the best break ever!

Okay, okay, okay.  So I said that I was going to finish my Okinawan tale this afternoon, but in true ADD form, I’d like to get sidetracked to tell you about how I spent my break time today.  I like my third grade girls at my JHS.  Last week when I was hanging up my February English board, several approached me and were asking me questions about the pictures of my family.  I asked them if they wanted to see more pictures, and they said yes.  I couldn’t do it on Wednesday since I’d be at the elementary school, and they couldn’t do it on Thursday because they had to go to Taragi for a high school entrance exam, so we planned on Friday.  I brought my wedding album to school on Friday and anxiously looked forward to showing it off during break time.  However, they had some meeting on Friday during break, so we said Monday.  I forgot that I’d be in Okinawa on Monday, so when I saw them on Tuesday, I apologized and asked if they wanted to look at it, but they had another meeting.  Once again, I had elementary school on Wednesday, so here we are today.

They loved looking at it, and I loved them looking at it!  At first, they crowded around and squealed or shouted “KAWAII!!!” at every picture. (which means cute/precious/adorable/cool/awesome.  It’s basically every Japanese person’s favorite adjective.)  I’m the first married ALT to be in this area, so anytime I mention my wedding or Ian, I get giggles and smiles.  They also told me that I was “beautiful!  beautiful!” in the pictures.  I pointed out each member in my family and Ian’s family, and made them guess ages.  My oldest sister, Christina, who is 31, apparently only looks 25.  Both of my parents, who are 61 and 62, only look 50, and for my other sister, Amanda, they were pretty dead on.  They said 27.  She’s 29, almost 30.  They also said that we looked like twins.  We get that even in the States, so no surprise there!  They also looooooooved the winery and sunset pictures and laughed at the picture where I’m hiking up my dress to walk across the grass.  I had to explain to them that my dress was huge, and I gestured hiking up and carry a load of dress.  I asked them if they liked my dress, and they all nodded and said, “yes!  beautiful!”

When we got to the page with the cute little flower girl (Ian’s cousin, Maya) and ring bearer (my nephew, Landon), they squealed and pointed at picture after picture.  They asked me where the pictures were taken, and I said Kentucky.  I had to explain some pictures, like the flower toss with gestures.  They asked me if I loved Ian, and when I calmly said, “a little,” they laughed.  There were several other funny moments, like when they said Ian looked like Michael Jackson or pointed to the statue of Jesus in the background and said that he looked like Ian.  They also said that Ian’s grandfather looked like Col. Sanders, and apparently my grandmother slightly resembles Lady Gaga………  When I asked them when their wedding is, they kind of looked away.  I asked “tomorrow?”  “next week?” and they giggled again.  One girl said “yesterday.”  Haha!  I asked her where her ring was, and she made the motion that she had pulled it off and threw it.  She said “river.”  I loved that!  I pretended to dash out of the room and to the river to find it.  Gosh. I feel like she’s going to break a lot of hearts if she’s already throwing away imaginary wedding rings!   

Moral of the story: I like my students.  Some of them are straight up jerks, but it’s experiences like this that make it completely worth it!