I love elementary kids. Their imaginations are amazing, and they haven’t been smashed by the harsh Japanese society yet. They still have imagination and creativity. The other night while at the super market, I saw some of my students, and they started playing tag with me. Me, being the immature-mature adult that I am, continued to play with them. We honestly weren’t causing too much distraction, but it was Ian Reed who made us stop playing. He said to me, “Will you quit playing with the kids so that we can finish our grocery shopping and go home?” 
It wasn’t the children who were scolded….it was me. The kids started shooting imaginary guns at me, but I had to pretend that I didn’t see them so that we could finish our shopping. *sigh* Sad day.
Something that I’m very excited about is that I’m going to be a guest blogger in one of my MFA friend’s blogs. She wrote a blog asking for volunteers to be guest bloggers during each Sunday of Lent. The topic is Lent, but guest bloggers can write about anything they choose. My blog will be featured this Sunday, March 18th. I wrote about celebrating Lent here and how that greatly differs from home. All of you who follow me, please read that blog as well. I’ll link it onto here and facebook. If I win, I’ll get a book. I’m very competitive, and the prize could be an old leather shoe, but I’d still want to win it!
I had a really weird dream the other night. I dreamed that I was at home in Paducah and taking the PATS (Paducah Area Transit Service) bus. The driver was a total creeper and hitting on me. Unfortunately, I was the ONLY person riding the bus, which is why he continued to talk to me. 
At one point in transit, he stopped for gas. Then instead of dropping me off at the end of the route, he wanted to personally drive me home even though I insisted that he not. For some reason, he already knew where my parents lived. 
When I paid the fare, I pay in yen instead of dollars. It was 1,500 yen ($18), which in my opinion is way too much to pay for bus fare. I love remembering my crazy, crazy dreams!
Last Wednesday at the elementary school was my last fifth and sixth grade classes until next semester. We played review games in fifth grade, and in sixth grade we did two things. The first was that each group preformed their rendition of the play “A Very Big Turnip” (pictures below). I posted videos on facebook. It was pretty cute. The second activity was dealing with professions. They all had to complete a worksheet with the principle sentence to learn being “I want to be a _______.” They learned a lot of professions like teacher, doctor, police officer, etc, but some students were coming up to me asking what _________ was in English. I knew what question they were asking me, but I had no idea what profession they were asking about since they were asking in Japanese. Luckily, I had my iphone on me and got them to speak into the Google app, which translated it. It mostly worked out. There were a couple of times when the translation worked out to be “chicken tree” or something just as awkward, so I had them speak into the phone again, and it worked out. I was so happy that I had the Google translate app on my phone! Thank God for Google!
I ate lunch with the fifth graders. For whatever reason, it was a silent lunch. I never really know why some lunches at the elementary school are eaten in silence, but I just play along and try not to break it. Just because you don’t talk doesn’t mean that you can’t communicate. 
I was making silly faces at the kids throughout lunch. They would tap their neighbor’s shoulder or get the attention of a friend across the room and ask me to make the face again…and again…and again. I finally started pointing at kids and telling THEM to make faces. I think this is absolutely NOT allowed because most of the kids immediately shook their heads. Only one was brave enough to cautiously look back and forth before pulling his eyelids down, rolling his eyes back, and sticking out his tongue. 
During break that day, kids were going outside, but I really, really didn’t feel like it because it was cold and wet. Instead I had to search inside the building for kids to play with. I didn’t have to go very far since a couple of fourth graders drug me into a room to watch them have a dance practice (picture below). At first I watched them, but when I joined in, I’m pretty sure they were impressed with my fancy dance moves…..and by that I mean not. I was doing the goofiest thing possible, and they would giggle as I continued to be the big stupid American. 
I realized last week that I’m pretty sure that I stopped maturing in elementary school. Silly faces and goofy dances still make me laugh. I think that’s why I get along with these kids so well….because I get them, and they get me.
In second grade, we learned family members last week, so I printed out pictures of my own family. I had a really nice picture of my grandmother, and that one was sitting on the top of the pile. A couple of teachers walked by my desk and looked at it. I told them that she was my grandmother. They asked how old she was, and when I told them ninety, their mouths dropped. They couldn’t believe that she was that old because she looked so young! Here, it’s very strange. Younger people look EXTREMELY young, but older people look EXTREMELY old. My supervisor is one year older than me, but she looks like she’s twelve. Old people here are OLD. They look like dried up raisins, and a lot walk hunched over.
I think I’ll end here. I’m only staying one week behind. so hopefully I can get caught up tomorrow and Friday since I only have one more class until the weekend. Hurray!
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