally go out and enjoy some club activities. Well, time came... and as I'm standing up, ready to head off to the gym, I'm reminded that on Mondays, this school has 7 periods.
DAMMIT!! Now I gotta sit here for ANOTHER hour!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrr...
Fast-forward to almost 4:45pm now. Technically I'm free to go at 4:50pm. I had been looking forward to joining up with the Girls' Volleyball Club so I could talk to the captain there who loves English, but I also remembered that there was a big tournament coming up this week. My chances of joining in on the activities were pretty much nil. Ah well, I'll watch and help chase the wayward balls. I mean, another option was to go BACK to HS2 and pop in on the drama club meeting, but I didn't want to be too stalkerific this early on, so I'll stay put at HS1.
I get to the gym... and the place is a friggin' madhouse! Not only are the boys' and girls' volleyball teams practicing for the big tournaments, but also the boys' and girls' basketball teams, too. Each group has about 20 members... so yeah, it was crowded today. As I expected, my duties just were regulated to watching (and showing the team manager how to work the light switches... very simple, but her understanding of ANYTHING was just god-awful today).
I did get to watch the girls' basketball team practice shooting hoops, haha. They were doing alright... until they noticed that I was watching them. Then the pressure was on!!! I clapped and cheered wildly for the first basket scored, but then after that, it was just miss after miss after miss. Oh noes!! Ganbatte!!!
As for what was happening with the girls on the volleyball court, the whole first 3/4 was literally nothing but warming-up and stretching. WTH?? Oh well, unfortunately I was needed for a very very special task. I say "unfortunately" because this was kind of thing that is not good at all. During the running warm-up, one of the 1st-year girls actually collapsed and started hyperventilating. Like, for serious, on the ground, wrything and gasping for air. We found her a cheapo plastic bag, but it would be almost 15 minutes before she even began to calm down. I just made sure she wasn't going to injure herself further with all the sudden lurching and convulsions she was going through. The coach came over eventually... haha, what a caring guy.
We calmed her down, had her sitting up and drinking water soon enough, but just when we all thought she was in the clear, about 10 minutes later, she was on the ground again. I had to hold her up while the manager went to get the nurse and the coach... ummm... went back to putting tape over the basketball court markings. Okay...
The nurse was really sweet to her and we had her calm for probably another 10 minutes. I can't understand Japanese, but my thinking is that she was having blood circulation issues. She was very light-headed, dizzy, and her hands were numb. When she eventually stood up later on, she just crashed to the floor again... yet she still insisted that she was well enough to ride her bike home, haha.
I kept a watch on her for the whole period, occassionally holding her up because she kept dropping to the floor. She was a mess. Her face was completely covered by her long hair, yet she didn't even have the power to move it. I had to do it for her... hoping no one was going to accuse me of molesting her, haha. Poor girl... though I'm sure all the other girls were secretly thinking, "lucky bastard... she gets to be nursed by xeno-sensei."
I wonder about the teacher in Japan, though. As she was leaving, she had to be held up 100% by two other girls. Two very weak girls... and this girl was very tall. They were talking to the coach about something before heading to the exit, and during this time, the two supporting girls lost control and actually dropped the poor sick girl. I was in a panic to hold them up; the coach... didn't even blink. Geez... show SOME compassion or concern.
So even though I did nothing to help the team practice for the big tournament on Friday (which is apparently being hosted at our school... cool), I did help one girl tremendously. And then my day ended. Came home, ate ramen, cursed the fact that I don't have a fully-stocked kitchen here, complained on the internet. Tomorrow's another day.
Until next time... see you!!
Disclaimery Legalish StuffI feel as if I really need to explain a few things, as we're in a totally different environment dealing with a totally different age-group. An overly-emotional, overly-hormonal, overly-extroverted, overly-intent-on-expressing-what-they-want-with-the-capabilities-of-doing-so group. Yes, the teenage girls love me. Yes, they tell me this to my face. No, I am not exaggerating any of it. Yes, I do believe eventually, someone, somewhere, will "try" something. No, I am not encouraging them to do so.
As a teacher, as a foreigner, as a responsible adult, I know where the boundaries lay. I'm not going to lie... a lot of the girls I work with are very very attractive, both in an adorable way and in a sexual way. There is no denying that, especially with Japan's "idol" industry everywhere. Teenage Asian girls are a huge sex symbol... and honestly, it does sicken me a little bit. The pressure for girls to be sexy, not for other teens, but for adults, is just plain wrong. I want the girls under my care to be treated with respect and dignity. They are individuals, they are people, they are human. They have their hopes, their dreams, their desires, their goals, their achievements... but they also have their doubts, their fears, their humiliations, and their hesitations.
In school, females should feel no pressure from adult men to be anything but good students, and this is how I intend to treat my students. From what you read here in this blog, you get to see my INNER THOUGHTS. Every man has them... there is no denying them. It's nature... you see a sexy girl, the age doesn't matter; you're going to be attracted. You see a girl who melts your heart; you're going to develop feelings for them.
Now, what is important is, whatever my inner thoughts may be, it's my OUTER ACTIONS that should be under scrutiny. And I want to make it perfectly clear, that while the GTX "xeno-sensei" persona is technically a character based pretty closely to my personality, it's still a character. The experiences are real... what the students do and say to me are in no way embellished, though usually my reactions, as I say, are moreso what's happening in my mind, and not always what I am actually doing. While I might say "I was drooling over something," that's just a metaphor to give you an idea of my thought-process. On the outside, I am just smiling or nodding politely. I'm not leading any girls into anything or affecting the decisions they wish to make involving the two of us. Most of these "interactions" I describe only last 5-10 seconds, but I can discuss them for paragraphs in minute detail, just because of my intrepretation of what happened and the supposed meaning behind them.
That said, I do want to make a special particular case regarding, for one, this new addition to my life: Mew-chan. She is a senior student at HS2. While technically a student of my school, she is not enrolled in any of my classes (much to her dismay). Also, she is currently under the age of 18, so by law*, any physical contact between us is prohibited. But anyway... we're not thinking about that kind of stuff. Being a student in my school, if anything were to happen between the two of us, I would fear for her safety and reputation, as I'm sure the viciousness would arise from jealous or spiteful classmates. I would never risk that for anyone.
* well, by national law, the age of consent is actually 13, though I wonder if Niigata Prefecture has some other law that trumps that.
However, I should say, that while I don't deny being "interested" in this young woman, my reasons are completely pure. I like her as a person, she interests me, she is my exact "type," she is the kind of girl I feel compatible with. Before you start cursing me out, hear me out: I'm a decent person. I don't go out and bang random girls or treat any girl with disrespect. I love women and wish them all to be safe and happy. I've cared deeply for any girl I've loved, friends or girlfriends, and with that comes great dedication and honor to them. Should any kind of relationship develop, it would be taken incredibly seriously and not some kind of "yeah, I tapped that!!!" trophy. It's not the kind of person I am.
But as I've said above, I wouldn't propose anything until 1) she was of legal age, and 2) she has graduated from my school. This is more like a slow-developing friendship with limitless potential at this point... I'm leaving the door open, while at the same time, not doing anything subtle to bend her will. Should she someday decide she wants the same thing, then it's of her own doing, and not to be seen as some kind of skeezy scandal or cheap ploy to get in bed with someone a decade younger than me (I'm not THAT old, am I? It's not totally rare for Asian relationships to have large age-differences, AFAIK).
Anyway, I'm just putting this out on the table in the sincerest terms I can think of. I have my uncontrollable desires... of which I'll be doing my best to, you know, control. But understand that how I write about it in this blog will be slightly different from how it happens in reality. I'm doing this because I don't want to censor how I truly feel, while at the same time making everyone out there reading this think "wow, go to Japan, get endless opportunities of sleeping with teenage girls!!!" It's not cool... girls need to be loved and treated kindly.
If you're a kind gentleman looking for a nice girl to love and tend to dearly, then all the power to you.
If you're a dirty scumbag looking for cheap, desperate underage sex, then I hope your plane over here crashes into the ocean.
In conclusion... while we may be having fun at the idea of my life being an anime, let's also keep in mind and be respectful of the fact that we're talking about REAL people here. |
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This week on Hana-saku Iroha the fifth member of the opening credits is introduced: Yuina Wakura. Not only is she a classmate of Ohana and Minko, but she also just happens to be the heiress to the much larger, much older, and presumably much more prestigious Fukuya hot springs inn. Immediately she tries to identify with Ohana by complaining about her own grandmother and how she just wants to go through life having fun. Surprisingly, Ohana doesn't bristle at the fact that Yuina assumes that their situations are identical, and instead thinks that Yuina is cool.
Also considered "cool," in both figurative meanings of the word, is Minko who turns out to be one of the most popular girls in their school. Upon overhearing Minko's description of her "perfect man" while turning down a confession followed by Minko supposedly saving Ohana from Touru, Ohana comes to the mistaken conclusion that Minko, much like herself, dislikes Touru. To anyone with a keen, or open, eye this is obviously not the case and Minko sets Ohana straight very quickly. Unfortunately, when Ohana attempts to apologize, they both witness Yuina leaving with Touru on his motorcycle.
Minko is really developing well as a character who is honestly unable to express herself when it matters. The scenes between her and Ohana were good, along with her abrupt dismissal of a classmate's confession to her. Placing Nako and Ohana's fears side-by-side during their visit to Fukuya was nice to watch as well. As for Ohana herself, it was nice to see someone who is usually so abrupt be at such a loss when it comes to figuring out her feelings for Ko. She also did little to further her inconsiderate tendencies; Minko's crush on Touru was painfully obvious. I suspect that most of the series will be like this: a gentle character drama as opposed to the emotionally-charged first two episodes, or the garishly slapstick third episode, and that's okay. In fact, it's rather nice. |
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This episode kicks off with a bit of a confrontation between Anaru and Tsuruko. Anaru is portrayed as the stereotypical, "I'm smart, however, I'm going to dumb myself down to fit in." high school girl, and Tsuruko is quick to point this out, albeit harshly. She adds that Anaru and Yukiatsu are exactly alike in their inability to get over Menma's death.
Meanwhile, up in the secret base, Poppo starts firing off ideas of what Menma's wish could be. This easy acceptance of Jinta's story when no one else would believe him was subtly done and hilarious. It's also a nice reference to when they were kids; Jinta was always the leader while Poppo always two steps behind him, mimicking his every move and thinking that Jinta was so cool.
Somehow, they come to the conclusion that Menma wants a rare Nokemon (Pokemon) in the version of the video game that they had played together as children. Following a run-in with Yukiatsu, Poppo remembers that rare Nokemon require trading with others. Jinta thinks that there's a slight chance Anaru may have the game, and they head over to her house with Menma in tow. Upon arriving at Anaru's house, it becomes evident that although Anaru has tried to hide her otaku side to be popular, she's still the owner of a large collection of video games and manga, just as Menma had remembered. The group begin to play Nokemon, and generally enjoy each others company for the first time in years. This culminates in Anaru's request for Jinta to come back to school, and Jinta's admission that he had more fun on this day than he has in a long time.
One thing that I really enjoy about AnoHana is the subtlety with which it's developing the group's previous relationships with each other while tying them in to their decidedly less-subtle current relationships (or non-relationships). The seeds of their current emotional attachments to each other were all planted when they were childhood friends; however, when they were a happy group, the happiness of being together outweighed any negative feelings that may have cropped up. Seemingly, Yukiatsu was always jealous of Jinta, because he gained Menma's unconditional affection. In the same vein, Anaru was jealous of Menma, since she saw Menma as a prettier, nicer person than herself who occupied all of Jinta's time. The character I'm going to be watching out for is Tsuruko. She reminds me a bit of Keito from Star Driver, with both her outward appearance, and the way she bottles her own feelings up while paying strict attention to, and coolly commenting on, the emotions of others. |
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| Coverage Day: Friday, April 22nd
Schools Visited: Fuuka Academy High School (HS2)
Entry S4.0, Ep14
In my first two years, Cuteness-chan, Semi-chan, Blue-chan, my adorable 1st-graders-turned-2nd-graders, and a whole collection of random junior high school girls started us off right from the beginning making my cuteometer go nuts.
In my second year, students like MopBattle-chan, Ready!Go!-chan, and my super-kawaii class of seven 1st-grade girls at ES3 were added to contribute to the effort of pushing my cuteometer to its limits.
My third year pitted my cuteometer against the Fukushima cuties like Koneko-chan and her other 3rd-grade classmates, Inukami!-chan, Panda-chan, and all my adorable kindergarteners.
So for three years now, my cuteness-meter has been getting quite the workout, but it has a very high tolerance, as you can plainly see. I've been using the same one since I first arrived. Well, I am sad (happy??) to report to you all today that my meter broke this evening. It was built tough, but today, it just couldn't handle the readings it was asked to read during one conversation at HS2. I'll tell you the story of how it happened, but you know we can't just start off with the main event. Let's start from the morning, and discuss all the cuteness and comedy that happened along the way.
Believe me, I'll try to cut through the ordinary stuff and get to the good stuff as soon as I can!
My day started off with a meeting with the two JTEs I'd be teaching with today: 2 lessons with Rabbit-sensei and 2 lessons with my supervisor. We had already discussed what we'd be doing today on Monday, so I really don't see why they insist on having these meetings a second time. Sigh, well, whatever... can we at least start talking about the next week lesson so I can begin to do my planning?
Okay, so they give me a choice on what to do for the next lesson: we can do an activity on having a phone conversation, or do an activity involving figuring out a class schedule. Hmmmmmmmmmm... both look about equal on all levels of importance, difficulty and entertainment, but which to choose? Oh, I got it... let's combine them!! Let's do an activity where students need to ask about their school schedule over the phone.
hahahaha... the look of sheer amazement from the two teachers was encouraging. Xeno... you... are... a freaking... genius!!! You PWN English education!!!
(yadda yadda yadda... omitting 3 paragraphs talking about awesome I am because I want to get to the more interesting stuff)
The ichinensei (1st-years... 10th-graders... freshmen... I dunno, whatever the hell you want to call 'em) classes were quite the adventure today. The 1-2 class was up first, bright and early in the morning. Man, high school students are NOT happy campers in the morning. This class was absolutely dreary and depressing. We had to start doing our reading activities today, and with such dry material, I don't blame them for having no spirit today. There weren't even any class clowns for me to bounce energy off of. Sorry, kids, but today's lesson is quite... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Oh well, at least I got plenty of excited "see you!!!!"s as I shouted at random groups walking by my front podium, haha.
Up directly after was the 1-4 class. At least THIS class had some energetic students, including one bouncy girl sitting up front by me. I amused her by teasing her about the number of papers she needed for her row each time I passed a worksheet out. 7? 17? 10? heh heh, she was amused, thank Haruhi-sama.
Feeding off this girl's energy, I was able to inject a little more life into today's reading (also, it wasn't my first time doing this activity, so I had a better feel for it this time). Like, when I asked the mini-questions* I would have to insert to solidify understanding, I was feeling a bit more relaxed. And when I was doing the reading, I inserted a couple jokes, like belting out a hearty "LA LA LA LA LA!!!!" when I got to the word "singing."
* one mini-question was "what time do you usually get up?" One poor girl has to be up by 5am!!! In the morning!!! Holy....
Haha, and I couldn't help but notice that many of the students have colds, as indicated by the annoying noticeable continual stream of snorting noises that pop up from around the room. A whole chorus of mucus... lovely...
During my 4th-period of freedom and the subsequent lunch break, I stopped in the hallway where the Photography Club had posted up some new framed works. The kids are pretty clever when it comes to interesting shots. As I was admiring, coincidentally enough, the Photography Club advisor came up behind me. Nice... he was able to give me a little background on the pictures that were up, including one he had taken himself in freaking Sweden... last week!!!! Dang!!!
And better yet, he told me that I could select my favorite shot from my own collection and have it put up on display. Wow!!!! What an honor!!! I guess this makes me an official member of the club!! I'm still dying for my opportunity to go and give my slideshow presentation and my "tips for photography" lesson, but because their Friday afternoons are their excursion days, I have to wait until a rainy day.
5th-period had me laughing even before the students set foot into the room. I could hear a group of girls out in the hallway trying to remember by name. The leading guess up until the doorway was "Johnny", but one of them recalled the correct name just as they approached. Ugh, thanks, girls... we only said my name freakin' 25 times last week! Oh well, they had cute pencilcases they wanted to show off as we waited for class to start. I stole all three and pretended to walk away with them. Elmo and Stitch contain to reign supreme here.
6th-period was the most energetic, which I don't know is more attributable to the personality of this group, or just because it was the last class before the weekend... but hey, I'll take it! I had my super-happy girl sitting up front to my right, and another nerdy girl, who unlike most nerdy girls, was very chatty and energetic, haha.
I was a little dismayed by the overall participation of all four of my classes today. I get that it's just the first official lesson and we're still trying to set a pace here, but when I ask for volunteers to answer simple questions, I would expect that at least ONE person out of a group of 42 would be brave enough to raise their hand. Our lesson activity on "Rooms in a House" wasn't difficult at all, especially because I let them use their textbook during the activity AND gave them a first-letter hint when it came time to share answers, but in most of the classes, the kids all clammed up immediately. Well, at least there were about 4 or 5 kids who helped me out... out of 160+. Gah... a little help here, guys. Don't leave your ole' buddy xeno hanging!
I had been hoping to join the Photography Club today, because to me, the weather looked quite dreary... no where near ideal for taking outdoor photos, but unfortunately for me, they would be continuing with their plans to head to the city park across the river. I mean, I could have caught up with them later on after I finished with the English Club, but that would mean having to drive by myself, search for the group in the ginormous park, all under reduced time. I didn't have my camera with me anyway, so what would be the point? I wanna give my presentation!
But Haruhi-sama and Yuki's Integrated Data Regulation Agency had better plans for me. During the cleaning time, I had been sitting at my desk, talking with the OC-II teacher I had tried to find earlier, when I could see curious students poking their heads around the doorway, inching closer and closer to me. I had got up to help with the cleaning in the room, not actively making any attempts at communicating, however, as the cleaning time ended, the teacher told me that the students had something to ask me. Apparently one of them was in the Drama Club, and I don't know what she had heard of my greatness, but she knew that spending time with Xeno was a free comedy show, haha. She invited me to come watch the Drama Club rehearsal sometime.
Sure, sounds like fun.
I had to take care of the English Club first, though. However, today was some kind of specialized lesson for the 3rd-Year students, meaning only four members would show up to today's meeting. Okay, that's fine... I just wanna play "Spinning Circular Device of Fortune," and having smaller group is preferrable.
The club meeting was alright. I had fun with them, but the students are sooo quiet. Maybe it's the 3rd-years who are more forward with their questions. These kids were a bit more reserved, even when we opened up the xeno-sensei Q&A in Japanese.
But it's fine because getting out of here before 5pm just gave me more time to go visit another club. What should I do today? Basketball? Volleyball? Can't do Photography Club... oh, I know, I should check out that Drama Club thing while the invite is fresh. I'll be making a late entrance, but it's the best I can offer, sadly enough.
Oh, but I don't remember how to get to the gymnasium where the Drama Club meets. These schools are gigantic mazes, and since I stick mainly to the front building, I lose my way so easily. I asked Rabbit-sensei to tell me how to get there, but he insisted on taking me there personally.
So we walk through the labyrinth of hallways, corridors, and stairwells (passing the Girls' Basketball team doing their jogging through the school interior along the way, earning me about a dozen-and-a-half happy HELLO!!!!s) to find our way to the gym. He leads me inside, past the curious students of the Badminton and Table Tennis Clubs, and brings me to a door. He points at the door and tells me "through this door, you'll find the Drama Club. Enjoy." He doesn't touch the door; he just turns and heads off. I go on and open the door...
I look inside...
and see...
a 3rd-Year girl...
changing...
eeeep!!!!! Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry!!!!!!!!
haha, she tells me not to worry about it because I guess she was just sliding off one skirt from another or just finishing or something. I dunno... I mean, I didn't actually see anything I shouldn't have, so there was no real infraction, but had she just been about to strip down and I caught her off guard at the wrong moment, then I probably would be writing this entry while nursing a black eye.
Heh heh, but all was fine. She asked me what I was doing here. Luckily I remembered part of the name of the girl who had extended me the invitation earlier. It was enough to confirm the correct name, to which this girl turned to face the open doorway to the stage to yell to some girl something like "some gaijin is here for you."
I wonder how anticipated my arrival had been because instanteously, I saw like 2 or 3 girls literally fling up from where they had been sitting along the backwall, and come running in my direction screaming my name excitedly. I really don't get it. Like, seriously, not trying to be all modest or anything, but I really don't understand how I've become THIS popular so quickly. I mean, I've only taught the 1st-graders two lessons each, joined the English Club twice, and the Girls' Basketball Club once. Everyone in the school seems to already know me.
Okay, so all that aside, let's focus on the who and what of now. So my inviter friend was the first to greet me, but she had at her side two classmate friends. Her English is fairly good. I mean, she speaks slow and uses very very short sentences, but her understanding seems to be alright. She was the main translator of the whole group... of now which I had the whole attention (7 first-years, 4 second-years, and 5 third-years, IIRC). So yeah, about 16 girls interviewing me on my likes and hobbies. And being drama-geeks, they are bit more in-tune with recent anime and music than the general population, so they were most interested in my answers.
They asked me if I knew Vocaloid. They all squee'd in excitement when I told them I knew Miku Hatsune... though I prefer Touhou Project more. "Bad Apple" is my favorite song... thanks Fission2!! They also knew Kawada Mami (Shakugan no Shana and To Aru Majutsu no Index (or simply "Index"), which is good since I have that concert coming up soon. I was happy that they recognized my Galaxy Angel keychains, heh heh.
But getting to this business about my cuteometer scale bursting into pieces... the friend of my inviter pal seemed to be the most interested in me. I started talking to her when I caught eye of her Poke-Walker, haha. She was exercising her Mew-Two at the time. She's a huuuuuuuge fan of Mew-Two, she told me, haha. I prefer Ivysaur... but I know the Japanese names are different, so I had to explain that it was Pokedex Catalogue Entry #2. Haha, I'm such a nerdlinger for knowing that.
I ended up talking with this girl for I'd say about an hour straight. She was caught on my every word, doing that whole goggily-eyed "I'm soooo fascinated!! Tell me more!!!" thing. She was clasping her hands together, holding them to her heart, holding them up to her to hide her huge smile... haha, the typical overly-emotional girly stuff. So frickin' adorable!! Being sannensei, they only had to supervise the underclassmen, so they were free to chitchat to their heart's content. I would occassionally ask them about the mini improv-skits the other groups were doing, which gave them some English practice. Haha, after each skit, the students who performed would field some critiques from their fellow club members. My new friends told me, using their English dictonary, this was a kind of "criticism" time. I had a better word for it...
I borrowed the electronic dictionary and looked up the term "peer review." Haha, I showed the Japanese results to the three girls I was sitting with (the club leader joined us around this time) and all three of them were wowed. Apparently I taught them something new... in JAPANESE!!!! hahahahaha... they thanked me for teaching them a better way to describe what was going on with the peer critiques, haha.
After the mini-skits were done, their next task was to begin memorizing their medium-sized skit... a 10-minute story with a larger group using a scripted conversation. As the two groups began to study, I asked my friends what the story was about.
A robbery at a convenience store.
Ah cool... I used to be an intern with the Boston Police Department, so I used to chase these robbers.
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~~~ (coooooooool!!!)
The three girls were so excited by my awesomeness that they made all the other students stop practicing so they could share the news, but much to their disappointment (haha), the ichinensei already knew this info from my introduction lesson. Hahah, my three friends were a little bummed that they didn't get to be the ones to share the coolest news first... but the ichinensei sure were gloating in the fact that they actually knew this before their senpai (upperclassmen) did, haha.
Yes, that's right... the juniors were happy to know something the seniors didn't, hahaha.
But hey, I'm still super cool in all their eyes.
However, disappointment would soon rain over them. My new Mew-Two trainer admirer wanted to be sure to stake a solid claim on me as early as she could. She asked me to come visit her everyday. Awwwwwwwwww... you know, nothing would make me happier than that, but I only come to this school for Monday mornings and Fridays. Sorry... oh, but I know! How about we have lunch together on Monday?
Heeheehee, she exploded with excitement instantly. She and her friend tried to explain to me where they typically eat, but it would be too confusing for me to try to find 3 or 4 girls in a sea of 200 other students. Better idea: how about THEY come to the English Staff room at the start of the lunch period and escort me to wherever it is they meet for lunchtime? Nice idea... oh xeno, you are on the ball today!
So wow, it really is hard to do the adorableness I was bearing witness to justice. The girls were all very friendly and fun to talk with. I was having a blast, especially since we share so much in common! I'm going to bring my iPod on Monday to show them more of the things I like. But even at this point, talking with my adorable Pokemon trainer friend (she needs a nickname along those lines, methinks), my cuteometer was already pushing to the max limits of what it was designed to handle. What could possibly make the needle shoot out the side of it?
The club period ended at 6pm sharp, but the girls were so entranced in what I had to share that they were very very slow at getting packed up. Haha, even the sports teams out in the gym court were gone before we set off. I ended up walking with the three senior girls... veerry slowly... toward the front lobby. Luckily I had everything I needed to head home on me already, so I was free to escort them out. Haha, as we were walking along, pretty much every girl, and even a lot of the boys, gave me excited greetings... each one I'm sure pressuing my friend to hurry up and make her claim more and more clear before one of her many competitors stole me away from her.
We got to the fork where the students' lockers break away from the teachers' lockers. We ended up talking for like another 10 minutes about clubs and classes. Haha, my new friend told me that she was really really really regretting not signing up for the 3rd-Grade Optional OC-II English Lesson... the class I teach every Monday morning, hahaha. But she wants to learn more and more English from me directly. Awwwww... within school grounds, of course... under the supervision of the general faculty of our school, haha.
I was in no rush to go anywhere, so I was all for hanging out for however long. It was nearly 6:30pm by this point. We came to the part of the building where we'd need to change our shoes, only teachers change in a different lobby from the students. I was cool changing quickly and meeting up with them outside, but I guess they didn't want to take up any more of my time. Haha... too bad for me, I guess.
I went to go change, and not surprisingly at all, the moment I stepped outside into the warm evening air, I heard my name being shouted excitedly. I had been talking to Rabbit-sensei as we were both exiting the building, so I'm sure he saw this and was thinking, "goddamn lucky bastard... been here 3 days and already has a fanbase!!". Well, as you've probably guessed, once I got outside, my Drama Club friends had recongregated together, and wanted me to rejoin them, haha. It had only been literally 2 minutes since I last saw her, but my new friend seemed have missed me already. Awwwwwwwwww, she's so adorable.
However, when I walked over to her, she started doing that super adorable Japanese thing where the girls get all quiet and nervous, stare at nothing but the ground, and play with their shoes. You've seen it in anime a thousand times... it's usually the "confession time" moment series build up to so much. Haha, I just thought she was getting tired or something, but then her friend (the girl who had been doing all our translating) started prodding my new friend with "say it... do it... say it..."
uh oh...
... no wait... I've only known you for two hours...
... don't... don't say anything that would make things insanely complicated...
... I think you are insanely insanely adorable and totally interesting... but I can't deal with rumors and complex teacher-student relationships this early on in the year...
... if ANYTHING were to happen, it is an absolute GUARANTEE that EVERY student in this city would know about it within 24 hours...
... and if THAT happened, there are factions of girls in the other schools that would wage all out war...
... I'm... I'm... seriously... I'm not even kidding. Mars-chan and her sworn enemy in the D-class are already difficult enough to keep seperated... the two of them combined against this delicate, adorable, drama-dork would tear her to shreds!!!! I don't even want to think about it!!! D:
But, of course, now my heart was pounding, insanely curious as to what my new friend could possibly want to say to me while acting as over-the-top adorable as any anime character in any dramatic love scene could act.
"say it... go on...", her friend continued to prod.
"hazukashii" (it's embarrassing)
me = melting on the inside... anime is EXACTLY like real life, hahahaha
"say it! It's okay!", her friend said once again. I was curious, too, so I began to join her in trying to get her friend to open up.
Then it came...
"Am... am... am I your... friend?"
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...
sooooo cute!!! "Of course!!" I told her as nicely and clearly as I could. She continued to copy her anime emulators by pulling her hands up to her heart, still holding her face down, and said she was happy.
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...
::cuteometer officially explodes to pieces!!::
But why? Why such drama over such a simple thing? I mean, what does "friend" mean to her? I really really really need the opinions of my female readers... and astute male readers, too, of course. Like, I understand in Asian culture, especially in the schools, for males and females to have "friends" of the opposite sex is a huge ordeal... but what does it mean in this case? I mean, I'm her teacher... technically. Well, I'm not HER teacher, but A teacher in her school. She's almost legal age, so I suppose she COULD start to be thinking "those" kinds of thoughts, but would she really be so bold to be so forward and direct with someone she's only known for 2 hours... AND is 10 years older than her?
Well, then again, age has never mattered in Asian relationships, so I mean, I can't say it's impossible... but the boldness confuses me. However, maybe I'm just over-reacting and she just really really wants to have more friends, haha. I mean, not to feed into the stereotype, but quiet shy wallflower geeky drama-dorks aren't known for having an abudance of friends, so maybe she's just happy to have a new friend.
I dunno... gues we'll see what happens on Monday. Looks like I have a date, haha.
But don't call it that! I would like to keep my job, haha... and stay out of those Japanese prisons I hear aren't so comfy.
Stay tuned!!! The entries are just getting more and more interesting as the story progresses. And be sure to check out the entries posted earlier throughout April. The GTX serial had a bit of a lull thanks to a junior high school with low activity, but now in the high school world, we're running on full blast once again!
Until next time... see you!!!
P.S. my new friend told me that she has a sister who is a 2nd-year at HS4... and possibly enrolled in my Oral Communication class there. I'm sure there will be a lot of giggling and squee'ing in that house tonight, haha
P.P.S. nickname, please!! adorableness...pokemon... drama... mewtwo... be creative! |
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| Coverage Day: Thursday, April 21st
Schools Visited: Azumanga High School (HS1)
Entry S4.0 - Ep14
And here I thought I'd have nothing to write about today. I had actually been looking forward to a chance at escaping from my blogging duties for just one night (these super-long entries are killing all my free-time, but soooo worth the effort to preserve these great memories). I had literally 6 periods of absolute nothingness today, due to the 10th-graders being away for their study-strategy seminar in Nagano... but my afternoon was running on full-power cuteness!!! Enough to create another mile-long blog entry? I dunno... let's see.
Although I had no classes to teach today, I still had plenty of work to occupy some of my time. I had worksheets to design and some lessonplans to tweek. Okay... well, it could sound like a lot, but it really wasn't; I finished up all the super serious stuff within an hour... spread all across the day, of course, haha. Actually, the one thing that ate up the most of my time today was an email response I wrote to the Americn HS Social Studies who is running a fundraiser to help out my schools in Fukushima. She also sent me this:
Country Gazette: "Middle Schools Students Fold 1,000 Paper Cranes for Japan
woooo... I'm famous... again!! Actually, I'm wondering if anyone reading this here would be interested in making a donation to this specific fundraiser. I know we have tons of caring souls out there reading this, but I wonder if there is a great enough demand to set up a PayPal through this school to filter in some more donations. The funds raised would go directly to helping MY schools... so much like these warm-hearted kids in Massachusetts, you'd actually KNOW who you were helping, as opposed to just blindly donating to "Japan" in general. And since we're not an organization like the Red Cross or some relief aid program, 100% of what you donate would go to my schools. Leave a message in the comments if you'd be interested in helping out. I don't want to go through all the mess if there isn't a great response (heh heh, or moreso, I don't want to show this website to that teacher out of fear the ecchi jokes wouldn't be to her taste, haha).
So anyway... I kept myself busy with worksheets and whatever. I did go looking for a P.E. class to join in on, but I decided not to go through with it for two reasons: 1) the students in this school don't know me well enough yet for me to just randomly pop into their classes... the confusion that would ensue would surely drive some to madness, and 2) they were just outside running... boring! Heh heh, well I seized an opportunity to shoot some hoops in the big gymnasium in my biggest school. Apparently the JHS nets WERE different from what I remember in the US, because I was on fire when it came to scoring here with the regulation-sized nets. Ha! I KNEW IT!!! I still got it!!!! V^___^V
Ok, so worksheets, lessonplans, playing basketball... that accounts for about 3 periods' worth of activity. What did I do with the other 3? Haha, well... I feel a little cheesy for admitting this, but with half of the teachers in our room gone for the day, and the others busy running off Haruhi-knows-where, I was left in the room by myself for pretty much the whole day. And... well... to be honest... this room is kinda gross. Students are in charge of all the cleaning, and let's not kid ourselves here, high school kids are not about to put in their best effort. So yeah, it's probably perfectly safe to assume this place hasn't had a good scrub-down in, I'd say, maybe 2, 3 years.
Wanting to be the ever-so-productive pet foreigner, I rolled up my sleeves, picked out the most already-ruined rag I could find, then went to work literally scrubbing every single square inch of floor space in that room. It was mostly just coffee-drop stains, which came off amazingly easily... but there were just so damn many of them. Well, whatever... as I said, I had 3 hours to kill, and this would be the most exercise I'd get all day. Of course, the teachers than came into the room at any point were extremely grateful, if not completely baffled. I wonder if the three teachers who were absent today will notice the difference on Monday.
Heh heh, no one can say xeno-sensei isn't a hard-worker.
In other news... just a quick note to myself so I'll know when exactly this whole mess started... apparently there is a big issue with my contract situation ALREADY! My current contract through my private ALT company is due up in July, but I had been hoping to return to teaching here in these schools for next year. However, it appears as though the high school ALTs for Niigata Prefecture will automatically be enrolled into the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET) beginning in August 2011. It's a very long and difficult process to get into this program, but I guess since we've already started the year here, we'll be given special permission to enter the program. This really screws up my plans to return to my Fukushima schools, then come back to resume teaching high school after the year is over. Crap... now I have some creative negotiating to do. Dammit!
Even though I had no classes to teach today, I still had some appointments involving students! 4pm was the start of the club period, and at HS1, I run the English Club. Heh heh, the club president is exactly what you'd expect an English Club president to look like... but she's sooo quiet!!! Haha, speak up, Prez!! She arrived early, so I attempted to chat her up a little bit. Her understanding is great, but she's not much a conversationalist, it seems. Luckily the other girls who came were hyper-talkers, haha. We had about 16 members show up last week (yikes!!), but most of them are 10th-graders. Being that the freshmen class was away on their trip, I wasn't expecting a high rate of attendance today. Couple that with the fact that the sports clubs are in super-practice mode for their upcoming tournaments, I wasn't surprised at all that only three 12th-grade girls showed up today.
Well, that's fine... we can play today's game of "Wheel of Lucky Money Happy Fun Time!!" with just three members. And as I said, two of the girls who showed up were very hyper and active. The game itself went alright. They got a bonus lesson in understanding the importance of vowels, as well as some tips regarding which letters of the English alphabet are utilized more than others (R S T L N E... thanks, Pat Sajak!). However, the real fun of English Club comes after the serial stuff...
We finished playing around 4:45pm, which I suppose is technically when the academic period ends. I was in no rush to go anyway, and was hoping these three were up for a little conversation, so I opened up the floor to random discussion. One of the girls had shown up late last week, so I didn't get to do a formal introduction with her. Actually, her friend also showed up late, but she stuck around afterwards to talk with me after everyone left. Haha, and this leads to something that really threw me off.
So they were asking me the basics... where do you live, how old are you, what music do you like?-type questions. The talkative girl then says to me, "You have many girlfriends."
huh??
"You told me last week... I remember!"
hahahahhaa... yes, that is exactly what she said to me. Hahaha, having students who can actually SPEAK English is unbelievably amazing enough, but having ones who can call me out on such things is just beyond reproach, haha.
But still... what the hell is she talking about? I certainly don't remember telling her that I have many girlfriends. As it stands, I currently have ZERO girlfriends.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh... I get it... she means I've HAD many girlfriends. Haha, never more than 1 at the same time, I swear. Yet, she still pointed an accusatory finger at me and shouted "playboy!!" through her laughter. This one is gonna be too wise to fool, I suspect. She's interested in my "type," as I'm sure all my students are. She's kinda cute herself (in a weird, unconventional sort of way, if that makes any sense), but never could I really actually say that to anyone there.
Anyway, I did have a few more interesting points to mention about this club, but I really must move on. I'll be looking forward to meeting with these girls over the next few months. :D
The time at this point was just a little past 5pm. I could make an easy clean break out of here, having spent a decent amount of time with students. I mean... if I went to a club practice now, I'd just be walking in in the middle, surely disrupting whatever was going on. Urrr... maybe I should go home... but it would feel like such a waste. Ah, I got it! I'll go visit my two new 11th-grade friends down in the Handball Club.
I went to change my shoes, then stepped outside to head over to the handball area. I got a few curious glances from players as I walked down the sidelines, followed by some happy smiles... capped with some jealous rage. Apparently everyone noticed the straight beeline I made to my club manager friend standing off to the side. "Why is the super hot, interesting, engaging, mysterious foreign heart-throb talking to the dorky, geeky, nerdy, poopy-headed plain girl with the whistle and stopwatch? And why are they getting along so perfectly well right off the bat!?!?!"
Heh heh, yes, I can read minds... with translations. But yeah, having spent two hours with her and her friend last week, we've gotten a pretty good understanding of eachother... or moreso, I've gotten a good understanding of the English abilities of the "average" student in this school. Today she had a small task to do to keep herself busy during the practice. She's making one of those 1,000 paper crane collection things as a good-luck charm for the handball club... by herself!! It takes, at minimum, 3 minutes to make one of those things. Damn... good luck with that!
But good comes from this for me. I asked her if she had chosen a name for the crane she had just completed. She stared at it for a minute, then decided. Haha, she chose to name it after me. Awwwwwww... and not only that, but she decided she would give it to me as a present. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, how adorable! My first official gift from a high school student. And not only that, she then showed me how to make one myself. It was my first time making an origami crane... and oh Haruhi, was it not easy at all! Well, she taught me well... and did the harder parts for me, haha. My crane came out pretty nicely. I now appreciate all the effort put together by those students in Massachusetts making those cranes. Talk about mid-level skill requirements! It takes a hell of a lot of patience and skill to make those.
Her friend joined us after not too long. I asked her how her leg was. She couldn't understand why I was asking until I reminded her of how she had fallen at the train station a week ago. She was doing alright, though she had some weird story of some stalker that had been following her out in the shopping district in front of our school. I didn't get all the details, but she seemed skittish about some guy copying her every wayward move. Hmmmmmmmmmmm... does xeno need to go do some ass-kicking? Oh well, gives me some excuses to exclaim "puuunnch!!! kiiiick!!," which the students always find amusing.
I also remarked how the club advisor has that weird nickname the kids gave him ("Taka-chan" haha). I had asked where he was today, then proceeded to claim I could see him standing on top of various buildings... bouncing around like some anime superhero. I then proclaimed that he could protect the students from stalkers by descending from a random rooftop and clobbering the creepos with "Taka-chan punch!! Taka-chan kick!!!"
Last week our running joke had been spiders sneaking up on us. Today it was some random exclamation two of the boys kept shouting during their practice matches. To me, it sounded like they were shouting "sen-sei!!", making me look around everytime I heard it. I eventually asked the girls, "what is that boy saying?", to which they told me "defense." No... no... definitely isn't "defense."
Okay... so maybe in Japanese?
Nope... nope... the Japanese word they're telling me is 3 syllables. He's definitely saying a two-syllable word.
Hahaha, now all three of us were intrigued. We spent the next 30-45 minutes trying to figure out what the hell they were shouting. Even when we went on to talk about something else, we'd still hear them in the background, to which I'd exclaim myself, "sen-sei!!", hahaha.
Toward the end of the practice, as it was getting darker and darker out, the girls wanted to make fun of eachother using me as their middleman. They would each tell me, "she is a bad girl, I am good girl." This went on and on for a bit, then descended into "she is baka, I am smart" and "she is baka and aho (asshole)." LOL! Funnier when they would motion for me to come closer to them so they could whisper it in my ear, then two of us could laugh at the third... back and forth, haha. I added my own: "(name) is a stinky girl." heh heh heh... yeah, I'm immature, but it works.
As we were getting closer and closer to 6:40pm (what an odd time to end a practice session), I excused myself so to avoid the closing duties commotion. My two friends seemed genuinely sad that I was dashing out, like what, 4 minutes early?, haha. Awwwwwww... breaks my heart, too, but I'll see them again soon.
Also... the second girl (they both need nicknames) didn't have her hair in those adorable pigtails she had last week. Haha, I told her that they were cute and she should always have them in, haha.
So yeah... it's dusk, school's closing down, I have a little bit of shopping to do down the street, and then I'll be home. End of the day, right? No more adorably cute stories involving students possible, right? Oh... wasn't the title of today's entry "I Honestly Don't Plan These"? Yeaahh... wonder what that could mean...
If you read yesterday's entry (WHICH YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BECAUSE IT WAS FROM MY GIRLS' SCHOOL!!!!), you learned that I have a new favorite student (though my Handball girls and English Club girls are not far behind). Well, isn't it just wildly appropriate that the FIRST student I made official outside-school contact with be my new favorite student? I would say so.
I swung by the supermarket at the end of my street to grab a few items for dinner tonight. It was about 7:15pm when I made it to the check-out counter. Looking over my shoulder, I caught a quick glance of a girl who possibly looked like someone I know. But this city has over 3,000 high school students, and when they're wearing their uniforms and standing at a sizeable distance, with my eyesight, they all look the same. But she caught my attention for a special reason... I swear, my brain is equipped with some kind of uncanny "Student Radar." Like, I don't even have to make visual contact with some students to just get "that feeling" that I know one of my little darlings is gonna pop out from around a corner in some pharmacy and super center. This girl was setting off my sensei-senses.
She was in the register line next to me. I was already paid up and getting ready to bag my groceries (yeah, in Japan, customers bag their own groceries) at the little bagging station when I saw this girl again. I didn't want to be leering over her, but I had to settle that inkling in my brain, confirm whether or not she was who I thought she was. Haha, well, my positioning paid off, and she caught sight of me quite fast. Instantly she threw the flirty handwave and smile which signaled "I seeeeee yoou... nowdon'tgoanywhereImusttalktoyounowrawr!!!!!!!" As expected, after getting her change, she dashed over to my bagging station.
"Good evening, Miss (her name)." (yes... be amazed that out of my 2,000 students, I've actually already memorized YOUR name)
".... goood...... nani?"
"Gooood eeeev...en...ing."
"??"
"Konbanwa?"
"ohhhhhhhhhhh!!! Good evening!!!" (haha, now she gets it)
So yeah, we made some chit-chat about how she got to the supermarket (her grandma drove her, apparently) and about her Light Music Club. I told her that I was invited by her advisor to go see her performance next week, which set her little heart a flutter. I hope she'll practice extra-hard this week, just for me!!!
But yeah, it was kind of a messy, wayward conversation. Not as smooth as I had hoped. I think she was sick or nervous or something. When I asked her how she was doing, she seemed a little out of it. Hahah, actually, this was my first time seeing her calm. Usually she's bouncing all over the room (literally), screaming loudly whatever's on her mind, haha. She was quiet and demure for the first time. Haha, so it IS possible for her to keep a low volume.
Anyway, so the story kinda ends there. We kinda came to an awkward pause when we both finished packing up. I was hoping we could talk a little more on the way out, but we ended up just staring at eachother until I asked her, "which way are you going?" She pointed to the door behind me, then was sorely disappointed to hear me say that my exit was behind her, haha. Well, I'm sure this won't be the last time I see her in public.
But wait!!!!! If she's shopping at the same grocery store as me... does this mean... she lives in the same neighborhood as me??? Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Damn it, life!!! Stop being so dramatically interesting!!!!!!!!! People are going to start accusing me of making this stuff up. Life never unfolds as perfectly as this!!! I gotta be making this up... or at least, part of it? Some of it? A few details?
As I've always said, this blog is written for myself primarily as a memory keepsake, so I have no intention in embellishing anything. It's just the way my life is... and so far, sticking to the absolute truth has definitely paid off. Seriously... I'm not a talented enough storyteller to make anything up, haha.
Until next time... see you!! |
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| Coverage Days: Wednesday, April 20th
Schools Visited: Perfect Dream School (HS4)
Entry S4.0 - Ep13
Oh Wednesdays... you're just going to kill me with kawaii-overdose before the first month is even up, aren't you? Well, if this is how I'm going to go, I'm going to go with a smile. Such an amusing school... just non-stop flow of funny and adorable stories. I can't get enough of this celebrity-treatment... and now that the girls are getting braver and braver, we can expect the quality of stories to just keep increasing.
And I induct a new Xeno Ranger today... my first recruit from the High School Division. But before we get to that, you know how I like to handle my days in order of events... so to the start of the day we go!
I had an extremely difficult decision to make this morning: sleep or donuts, haha! If I get my ass out of bed at 7:40am, I have plenty of time to stop at the Mister Donut on Route 8 about a kilometer from my Wednesday school; if I choose to sleep in, I can squeeze in an extra 10-15 minutes of snooze-time. Ugh... the idea of donuts before school is certainly enticing, but it's so damn cold in my room (friggin' heater is broken) and my bed is so warm!! Oh, I know... I'll do both!!
I spring out of bed at 7:52am, 12 minutes behind my normal schedule, jump into my car, and hightail it across town using the farm-roads. The ETA on my navi was 8:20am, which would have me at my desk at precisely 8:25... my expected time of showing up. But I want donuts, dagnabbit!!! I took a side-road I knew (haha, I lied... I guessed) put me in front of the donut shop, parked quickly, and dashed inside for a double-chocolate and, ummmmm... uhhhhh... I dunno... it was yellow... and round... maybe sugar glaze? I dunno, Japanese donuts are weird. They're made of some kind of tofu base. Bah... but it's the closest I can get to home.
So I grab those to-go, hop back in my car, and eat while en route. I arrive at the school entrance as many students are still walking up the main driveway. It was past 8:25am by this point, but not by much. I rush up to the second-floor teachers' room, fling the door open... and...
... have about 45 people watching me. Shit. I just walked into the middle of the morning meeting. I don't think I'm required to attend these, so it's not such a big deal. Hmmmm... I should probably ask my supervisor if he wants me here before or after the meeting... as I know DURING THE MIDDLE is definitely not the preferred time-of-arrival.
I get to my desk and see for the first time who is sitting next to me. Oh, it's the female P.E. teacher who was nice to me last week when I went to the gym during my tour of the campus. Cool... a beneficial neighbor. Haha, it had bothered me last week seeing her face, as she had one of those appearances who reminded me of someone, yet I couldn't place who. Today I realized it instantly: Deb Morgan from Dexter... well, a Japanese version of her. Haha, so I hereby dub her DebFromDexter, heh heh.
Our P.E. teacher :D
I used this moment in the morning to ask her about what the P.E. lessons are doing this month. She said they're mostly just running (wow, how boring), but some classes are playing basketball... in the 3rd- and 4th-periods. Crud... I have classes those periods. Well, maybe in May and June, the other classes will switch to something I like. I know there is a 3rd-year class that has PE in the 1st-period, and possibly a 2nd-year class that has PE in the 7th-period.
My morning was spent just getting my mind straight. Organizing my papers into neat piles, meeting with the English teachers, organizing my papers into neat piles, copying worksheets, organizing my papers into neat piles, making sure my weekly lesson planner is up-to-date... organizing my papers into neat piles. Okay, I admit it; a lot of my time is just making my LOOK busy. Believe me, I'm trying to get as much lesson-planning done as possible now (so I'll have less to do other times), but some days, I just have to realize I've already done as much as I could have.
Well, anyway... 3rd-period... classtime!!
My Oral Communication II class has only 6 senior students. They are all so quiet except for the two girls who sit in the center. They are very excitable and energetic, haha. I love it. When I did the morning greeting, they were already running on full-power! Of course, they're still shy, so once they realize the others aren't keeping up with them, they giggle self-consciously and quiet down.
No no no!!! I don't want them to lessen their energy... I want the others to raise THEIR energy!! Let's be genki, guys... let's have a fun class!!!
Well, as you can safely assume, I tried all I could to inject some energy into this group. An excitable introduction, a hyper game of Keyword Game (they weren't getting into it all... I guess we need to create some kind of award system to entice them)... and plenty of over-acting when it came to the textbook reading. When they say something like "Welcome to San Francisco", I want them to be smiling and excited... not flat and zzzzzzzzzz. If you're going to welcome someone to a new place, you have to say it with emotion!!
Part of the demonstration dialogue I was reading with the JTE had a bratty boy named "Timothy." If I'm gonna be a bratty kid, I need to act bratty. How about I throw in a little eye-lid pull and stick my tongue out at the English teacher? Heh heh, that little surprise got some giggles. However, it wasn't me who had the most amusing contribution to the day's lesson.
I broke the 6 students into 3 groups. They had to come up with their own dialogue based on the textbook scene. For this, they would have to select names for their roles. One group chose something like "Umihei" and "Ren-chan" (I didn't get the reference, if any), but the other group I definitely recognized: Shinji, Rei, and Asuka. I was greatly amused by this because the girl who played the role of "Asuka" was actually named "Asuka," hahahah!! Good job, kids... thanks for picking an anime reference I actually understand. :D
As for their performances, I was pestering them to use their best acting skills. Well... not so much... I mean, I don't want to freak them out this early into the schoolyear, but I want them to understand that class is ORAL COMMUNICATION. No flat-reading here... you have to use emotion!!!
Oh, and randomly, in the later activity we did, I overheard one of the girls sing her "my teachers call me (name)" line to her friend she was interviewing. Instinctually (because copying what the students do is the easiest way to make them laugh), I repeated right after her the same line in the same line manner. Laffos... all over the floor.
Right after this class, I had my OC-I (D) class with 25 of the 2nd-year students. I like this class because it has two of the really strong-personality soccer girls that love to fawn over me. Hahah, well, though I appreciate their admiring me, I like it because they'll actually TALK during the class, which is good because whenever I usually ask for volunteers, I get met with a sea of silent stares. Come on, kids, the lesson isn't that hard. Speak up!
But anyway, when the class actually began, I was disappointed: the leader girl wasn't here today. In fact, there were a lot of empty seats; 5 to be exact, not counting the ones in the back third of the room we don't use this period. Oh... well... so who's going to be carry the flow of this lesson. Who is going to laugh at my hysterical jokes and tell me I'm "cute" throughout the period, haha?
Sigh... okay, well, I have 20 other kids to spread my attention to, so maybe one of the 2nd-tier students will take the lead. As I began to explain the rules for the Keyword Game, guess who made her extremely boistrous entrance! Haha, okay, so she IS here today... and she wanted to make sure I knew it, haha.
Okay, so I was saved, but maybe her late appearance (a wild soccer girl appeared!!!) was a good thing, as this gave some of the shyer girls a chance to talk to me before the period began. The two girls who sit in the front center was staring at me as I organized my paper (yes, I do that in the classroom, too). I caught notice of this, to which then they both whispered to eachother, then stared at me again. Now that had my attention. They pointed at my face and told me "green."
What??? What's green??? What the poop are you talking about???
Ohhhhhhhhh... my eye color. Well, you ready for some amazing news, girls? My eyes actually change color. They did their Japanese "ehhhhhhhhh!!?!?!?" thing, which is essentially exclaiming "I don't believe that for a goddamn second," but I told them, "no, it's true. Remember this conversation next week and you will be amazed to see they'll be some other color." Heh heh, the pressure's on. Come on, eyeballs!!! Work your mystical magic!!!
too bad they couldn't be heterochromous, like we see in anime occassionally.
I want it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So anyway.. back to the lesson. Now that the party's all here, we can get started on this mad shindig of an English lesson. The Keyword Game has been 0-3 so far in high school. Here's hoping this group will actually take to it. I mean, all it takes is just like 2 or 3 pairs to be insanely competitive over it to get the others all riled up. Well, you all know who took the charge in this respect, heh heh. My soccer-friend and her pal working with another student alongside her were over-the-top loud about their progress made. Not wanting to be the left out of the good times, this got the other groups to at least make an effort (well, for the most part... some students still just stare at the eraser they're supposed to be beating the hell out of eachother to get a hold of). Oh well, at least they loved my usual tricks with this game... basically screaming excitedly, even if the word I shout isn't the keyword.
This class was our first super serial class, so we had to open our textbooks for this one. Sorry kids, I'll try to make this as painless as I can. Well, as expected, the read-and-repeat practice we were doing was pretty dry. There weren't many opportunities for me to make any kind of stage pressence, save for the word "laugh." The students couldn't pronounce it right, so I was quite certain they had no idea what the meaning of it was... so looks like a demonstration is in order. I let out the most hearty, booming, thunderous laugh I could... without warning. Haha, those ones are always the best. I probably startled a few of the ones sitting up front.
Now they know what "laugh" means, haha.
The "Who I Am?" lame game I designed for the final activity was actually pretty interesting to the students. I accidentally left the game pieces I made at another school, so I had to hurry up and make up some new ones. The celebrities I chose were Daisuke Matsuzaka, Alice (from Biohazard), Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and Kana Nishino (Japanese singer). The students, for the most part, were able to guess who the mystery celebrity was, but of course, most entertaining were the groups who would stand up and cheer anytime they got their answers right. Heh heh... and of course, once they start getting riled up, I have to encourage them, so I fan the flames of happiness and rush over to start cheering with them, haha.
Lame joke of the period... counting out the papers to hand out to one particular row: "one, two, three, four, five, six, Nana"...
... Nana was the name of the girl sitting in the front, haha. She was amused.
During the lunchbreak, a few students were walking around with a donation box to collect for the big earthquake. Haha, I felt obligated to put in some coinage, just to help the students, though technically I just made a donation to myself. Haha, I put my money in, then said to the trio, "I'm from Fukushima... soooo... thank you" as I took the box from them. Haha, they didn't even try to stop me. Thanks, girls!!
No, wait... better idea... come back when it's more full. Off ya go! :D
Oh, and interesting to know, the students have a running tally of how much they've raised so far: over 680,000 yen!!! That's about $7,000USD. Wow, great!
So as much fun as my first two classes are, the class I look forward to most is my OC-I (C) class in the 5th-period after lunch. This is my sweetheart class, haha. There are 36 students... 32 really shy and docile girls, 3 cool boys... and 1 really loudmouth incredibly hyper girl. Haha, guess which one ends up getting most of my attention. Heh heh, I try to spread the love, but she's just out there when it comes to class participation. Of course, what she said to me early in the period really caught my attention.
I swear, I did nothing to egg this on or encourage her to say it. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even paying any attention to her when she said this. I forget what we were doing... maybe it was during the Keyword Game warm-up... but at some point I was walking up and down the aisles. I made some kind of announcement or something to the general population of the room, but I was interrupted on my return back to the front of the room.
"Cute... so cute..."
I heard my fangirl say this loud enough for just me to hear it. I was standing next to her friend at the time, so maybe I was just intercepting some message she was trying to say to her friend, but now I was curious. I turned to her and found her looking directly at me. I pointed at my nose (like Japanese do indicate themselves), and said "me??" She nodded intensely and said "you are so cute!" hahahaha... okay... well... I know this is in the company handbook somewhere... oh yes... ::smile and nod:: Don't lead them on... they are impressional youth and they don't have their bearings straight when it comes to love and... other things...
But I appreciate the compliment. And the bar just keeps getting raised higher and higher. First, I just had the drive-by "I love you!" from the girl at the assembly... then I had the collection of "love notes" left in the comments section of the student profiles... now I am being told straight to my face, prompt-for-response, "you are cute." Heh heh... let's stay professional here, now shall we?
But of course, she's now my favorite student... not for that reason, however. Her wacky weirdness only gets more interesting as this period moves on.
The main activity of today's lesson was to write a brief self-introduction using their name, age, hometown, and something they like as points to express. They would have to go around the room and find partners to share their answers with. When it came to answering about where they were from originally, most were happy just saying the name of their various towns/cities, "Niigata-ken," or a few super secretive ones who wrote simply "Japan."
Not my new friend. She's from Mars.
hahahahahahhhahahaha... okay... thanks for making my day interesting, Mars-chan. And welcome to the Ultra Serial Omega Kickass Mahou Loli-Shoujou Team, a.k.a., the Xeno Rangers. :D :D :D :D
And just to prove I wasn't ignoring all the other students, I did share some kind smile-exchanges with the class super-nerd, haha. She's so adorable, but really, imagine like the most cookie-cut stereotypical nerd girl you can think of, and this would be her. But I like the nerdy ones, so I think she's great. Had I not been such a dorklinger in my own high school days, this probably would have been the type of girl I'd ask out. But as things usually go in the world of teenage dating, I'm sure she is completely ignored by the boys in this city. Awwwwwwwwww...
Speaking of boys... remember how I said the students were to go around the room and collect information from all their classmates? Well, the three boys apparently... apparently... they're scared of talking to girls. WAIT, WHAT!!?!?!??!?! DUDES!!!! You are in Girls Heaven!!!! Don't squander this opportunity!!! In this room alone, they could each have 11 girlfriends!!!!! Shed yourselves of this silly adolescent fear of cooties and start playing nicey-nicey with all these cuties around you!!!! I mean, even if they're not trying to mack on anyone, girls are usually friendly enough to make good study partners, even if it's just for 50 minutes a week.
Sadly, the class ended as scheduled around 2:20pm. With 6th- and 7th-periods up next and me with nothing to do at all, I was desperately hoping there would be some kind of activity I could get in on. I mean... the students would go wild should I randomly appear in one of their other classes. However, only the 2nd-year students know me; if I stepped into a 1st- or 3rd-year class, it would surely raise some chaos. Hmmmmmmmmmm... maybe this is the kind of thing I need to preplan. Well, at least the PE teachers gave me an open-invite to join anytime, but I already know they're just running today. No fun.
I did go for a random walk around the school, and you know what I saw in a hallway toward the back of the building?
A dog. Yes... a dog. The Welsh Corgi... a big one. It was Ein from Cowboy Bebop, just chillin' out in front of what I believe was a Home Economics room. Dammit... that could be the kind of class I'd like to sneak a peak at... but with the data dog blocking the door, just sticking my nose into the room would be an endeavor. Grrrrr... well, fine, I'll just rest up and try to make the most of the club period.
Hmmmmmm... so what should I do today? Soccer sounds nice... haven't done that one yet. Buuuut... it's kinda cold and maybe rainy outside. Yuck. How about an academic club? Cooking, maybe Art Club? Mars-chan is in the Light Music Club... buuuut, I don't wanna come off stalkerific this early in the year. I should probably stick to sports anyway... I got a lot of energy in me right now. Okay, head to the gym and poke around, see what's going down.
I walk past the gym and see... ummmm... actually... I can't even tell what this is. I see barriers up... like a dozen tables... and schoolbags laying around everywhere. And that's just in the far end of the gym. In the front half, there are like 12 students running all around on their hands and knees, pushing wet rags across the floor. Oh, there's a teacher here. He wants to talk to me. He can speak English. Oh, haha, he's an English teacher. I met him last week. Whoops... so much for remembering faces. Wait, if he's an English teacher, why is his sentence formation so damn labored?
Okay... nevermind that... what's going on in this room? Ahhhhhhh, I see.... the far end is table tennis (duh!!) and the front end is badminton. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... badminton, eh? I've been meaning to try that one out. And now with not only the teacher suggesting I stick around, but also now a dozen girls standing around me asking "do you want to play with us?", I guess today will be badminton. Sure, okay, I'm... not... totally sucktastic at badminton. Let's play!! ^____^V
But before that, let's chat, haha. Apparently this club is made up of five 3rd-year girls, 1 2nd-year girl, and 4 newcomer 1st-year girls. I thought it was a boys/girls mixed club, but the 5 boys retreated to the opposite side of the gym. Ah, sorry... I don't mean to be leeching off the girls, but it just seems to always end up this way. Well, the academic clubs are mixed, and I'll play with the boys during P.E. classes eventually.
So first we start with some lowball questions... name, country of origin... I told them the name of my village in Fukushima-ken and immediately they knew of the dire situation there. Haha, they certainly understood the word "homeless," and laughed when I told them that I had been sleeping in their gymnasium for the last month... using the rag water for my evening shower, haha.
::nervous laughter:: Quick, change the topic to something less depressing. Haha, I asked one of the more livelier girls, "can you teach me how to play badminton?" The other girls lit up with delight, but the girl I asked directly let out a tart "no!" Hahaha... so mean... I slumped back, frowned dramatically, then turned away hiding my pretend tears. The icing on the cake was doing that Japanese sadness thing where they draw circles on the ground... only I was doing it on the wall, haha. The girls' hearts all melted and they let out an adorable group "kaaaawwwaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiii~~"
Yes, I know how to work a crowd, haha.
They got lively after we did our stretching routines (which I swear lasted like 15 minutes... geez... I think I'm an inch taller now). We got to chatting again after I left them alone for a few minutes. I could hear them trying to figure out to formulate their sentences. I walked up to the genkiest girl, and motioned for her to go ahead with her inquiry. She introduced herself with something like, "my name is (I forget..ahhh), but please call me..."
and before she could even finish, her friends blurted out "chimi!!!" Then they translated it for me. "She has small money!!!!"
hahahahahhahahhahahhahahahahahahahahahahhaa... yes, it's very rude of me to laugh at the financial status of a student, but come on... that is hilarious!!!!
The poor girl (double-meaning) had some information to share about the lead instigator of the crowd. She pointed an accusatory finger and informed me...
"she always violence me!!!"
hahahahhhhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhhaahhahhahahhahahahahaha... yes, the English is incredibly wrong, but so hilarious. Oh man, these girls are going to be highly entertaining. I better get good at badminton soon!
Our engaging conversation (which had deluded into a "no, me!!" "no, me!!!" shouting match over who gets more "violenced") ended when it came time to start the next drill of our afternoon practice: running. But where? Oh, this is gonna be interesting... our course is set for two laps around the school. No, I don't mean AROUND the school... I mean AROUND the school.
Oh wait, that clarifies nothing. Not around the outside of the school in a gigantic circle... I mean INSIDE the school, basically taking a tour of every hallway within 3 minutes... twice. Phew, alright, I'm game.
I was pretty winded as we came to the end of our course. I'd have a few minutes to catch my breath before we decided what we'd actually be doing today. Looks like the older students will be playing doubles-match games and the freshmen will be rotating with the odd-pair out. I was lucky to be included in the big kids match, yay! They even had a nice racket to lend me, awwww! Wait... I've only played badminton like 7 times in my entire life... the last time being a for-fun match with equally bad skills at the sports center. I hope I won't embarrass myself hear like I did with the basketball team last week.
Well, we got off to a nice lead, but after a few errors, it ended up being a neck-and-neck battle the whole time. We played up to 21 points... the final score ended up 19-21... argh, so close. Considering like 3/4 of the points scored against us were my fault, I owe many apologies to me unfortunate teammate. But then again... I also scored about half the points for our side, too... so maybe I wasn't so bad. Plus, I messed with the minds of our opponents by giving them the ole' eyelid pull and tongue-stickout to distract them (mainly by making them laugh at the immature randomness).
Oh, and I had some really nice dives, too... but too bad I still missed the birdie.
We took a break after that first game, which I used to go chat up the English-teacher coach. He told me that the girls would be having a very big tournament coming up soon, so it would probably be best if I sat out the next game. Oh... whoops... I wish they had told me that sooner. I would have been satisfied just being the judge or watching had I known the girls had some super serial training to be getting done. And wow... it was already 6pm by the time we finished our first game.
Waaaaiiit a second... does this mean it took us 2 hours to get set up, stretch, do our running, and play just one full match? Hmmmm, well, maybe it was more like 1.5 hours since maybe the 7th-period ended at 4:20pm... I can't remember, but it was kinda late. But either way... yikes... less stretching... more badminton, mayhaps. Or maybe the training regiment was messed up because of all the engaging conversation I distracted them with. Oops, sorry.
So yeah, with the practice getting into serious-mode, it was just best I head off. I accomplished what I had wanted anyway: made a few new friends in other classes... spread the good name of Xeno-sensei beyond the 2nd-year optional OC students. They look forward to seeing me again, so after their tournament is finished, we can have some fun together. They gave me a very kind and warm good-bye as I headed off. Awwwwwww...
I made it back to the teachers' room to collect my things when I was instantly met with a teacher who could speak pretty good English (is she another English teacher I lost sight off somewhere? How many English teachers DOES this school have anyway??? Why haven't we all been introduced at once???). But yeah, she was asking me about what sports and clubs I liked. I told her about my badminton adventure and how I like other sports, too. Then I went on to say that I was interested in checking out a few of the academic clubs, as well. The first one I made specific mention of was the Light Music Club.
Oh... this woman is the advisor of the LM Club? JACKPOT!!!!
heh heh... she invited me to come watch their practice next week. I'm dying to see Mars-chan's musical abilities... without being all stalkerifical, haha. With a direct invite from the advisor, I can make a clean entrance. Oh... but I already promised the Badminton Club i'd help them next week. Grrrr... well... I don't need to do all that stretching and running mayhem... I'll hit up the LMC for the first hour, then Badminton for the second hour.
So...
much...
activity...
I gotta start coming in on the weekends just to fit everything in. I need to find out more about these tournament schedules, too. Gotta cheer on my schools... although, it will be a strange situation for me when the teams from two of my different schools face off against eachother. It's guarenteed to happen. Uh oh...
Until next time... see you!!! |
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| Coverage Day: Tuesday, April 19th
Schools Visited: Cromartie High School (HS3)
Entry S4.0 - Ep12
When I was warned that my Industrial school on Tuesdays was going to be my "Hell school," I never thought it was going to be the teachers stressing me out more than the students! The two women who are supposed to be on my side against the massive, uncontrollable hoardes of teenage boys were the ones listening to what I had to say the least today. We're on the same team here!! Let's get it together, shall we!?
Well, despite the gloomy rain that greeted me in the morning, I was instantly met with some relieving news: my 3rd-period class with the 2-3 group was cancelled. Whew... good to know. It's not because I'm not up for the challenge, but rather because I'm trying to ease myself into this whole world of high school teaching, so anytime I can catch a lucky break, I find myself breathing much more easily.
And double-lucky... today was a shortened day (55-minute periods lessened to 50-minute periods) because of the Sports Club Pep Rally that would be happening after school. Wow, nice... break in the 3rd-period, shorter classes, AND I get to see a Japanese pep rally? This day is looking good already. ^___^V
Err, well, it started off alright. My desk is next to the kyoto-sensei, and he's a really friendly guy... however, maybe he's TOO friendly. We got to talking a bit, which is certainly enjoyable (not to mention good for my job security, haha... gotta play nice with the superiors), but I was getting annoyed when he started making "suggestions" for how I could live my life more comfortably. Basically, he was telling me I had to get out and do more research about this area... though I'd never be able to do it right if I didn't make friends with the other foreigner teachers.
Ugh... look... nothing against the other teachers out here (I'd hate to sound like an elitist), but my history with meeting other foreigners is we don't mesh so great. I hate the idea of "having to be friends" with someone simply because we just happen to be from outside this area. My nerdy/geeky personality only pars up with other nerdy/geeky types, but I've been finding mostly people who don't fit that archetype. Don't get me wrong, I've made a few really great friends here, but they are far outnumbered by people I don't care much for. Plus, I don't need to be friends with other foreigners to get the scoop on this new city... wouldn't it make sense to make Japanese friends who've been here all their lives to show me around? I've found plenty of English-speaking natives around here using Facebook already. :D
He had some other things to "suggest." I'm not saying they were "unwanted," but rather unneeded. I've been in this country long enough and I've already found the places I need to get by (city hall, hospital, grocery store, post office, train station, etc).
Anyway, moving on with my day...
I had the first period free to get myself situated. I don't know how this happened, but somehow I ended up with like 100 extra copies of some worksheet I had planned on using. Grrrr... I hate wasting paper. I'm not some super-hippie, but when I can avoid depleating the earth's resources whereever possible, I like to go that route. Oh well... now I have a year's worth of scrap paper. -_____-;;
My class in the second period (with my supervisor... the more forward of the two JTEs I work with here*) was with the 2-2 class. They didn't get to see my introduction last week because they had morning testing to complete, but now was their chance for the big show I'm sure they heard about from all their classmates already. This class was the smallest I teach here, yet it had the most girls. Haha... 3 girls... yes, that is the most.
* ugh, the third one is a kind, super-friendly cutie... why can't I work with HER?? heh heh
The boys are... well... boys. They are constantly throwing stuff at eachother and poking/slapping/whacking eachother. It's like a zoo with all the animals piled into just one cage, haha. Oh well, at least they behaved during my "All About Me" BINGO T/F Game. Surprisingly, they were amused by the fact that my cat is named "Mika-chan" (usually it's the girls who squee about how adorable that is, haha) and a lot of them were excited to hear that my favorite anime is Suzumiya Haruhi. Haha, perhaps I should have included the fact that I help run one of the internet's biggest and most successful English anime information websites... but that might be trouble, as most of them understand enough English to probably be able to find it... and this blog.
One of the ongoing gags with this crowd was just random loud cheering, haha. I might as well get them even more fired-up, so anytime they cheered, I'd bam it up a notch with even more excited cheering. More amusing is if it were just one group being rowdy, I'd dash over and join in the celebration, haha.
The gag that worked the best here was the "xeno can't do math joke." With the numbers "119" and "911" already on the board from the "fire department job" question, I can easily turn it into a math equation. The students are amused to watch me quickly write the "0", as math problems go, but then start giggling enough when I start to struggle with adding the three "1"s. I tell them to hush for a moment so I can think about it some more... then I use my fingers to add them up. The giggling increases when I get to the "1 + 9" part, erupting into hysterical laughter when I have to resort to using the numbers on the clock to figure it out. Things get out of control when I start throwing a fit, scribbling a mess all over the board... and today's special big finale...
... throwing the chalk across the room in stressed-out rage. Comedic genius, though I wonder what the JTE thought of that ad-lib manuever. She strikes me as the "supr-serial uptight"-type, though she did seem to enjoy the whole show. And hey, the kids absolutely loved it, so can she really complain? I mean, she warned me immensely about how this school was going to be chaos for us all... if she wants me to control this crowd, she's gonna have to let me stretch a few rules.
Oh, and hey, one group in this class got 10 Bingo lines... the record so far of the 12 or so classes I've done this with over the last week and a half. Only 4 classes remain now. Hope I don't get rusty before then.
Third period I was free, and of course, during lunch period I was free, but if you've ever been a teacher before, you know that there is no such thing as "breaks" when you're working in a school. From the time I arrive around 8:20am to the time I leave around 6:00-6:30pm, I'm working non-stop. Like literally, non-stop. But I'm not gonna complain because sometimes "working" means talking to fun and intelligent kids, so it's really quite enjoyable... plus it makes the time FLY by. When I worked in my JHS last year with nothing to do most days, it was excruciatingly painful waiting for the end of the workday. Now, by the time I have a moment to even look at the time, it's already past noon.
Well, as I said, I just had about 2 hours of preparation time. I was free for anything during these moments. Wisely, the quieter teacher I work with came over to discuss our lessonplan for the day... despite our having a meeting about it last week. Grrrrrr... don't you write these things down? Anyway, so I told her our plan and she was cool with it. Not long after, the other teacher came over to me to get ready to depart for our 4th-period class together. I go to grab the worksheets I had made (and that she approved), and she tells me... "so for today's lesson, you'll be using THIS worksheet..."
and proceeds to show me some worksheet I had never seen before. Wait, what??? Where did this come from??? Who made this? And most importantly... why are you telling me about these changes NOW!?!?!?!? You've had all day to tell me you changed our lesson. Hell, we had a class earlier together... you could have told me then!!! ARGH!!! Okay... well, I'm not against the changes themselves (hey, actually, this plan is easier than the one we prepared last week), but the fact that you're showing this to me just as we're getting ready to go... it's not cool. I can't be expected to teach using a worksheet I've seen only for a minute. Hope the JTE is ready to take the pointe on this lesson.
Actually, having the JTE take pointe position is preferrable to me. If I don't have to worry about the serious teaching aspects, I'm free to be goofy and clowny, as I explained in yesterday's entry. And to further exemplify this argument, consider today's zany antics. In one part of the worksheet for our lesson on "Asking for a Favor," we just had to read and repeat a few key phrases. I was going down the list of thing like "will you... make dinner?", "will you go to the supermarket?" Then I came to...
"will you drive me to the hospital?"
Jackpot... time for some comedy!! In the first class, this idea came to me rather last second, so all I could think to do in that moment was kinda hunch forward, clutching my chest in wrything pain. Most of the kids were looking down at their papers, but few by few, some began looking up and started laughing. As the laughter grew, the others began to notice and also look up to join in the entertainment.
For the second class, now that I knew what was coming up, I was able to add more of a performance. Before I said anything for this line, I paused... maybe a few students noticed the break in our rythem and looked up, seeing me now staring blankly at the floor, holding my chest. I let out a gasping... "will... wi... you take me... to the... hospital??" As I uttered the last word, I let myself fall backwards to the ground. Haha, I could hear all the laughing from my brilliant performance, but I still had more to act. After each phrase, to signify that I wanted the students to begin their portion, I would say, in Japanese, "sei no" (not sure of the translation, but it's basically like "okay, now!"). From where I was laying on the floor, out of sight to anyone, I yelled out to the ceiling, "sei no!!", meaning I wanted them to say their repetition without waiting for me to get up, haha.
Of course, now I'll never be able to have a real injury or health panic in this school. The students will never know if I'm just messing around or if I'm really actually legimately dying. Curse my wonderful acting abilities... and my rugged good looks!
But hey, this little acting performance did something wonderful: it got the 1000% attention of every single person in the class. YOU try getting 42 seventeen year-olds to be completely silent for any length of time! haha, I was amazed... but it's just proof that with a little humor, you can really improve the education process. Be a comedian* first, teacher second. Boy students may be difficult to control, but it's definitely not impossible. You just have to appeal to what interests them. You gotta have a style they can relate to. If you just go in there yelling and screaming, they're not gonna listen to you. You have to make them WANT to pay attention to your lesson.
* don't be a clown... while I like clowns and find them amusing, no one respects them enough to be an educator of anything... unless it's stuffing astonishingly high numbers of midgets into tiny encapsulated spaces, heh heh heh
Anyway, back to my story... there was one unfortunate side-effect to my rolling around on the classroom floor: chalkdust!!!! So much damn chalkdust!!!! And I was wearing my dark blue jacket today. Aw fishsticks! Well, since they knew it was for the benefit of their enjoyment, the students were nice about not making fun of me for it. Haha, actually, the one who kindly pointed out my fashion accident was the boy who was the lead guitarist of the Light Music Club... apparently I (BAD PUN WARNING!!!!) struck a chord with him by attending his band's preview concert last week, so I've made at least one fan in this school so far. Awesome.
The main event of both classes this afternoon was a game called Grammar Casino. I won't spend any time explaining the rules (you basically "bet" on whether or not a sentence is grammatically correct) since I wanna go to bed... like... now. All I want to say is that at first, all the pairs of students were slow to get into it any at all, but as we moved further and further into the game, the competition got more and more heated. By the time we got to the end, the students were so enthusiastic to play. Awesome!!
So the scary classes at my scary school went great today. But today was still stressful for me. And why is that? Because my supervisor JTE can't get her head on straight, haha. We started talking about my plans for next week's lesson, but, long story short... she kept contradicting herself on what next week's lesson was actually going to be about. I had a really simple and effective game idea (Battleship/Survivor/Whatever-you-wanna-call-it), but she kept insisting that it was too difficult. WHAT??? No way, not only is this game tons of fun, but it's probably the easiest game in my arsenal. She better like because it's usually my go-to game for any lesson, haha.
I spent so much time trying to get her to understand my idea that we ran into the time when the Pep Rally was starting. When we FINALLY got ourselves on the same page, I told her that I would gladly get to work on whipping up an activity for the lesson... just after I go see what a Japanese pep rally is like.
"Ummm, I'd rather you stay here and start working on this project."
ARGH... what?? Are you kidding me?? You can't wait just like 15 minutes?? It has to be RIGHT NOW?? I think this is where the confusion from earlier was still affecting her thinking. She kept saying she wanted an activity designed for a lesson she had just told me 5 minutes earlier was cancelled. I was so confused. So... you want an activity on Lesson 1, Part 2... despite just telling me that the classes will move on to Lesson 2, Part 1 next week?? This doesn't make sense!!! Luckily the other JTE stepped in and explained the miscommunication to the supervisor in Japanese. Phew... so NOW can I go to the pep rally?
Yes!! Off I go!!!
Not much to say, really. All the students were in the gymnasium. The students in the sports clubs waited out in the hallway to be called to the stage where they would give their rally speech. Each was just like 30 seconds long... nothing about "kicking asses" or "mopping floors with (opponents') asses" like we see in the US. I was more interested in the fact that now I could actually SEE the statistics of club membership in this school. At quick glance, it appears that only about 1/3 of the students are enrolled in athletic clubs... none of which are girls. Assuming equal enrollment, I'm gonna guess 1/3 of all students are in the academic clubs, leaving a full 1/3 to be in the ever-popular "Go Home Club," haha.
Okay... saw the rally... good times... back to the teachers' room to whip up this activity before the teachers explode again.
I returned having been gone no more than 10 minutes, and to my chagrin, they decided to change what they wanted... AGAIN. They told me before I left that the deal was I would make one game activity on the next lesson (Complimenting) and they would make a worksheet similiar to today's lesson; however, when I returned, they informed me that they couldn't make the worksheet, so instead I would need to make TWO activities... one on the lesson, the other on whatever. Sigh... well, so much for looking into joining any clubs today.
I think the supervisor JTE was feeling like she was pestering too much, so she was super-nice to me... bringing me coffee and snacks over the next 30 minutes, checking up on me. Haha, I don't mind bossy people or changing condictions... it's all a part of the job. It's not like I felt she was being mean or anything, though I guess she felt bad. Haha, well, just as long as it doesn't turn into some Japanese mind-screw where she acts super nice to me, but then goes behind my back and writes a letter to my company saying "we asked him so nicely to adapt to the new lesson but he was SUCH A JERK about it!! He made us bring him coffee and cookies as payment!!! We want him out of here, please!!!"
Wasn't helping that all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the vice principal starting asking me how often I meet with the reps from my company. I thought he was trying to tell me that my company was popping in for a meeting this afternoon! Geez... don't freak me out like that! Company reps never "check in" with ALTs who are doing well, haha. If a company rep is coming for a visit, it's not a good sign. But I guess he was just curious or something. I told him that if wants me to do something better, he can just ask me directly. I want to be a good teacher at this challenge of a school, and with every school wanting different things, it's just a matter of pointing out differences to me.
So anyway, wrapping things up... I did come up with a free-style activity that will be a listening activity to teach about American fire departments. I decided to axe my giant FD project simply because 1) the claims that the kids are too out-of-control were a bit exaggerated... I think we'll get along fine, 2) I'll only be seeing them 10 more times or so this semester, and 1/3 of those will be oral exams, and 3) it's too much damn paperwork, haha. I'll do these smaller "listening activities" to give the students the industrial/technical English lessons I think they'd be more interested in.
And... now I'm off. I need my sleep. Tomorrow is the Perfect Dream School. It will be my second time seeing the girls who fawned over me so dearly. Oh, and if I get myself up early enough, I can stop at Mr. Donut for some breakfast!! :D
Until next time... see you!!! |
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| Coverage Days: Monday, April 18th
Schools Visited: Fuuka Academy HS and Azumaga Daioh
Entry S4.0 - Ep11
What's this? McDonald's in the morning for breakfast... BEFORE school!?!? Well, this is new. I could get used to this. Citylife, you spoil me!
My day started out pretty great. Warm air, blue skies, hotcakes... on my way to a good school. Today's gonna be absolutely perfect, I can feel it! Or... so I would have thought. You know who doesn't like to be at school on a Monday morning? High school kids. Bummer... and I thought having my brighest, smartest students (third-year optional class) was going to be my golden start to every week. Unfortunately, seems as though they are the ones relying on me to get THEM energetic.
Sigh... how is this going to work out? Last week's introduction lesson/activity set was pure comedic awesomeness. However, I am a total n00b when it comes to taking the helm of a textbook lesson. I learned today how difficult it is to be informatory AND entertaining at the same time. I need to make sure the kids are enjoying the lesson, but understanding the material. Sorry kids, it's gonna take a little time before I can get into the rythem. I mean, with the ES kids, it wasn't hard because all they needed to actually understand were just whatever 6, 7, 8 vocabulary words I was trying to teach. In the JHS, I was the assistant, so I coulda cared less about what the topic of the day was, haha. Here, it's all me. Dammit.
So, as you can probably now guess, the lesson didn't go so smoothly today. I mean, the activities themselves went alright, but making the transitions from one thing to another leaves me with holes in my confidence... and the bumbling and fumbling I do trying to get everything right shows clearly that I haven't gotten the hang of things yet. The fact that the kids had no life to them this early second-period class was just making things all the more difficult for me.
Well, first up was one of my favorite games: Keyword Game. I put them into pairs, put an eraser on the desk between them, tell them the round's "keyword", then just shout random words at them. When I say the keyword, they are supposed to race eachother to grab the eraser. Works great in the elementary and middle school. And with some of the pairs here, there was some good, spirited competition, though I couldn't help but notice a few students were just like, "ummmmmmmmmmm... oookaaaay." I guess without much of an incentive or a goal to strive for, they saw little value in trying.
Come on, guys... work with me, would ya?
Ah well, at least they laughed when I stumped them by excitedly shouting words that were not the keyword in an effort to stump some of them. They only fell for it once... well, one boy fell for it twice. He felt like quite the fool for being the only the second time, haha.
Up next was an activity we did using the vocabulary for rooms in a house. Technically, this activity had NOTHING to do with their actual lesson, and to be honest, I actually proposed this to the teacher by mistake (the real lesson is for the 1st-year student, but he liked it so much that he wanted to use it as a review practice). However, to the students, this was completely out of nowhere, and with the material being so dry, there wasn't anything I could use to make it entertaining. I just described each room and had the students write what they thought it was on the worksheet I had made.
When it came time for checking answers, we had a new challenge to face: no one wants to volunteer to speak. No one... not anyone. They're just all gonna put their heads down and avoid eye-contact with me. If I can't see their eyes, then they must not exist, right? And if they don't exist, then they can't be called on to answer questions? Makes perfect sense, right!!? Haha... too bad, kids, if this is how it's gonna be, then you're getting selected at random. Really helps having a class seating chart in romaji in front of me, haha.
This activity went by so unenthusiastically that I just rushed through getting it over with... rush so much that I completely forgot that I had made a second part to it. Whoops, oh well. Today's lessonplan was so poorly scheduled* that it was actually better to skip that part anyway. We had to get to the textbook dialogue as soon as we could to get started on the real lesson.
* The JTE just kept cramming more and more stuff into this period... I didn't want to say to him that I thought it was too much, because maybe it was better to just let him see for himself than for me to disagree with him... not that I thought it he would have gotten angry or anything (he's a really nice guy), but it's very un-Japanese to voice concerns or criticism.
The textbook stuff gave me a bit of a jumping off point. The JTE and I did the model dialogue (a short skit on giving directions... because Haruhi knows Japanese ESL students don't cover THAT topic enough), to which the students repeated. After reading together, we put them in pairs in which we forced all the kids to memorize the dialogue. With one student absent today, I volunteered to fill in for the missing girl (actually, the girl I ended up being paired with was from Fukushima, too). Playing the role of a student now gave me some chances for comedy.
Now that the JTE was the main teacher, I could go back to just being the goofball assistant. He was the one who had to explain the task (in English), and when he finished up, he asked to everyone, "do you understand?" No one said a word, but I instinctually yelled out "haiiiiiii!!", which made all the students laugh. To make sure the kids knew what we were asking them to do, he had a quick demonstration... but he needed me for this. He read his part quickly and smoothly...
"Excuse me. Can you tell me where the Green Cafe is?"
::he looks at me from my seat::
me: (super excitedly, because we want the kids to be happy and genki) "SURE!!!!"
... but then... I realized... oh wait, I actually haven't memorized the dialogue. So from the beginning, the whole thing went like this...
JTE: "Excuse me. Can you tell me where the Green Cafe is?"
Me: "SURE!!!! .... .... ... wasareta!!!"
heh heh, translation... "I forget!!!" The students found it hilarious, of course.
The performance time went rather well. The students all memorized the short dialogue rather quickly... only, the problem was... you guessed it!!! Getting pairs to volunteer. The JTE wanted them to stand up, and from there, they could sit down only after they spoke. According to him, sitting down would be their incentive to speak, haha. I wish I understood fully what he was trying to explain, but I didn't get it until after class was over. Oh well, randomly selecting pairs worked well enough. The first few groups were treated to my hand gesturing and over-exaggerated word-mouthing gags... a crowd-pleaser.
The last group that went had one boy who was a "super actor!" He performed his role as if he were some suave cool-guy in an old movie. Excellent job... I was so impressed.
That brought us to the end of the class period. I was hoping for a little love on the way out, but all the students just walked by without a word. Well, in all fairness, part of the time I was jotting down notes for this blog. It's hard to find time to write blog notes these days... and with so many stories each day, I need to keep jotting stuff down throughout the day to make sure I remember it all. And even so, a lot of good stuff gets lost.
Sadly, I had two classes in a row once I moved from HS2 to HS1 during the lunch break. Because of this, I couldn't keep accurate notes on particular classes, but I did write what I could afterwards. My memory gets fuzzy after two hours of teaching, so I can't remember which stories come from which class, so let's talk about the 5th-period with 1-6 and 6th-period with 1-1 together.
These were my first classes taught at my base school (FINALLY), and being freshmen classes, they come with their own set of unique issues, mainly in the fact that the kids still haven't melted together as one big group just yet; they're all still strangers to eachother, so there is a lot anxiety and hestitation. Well, what better to bring a group of kids together than a crazy gaijin and his wacky antics?
So the usual jokes worked... Bruce Willis is outside my door... cat named "Mika"... I used to fight crime... I can't do math... I can't surf, but I can pretend like I can... and a whole slew of wacky magical-girlish poses when pointing at the giant "T" and "F" on the chalkboard*. All the kids liked my tricks, even the 1-1 class made up of mostly boys.
* speaking of chalkboard... the board in 1-1 is hilariously outdated. It felt like I was using a chalkboard from the 1920s, which is odd since all the other rooms had normal boards.
Of course, as much as the boys like me, the girls are just in lovey-dovey mode. They sit, stare, smile, and drool... and like... I'm hardly exaggerating here. Save for actual puddles of saliva at their feet, everytime I look up at the crowd, the girls are just grinning cheek to cheek, mesmerized by my studly awesomeness. I hear the words "kawaii" and "kakui" uttered amongst the crowd numerous times... haha, what an ego-boost this job as become. But now there's so much pressure to make the regular lessons knocked-out-of-the-park homeruns. uguu~~~
The two teachers I worked with were interesting. One is a woman in her 40s who is actually the homeroom teacher of 1-5, which means she is INSANELY busy. How busy? This was, what, my 4th time to come to this school, and I was only just meeting her for the first time... 20 minutes before our first lesson together. Good luck, teacher-lady... let's hope you're as good at "winging it" as I was back in my JHS days.
The other teacher (40s/m) was... I dunno... aloof, I guess I can say. He's really nice, as he sits across from me in the English Staff room. We've talked together so often, but I guess not enough about our lessons, haha. With all the other teachers, if I came across a word or concept in my presentation (like "internship" "cashier" "more than ~"), I would ask the JTE to explain it to the class. Every time, 100%, I'd get a response instantly. With this guy, I would stop the sentence, address the teacher, ask him to explain... then wait... and wait. The students all understood that I was asking him for the translation, so we'd all be watching him, waiting, but he'd just be slowly meandering around the room. They'd all giggle when I'd have to shout, "sensei? Sensei? SENSEI!?" haha
So for my first two freshmen lessons here, things went very well, which is good because here I only see them each 3 times, so we had to move on to the textbook lesson. The students were happy and excited, and best of all, they followed directions without hesitation. I couldn't believe how smoothly things went. It probably helps that I told them they only had 2 minutes for each activity, and considering they're still new high school, they know they must follow EVERY direction given to them by a teacher, as they're unaware of what consequences do (and don't) exist, haha.
Oh, and in the 1-6 class, I actually had students volunteer to answer the questions from our textbook activity. Our boring, sleep-inducting, yawn-fest of a textbook activity.
Speaking of sleep-inducing, it's nearly midnight now and I have the Hell School tomorrow. I really need to be rested up for tomorrow's challenge, but I also have to discuss the club period. Alright... real quick.
I decided to join the Girls' Volleyball Club today so I could visit my captain friend who really likes to practice English.. only, the 3rd-year students weren't in club today. The whole class had something to attend to. This left one of the 2nd-year students in command, but she didn't know how to communicate with me, so needless to say, I didn't get any invites to join in on the practice. Booo... oh well, I can talk to another new friend I made... the supporter girl. Haha, she's an ichinensei who was actually in my 5th-period class with the 1-6 group. Oh wow, my first time getting actual feedback on my introduction lesson from a student, haha. I had asked her which class she was in, and when she said "1-6," I was so surprised. Without any prompting, she told me "kyou wa tanoshiikatta desu."
Really??? Today's class was fun??? I'm so happy to hear that!!!! :D
I continue... "What's your name?"
She tells me her name and that she's happy to meet me.
I don't bother to introduce myself because she heard my name no less than 25 times just two hours ago. There is NO WAY she's forgotte... my... name...
She forgot my name.
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srsly?
I pretended to cry, haha. She bowed numerously and apologized. My life is an anime.
Only other thing of note to mention is that one of the 1st-year students collapsed during the 5-minute warm-up run. My supporter friend and I tended to her while she got some air and caught her breath. I asked her a few questions in Japanese; she responded in English. Hahaha... so cute. She had a sore throat since the night before and now was short on air. After 5 minutes of rest, she was back to normal, but we didn't want to risk a repeat of that episode, so we had her sit out the rest of the time, which was fine for me because now I had someone else to talk to.
Argh... my day is filled with stories I want to share, but it's sooo late at night and I'm about to collapse. My life is just so busy now. I hope you're all enjoying these entries. Tell your friends... post in your Facebook, haha (anyone know how to make one of those "like" buttons to link to FB profiles?). Spread the word... and be sure to read EVERY entry. I can't think up catchy entry titles every day, but be assured every episode has wacky and/or cute stories.
Tomorrow... 4 lessons at Cromartie High School (HS3). If I don't post within 24 hours, assume they threw me in the woodchipper.
Until next time... see you!!! |
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Picking up where Hana-saku Iroha left off last episode, Minko and Nako head to Ohana's revenge breakfast with no small amount of dread. Unfortunately, they arrive at the kitchen to find no food set out and no Ohana. Minko is surprisingly the most upset, saying that Ohana betrayed them. Upon further inspection, they find a stew pot full of food (including lots of taro root) and several cutting board's worth of spinach. They alert the rest of the staff and set out to find her.
Meanwhile, Ohana is in a bit of a pickle, as she's about to be tied up in a turtle shell bondage pose (Thanks, crappy Nana to Kaoru OVA for teaching me what this is!) by the creepy writer Tarou. Fortunately, he fails completely to restrain Ohana, and breaks down, admitting that he's acted the part of an award-winning novelist and is completely unable to pay his now weighty hotel bill. Originally, he had come to the inn to write an award-winning novel, but when that had failed he had decided to resort to writing porn novels starring the inn's staff. Ohana is surprisingly forgiving of this. She ends up reading his porn and eventually is interrupted by Nako, who has come under the false pretense of deep cleaning to search for Ohana. Ohana reveals herself and Tarou freaks out, steals the inn's truck, and takes off. The episode ends in a failed suicide attempt by Tarou, who agrees to work at the inn to pay for his bill.
Frankly, the majority of this episode seemed out of place, although there were a few nice moments sprinkled throughout. Ohana finding Minko's list of insults in her sheets was both touching and hilarious; the text message from Ko was adorable; the fact that even Nako has something to be proud of, her swimming ability, was also nice and a great contrast to Tarou, who sees himself as completely worthless; however, the majority of this episode seemed completely out of character with the charming atmosphere that HanaIro had established in the first two episodes. This isn't to say that comedy shouldn't be present in the series. There were several successful comedic moments, like the aforementioned sheet of insults, but everything involving Tarou was too slapstick and fairly pointless. He's an annoying wet-blanket of a character, so hopefully, despite the fact that he's been added to the main cast, he doesn't appear often.
The landlady's position on all of this was fairly obtuse as well. Yes, "The customer is always right," unless they're actually affecting your bottom line, as Tarou was. No inn, or business in general, would let something like this slide for so long. Perhaps Ohana's grandmother is going senile? |
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Ultra Blog Service On Drugs (UBSOD) v 1.02 - Anime-Source © 2008
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