Wednesday was my elementary day. I have a few funny stories from that. First, I really like my fifth grade class teacher. He’s a cool guy, very funny, and makes class really interesting and exciting for the kids. In class he told them to turn to page “Ichiro.” For those of you who don’t know Ichiro, he is a very famous Japanese baseball player who plays for the Seattle Mariners. All of the kids knew exactly that they needed to turn to page 53, Ichiro’s number. Ha ha ha!
“Oni” is tag in Japanese. It literally means “demon,” but it also means “it.” If you’re oni, you’re it. I’ve mentioned before about how the kids and I like to play it at recess. It’s almost exclusively what we play. Originally, I just played with a few girls, but I felt bad about playing with the same kids all the time, so I made oni into so much more than what it really is. 
Last week, I said how I started tapping kids’ shoulders in the middle of class and making them oni. They remembered that this week! My first class of the day was fifth grade, and I was walking around the classroom. One of the girls in the back very secretively reached out and touched my leg. I barely even heard her whisper, “oni.” Ha ha ha!! Sneaky girl! Of course, I gave it back to her later.
Every time I walk down the hallway, I’ll have at least five kids tag me and say ONI! It’s like the whole school is in on this game. It couldn’t be more fun! Sometimes, I’ll tag them right outside of the teacher’s room and slip inside before they can react. Students aren’t allowed in the teacher’s room without permission, so they stand at the doorway and give me the I’m-going-to-get-you look. 
It’s great.
My favorite Oni moment of the day was during lunch. We started playing oni during lunch as well, but at our little desk table of six, it wasn’t that much fun…..so I took it up a notch. The girl who was oni set her hand down on the desk. I reached out and touched the spot where her hand was and wadded up an imaginary ball. Then, I threw it across the table to one of the kids that I could never reach. He took the imaginary ball and threw it at the table next to us. And so the fun ensued. This imaginary ball got thrown back and forth, back and forth, back and forth across the room. Some kids were just too cool to play imaginary oni ball, but the rest of us had a blast with it! At one point in time, I grabbed the imaginary oni ball mid-air and stuffed it into my pocket. However, the girl next to me was no dummy. she reached across my lap and yanked on my pocket to get it back. I was a bit afraid that we were going to get yelled at for acting like fools. However, my worries went away when the teacher started playing as well. I threw the ball at one girl who was in line of the teacher, but she ducked, so technically the imaginary oni ball landed on the teacher’s desk. Instead of telling us to quit playing and finish our lunch, he joined in. He held the ball in his hand, looked at us, looked at the ball, looked back at us, proceeded to peel the ball like you would an orange, shoved it in his mouth, and swallowed. BEST. TEACHER. EVER. I died laughing. It was great.
Thursday was just another day. It rained all day again. I will say that on cold, rainy days there is nothing better than coming home, curling up under the kotatsu, drinking tea, and watching TV. (It’s sad to say, but that’s my Friday night tradition. I come home, change clothes, make tea, and watch my Thursday night shows. It’s wonderful!) We had our class last night, and it went a lot better. It was a much smaller class because not many people showed up. The little jerk kid who we very strongly dislike didn’t have an audience and therefore was much better behaved.
It’s getting so very close to that weekend mark. I can feel it. I have exactly one hour of work left, and I just know that that clock won’t move quick enough. We actually have plans for this weekend. Instead of sitting around like bumps on a log like we do every weekend, we going over to Mary’s tomorrow to have a marathon of Walking Dead. Justine introduced us to that show last week, and Ian and I DEVOURED the whole first season this week, so we’re going to devour the second season tomorrow with them. On Sunday we’re going to Mass in Hitoyoshi with Justine and then riding up to Kumamoto with her.
That’s all for now. My next blog probably won’t be until Monday, so everyone have a great weekend!
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