Beware of the concho

In the last blog, I sent out a big congrats to David Shoulta and Lucy Holder on their engagement. I’m VERY excited for them, and they are a perfect match…no joke.  David asked Ian to be the best man, and they wanted to know when we would be able to come home.  That’s right.  They were willing to work THEIR wedding date around OUR schedule.  Do we have good friends or what?  Ian doesn’t really have anything tying him down, so he can go whenever.  Lucy has school, so sometime in June or July was her best bet.  I explained the situation to my supervisor earlier in the week and asked when I could take vacation.  She said sometime after the 21st of July.  That’s when school lets out for summer here, and it’s nearly impossible to take vacation days during the school year.  That basically left the 21st (a Saturday) as the only date.  It was very stressful going back and forth between my English teachers, supervisor, and David/Lucy.  When I got home from work, Ian and I researched and found out that even if I couldn’t get off from work on the 20th, I could leave here and fly out of Kumamoto on the 20th, spend the night in Tokyo airport, fly out on the morning of the 21st, and thanks to the time difference, arrive at 9:38 AM in Nashville….plenty of time to make the wedding.  I would be traveling for about 32 hours straight, and it was going to cost more, but I would have made it!  HOWEVER, we found out later that night that someone had already booked the church for the 21st.  They booked it ONE DAY before David and Lucy called.    I cannot tell you how much this breaks my heart.  Every time I think about not going, I feel like tearing up!  I knew that going into this program, there were going to be hard times and that I’d miss important events at home, but this is really, really sad for me.  I know that a lot of my friends are going to be there celebrating such a wonderful and beautiful day, and I can’t go. 

I’ve got to stop writing about that, or I’m going to become sad!   On to something much lighter.  The other day during break time, I was talking to a couple of girls in the hallway.  Remember that I work at a junior high school, so the girls are very interested in knowing about your dating life.  Compared to other ALTs here, I get off easy.  Instead of being bombarded with questions like “Do you have a boyfriend?”  “What’s his name?”  “Do you like him?” etc, they know I’m married.  Every time I ask the girls if they have a boyfriend, they giggle and hesitantly say yes or no.  The other day, they asked me if I had a boyfriend.  I told them no.  I have a husband, Ian, and pointed at my ring.  They should have known that!  They asked if I liked him.  I said “ummmmm…..yes.”  lol.  Of course I like him!  I married him!  Then one girl said that he was very, very, very, very cute.    This made me giggle.  Then another girl rubbed her face mimicking a beard and said, “Very cute.”  Another girl touched her thumbs to her index fingers and put it over her eyes.  She said, “Big eyes.  Very cute.”  Everyone else agreed.  Ian’s beard and big eyes make him cute.  lol.  I went around the circle of girls asking who had a boyfriend or not.  Only two girls admitted to having a boyfriend, to which I responded with, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”  Everyone laughed at the foreigner being silly.  I also taught them “omg.”  I would say something like “O.M.G!  Megumi has a boyfriend!  Eeeeee!”  Then, they taught me the Japanese version of omg.  It was a magical moment. 

Another random Japanese thing is the concho (sp?).  Concho is extremely popular with elementary school students.  It’s whenever a child takes his/her index fingers and puts them together and then pokes someone’s butt hole.  Not joking.  I think it’s based off of a cartoon character that does that.  At orientation, they warned everyone of the concho, saying that it will happen eventually.  I have been lucky to not have it happen……until the other day.  Some kid poked me in the butt hole.  I was shocked!  When I turned around to tell him no, he had already geared up to do it again.  Therefore, when I tuned around, he poked me in the girly area.    Whoops.

Well, I’ll end this like I end every class period:

That’s all for today!  See you next time!