There is a show on ABC about fairytales. It’s a little cheesy and corny, but darn it if we haven’t started watching and enjoying it! We’ve watched all of the available episodes of the first season and are anxiously awaiting for more to air. I slightly feel silly for watching it, (and even made fun of a couple of friends for watching the “fairytale show”) but it’s actually pretty good!
In other news….Japan is SERIOUS when it comes to education. I’m pretty sure I’ve made that point clear, but just in case, here’s another example. There haven’t been classes in the afternoons this week because the homeroom teachers have to visit every student’s house and make sure that he/she has a proper “study area” set up there. I’m not lying. Each afternoon, the homeroom teachers put on their business suits and leave to visit student’s house. How crazy is that??
I made potato soup on Monday night, and it tasted like home! Too often I feel like we have either rice or noodle dishes, and I get so tired of the same thing, but things that were easy to make in the States aren’t always so easy to make here. Prime example: mac and cheese, an American quick-and-easy staple. Even if I could find macaroni for mac and cheese, I wouldn’t have the cheese to make it. Anyway, we often eat curry, and it comes in these two pack bricks. All you have to do is cook the veggies and meat, add water and a brick, and let it simmer before serving it over rice. Easiest meal ever! There are also cream stew bricks. I cut up and boiled my potatoes, added seasoning and a brick, and ta-da! I had the best tasting potato soup that I’ve had in a while. We grated a little gouda (that we specially ordered online) on the top. 
Ahhhh….it was thick, rich, creamy, and delicious!
Tuesday at lunch I ate with my JHS first graders, my former sixth graders who I hated. I think JHS has done well for them…..it tends to crush spirits. They seem less jerky and annoying, and much more straight-laced. I still have students in that class that I absolutely don’t like and probably never will, but for the most part, it’s MUCH better. Anyway, lunch was funny. I’m pretty sure that one of the boys was making fun of me, but then he spilled his milk. Karma sucks, doesn’t it? 
It went EVERYWHERE. I helped him and another teacher clean it up, and I’m pretty sure that the other teacher was saying something like “How are you so stupid to spill your milk?” Oh, Japan! For whatever reason, the kids like to use the word “crazy”, so they’ll use it to describe anything. Crazy girl. Crazy boy. Crazy cat. Crazy bear. I was joking back and forth at my lunch table and calling one of the kids a crazy kangaroo. He called me a crazy monkey. I called him a crazy koala. He stepped it up and called me Lady Gaga, so I called him Michael Jackson and then Obama. (Japanese kids love Obama!) He looked at me and basically said the equivalent of “I’m not Obama” as he turned around and pointed at his friend. “But this kid is!” The other student nodded and was like, “Yep, I’m Obama” because (just like Obama) he’s tall, and his ears stick out. HA! HA! HA! Apparently, that’s this kid’s nickname, and as strange as it sounds, he actually does look like an Asian Obama.
The weather has been absolutely beautiful, so on Tuesday night Ian and I went on a little walking adventure around town. We were going to walk to the cycling trail (which we recently found) that starts in Yunomae. It goes all the way to Hitoyoshi and follows the Kuma River. However, Ian suggested that we walk to the pretty bridge place. 
We don’t actually know the name of it, but we’ve wanted to go there since we got here. I went on a couple of walking treks when I first got here to find it but was unsuccessful. From the pictures we’ve seen, it’s a quaint old stone bridge with beautiful clear-green water underneath. It was actually rather easy to find once we opened our eyes, and the best word to describe the place is magical. Ian has all of the pictures on his camera, so I have none to post, but trust me. It’s a gorgeous little hidden haven. The bamboo provided plenty of shade, and slightly upstream from the bridge, the stream is shallow and falls on rocks, so you can hear the water rushing over those, and there is a waterfall on the other side of the bridge. The clear-green water pools right under the bridge. Although it’s probably deeper, the water is so clear that you can see four or five feet down. In addition to the natural beauty, someone fixed a rope swing over the stream to swing off of during swimming season. I told Ian that that place would be a wonderful picnic/swimming area to spend a lazy Saturday sometime this summer. It’s perfect, and I can’t wait for one of the dog days of summer so that we can go swimming there!
On Wednesday, I taught my first classes at the ES of the year. Several of the teachers are new, and the ones that aren’t have been shuffled around. For example, the former second grade teacher is now the fifth grade. My sixth grade teacher is new. He’s very polite but rather shy…until he gets into the classroom. Then he becomes a ball of energy that the kids seem to enjoy. My fourth grade teacher is friendly, nice, and amazing. But most of all HE SPEAKS ENGLISH. HE LIKES ENGLISH. HE WANTS TO SPEAK ENGLISH TO ME. He told me that he spent time in Montana and used to be a JHS English teacher a few years back. Even in class, he used way more English that any of the other teachers do. He did surprise me by telling me that I’d be doing a brief self-introduction in class on Wednesday. I told him that the students already knew me, but he said that there were a few new ones. Luckily I was able to call Ian and ask him to bring my picture album and family tree so that I wouldn’t have to make up my self-intro on the fly. Yay! In addition to the teachers, all of my new classes are great. The first graders (my former nursery school students) are tickled pink to see me at the ES and call out my name and giggle anytime I get remotely near them. Now that my former jerk-head sixth graders are at the JHS, I don’t have to dread going to sixth grade each week.
That afternoon the teachers made their rounds to the students’ houses, making sure that even the young ones have proper studying space at home, so I was left in the teacher’s room with just the Vice Principal and one other teacher. We actually had a pretty good conversation. The VP asked me where I was going for Golden Week, and I told him Yakushima and Nagasaki. He said something to the equivalent of “You know that those are on the opposite sides of the island, right?” 
Yep, I know. I told him that I was going to Yakushima during the three day weekend of Golden Week and to Nagasaki during the four day weekend. He asked if I had to work the two days between, and I said yes. He laughed and said the equivalent of “That sucks.” The other teacher, who sits to my right, told me that he took his motorcycle to Yakushima once. I said, “You have a motorcycle?” and he proceeded to tell me that he wants a Harley, but it costs too much. I told him that Ian has a Suzuki motorcycle in the States and showed him a picture. Both him and the VP were baffled as to why an American would own anything other than an American made Harley. Ha, ha.
Shortly after our conversation, the VP took off his shoes, propped his feet up on his desk, and started clipping his nails. 
I couldn’t believe it! I’ve seen teachers do weird things at their desk (massage their head with one of those giant metal contraptions, sleep, etc), but that took the cake. I was weirded out by it, but the other teacher didn’t even give it a second thought. Weird. Since I had the whole afternoon to do nothing, I went up to the English room, which moved to the other end of the hall at the beginning of the school year. Instead of desks, the students have blue square mats that interconnect to sit on. My OCD often gets the better of me, and the dang blue mats are a prime example. I guess whoever moved them to the new room didn’t interlock them well because after my morning classes, they were starting to shift and come unlocked, which I CAN’T STAND. Therefore, I spent the next thirty minutes diligently making sure that each blue square was securely interlocked to its neighbors. No….I’m not obsessed….
Well, this blog is fairly long, so I’ll stop now before going onto another day.
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