I have much to catch up on from the weekend and beginning of this week, but more than anything I want to blog about today while it’s still fresh on my mind. The past couple of weeks I’ve really been trying to learn a little Japanese each day. I might not be anywhere close to being good at Japanese, but if I can string a couple of two or three word sentences together, I often get my point across. I’m understanding more and more of what my elementary kids say to me. They usually are very excited when they see me, and they forget that I’m a dumb foreigner, so they don’t speak slowly (or evenly clearly sometimes!). However, I still love them! 
Today was an exceptionally good day. During my second class of the day, I had third graders, and we were doing self-introductions. They had to make their own “business cards” and go around saying, “Hello. How are you? My name is ______. Nice to meet you.” and collect as many cards as possible. I guess I had a blonde moment, but I didn’t think to make myself business cards to hand out, and of course the kids ALL wanted to talk to ME. We were supposed to play a game in which the third grade teacher played music, the kids were supposed to mill around, and whenever the music stopped, whoever was in front of you was who you were supposed to introduce yourself to and give him/her your business card. I tore up pieces of paper and simply wrote my name on them to use as business cards. It was pretty funny because instead of milling around, the kids just swarmed me. I was literally in a sea of kids, and when the music stopped, I had twenty different kids shouting and trying to introduce themselves to me, and of course each of them wanted my “business card.” 
Since I only hastily made a few business cards, kids started flipping over their own and wanting me to sign the backs of theirs. At the end of class, the kids who I didn’t get to sign or who even wanted me to sign more of their stuff—textbooks, notebooks, hats, etc swarmed me again, shoving items at me and giving me one word demands: “Sign! Sign! Sign!” 
I felt like I real Hollywood celebrity scrawling my name on item after item after item.
In the hallway a couple of girls ran up to me, hugged me, and told me that I was pretty. That’s enough to make my day! Whenever I bent over to pick up a book, they stroked my hair and kept saying “KAWAII!” which means cute/precious/beautiful, etc. After my last class of the morning, I went up to the fourth grade class to eat lunch with them. All of the students wanted me to sit beside them, and after it was decided where Melissa-sensei would sit, I had a few minutes to play with them before beginning lunch. For whatever reason, they have learned that I’m ticklish and continuously sneak up behind me to tickle my ribs. If I catch them in time, I get them back, tickling them so hard that they wished they hadn’t begun that game! All of my students are also very curious about my earrings. Not a lot of people get their ears pierced in Japan, and often if they do, they buy a self-piercing kit and do it themselves. Therefore, a lot of piercings lead to infections, and the students associate piercings with pain. I like to freak them out by pulling out my earrings and putting them back in. It’s like they’re mesmerized by that action. Some of the kids will wince or look away as I do it even though I tell them it doesn’t hurt. Today one kid was brave enough to put the earring back in my ear after I had taken it out. I gave it to her to just look at, and then she asked if she could put it in. I think she was afraid of hurting me, but I kept reassuring her that she wasn’t. I tried to let another kid do it, and she started but then chickened out. I just love to make the students laugh. If I can do that by making a silly face, tickling, singing, or doing a crazy dance, that’s what I’m here for!
Recess was once again a blast, and I honestly wish that I had more time to play recess with the kids. While I was eating lunch with the fourth graders, a couple of girls asked if I would play with them during recess. These girls LOVE me. I don’t mean to sound vain, but literally they do and have said so. Everyone always wants to play with me! Whenever a couple of second graders came into the same room where we were playing, the fourth grade girls basically told them to get lost because the foreigner was theirs today! I thought we were going to play daikon-nuki, but the girls informed me that we were going to play 1,2,3,4 game instead. I’ve never played this game, but said SURE! Each corner of the room was assigned a number 1-4. The person who was “it” had to sit in the middle of the room with his/her eyes closed and count to ten. Everyone else had to run around as quietly as possibly to a corner. When the person who was “it” reached ten, he or she then said either 1,2,3, or 4, and if there was anyone in that corner, they had to sit down. The object was to knock out multiple people at a time, so you had to guess which corner most people were in. It was easy enough, but I guess we were getting a little too loud because one of the teachers who was in the library next door came in and yelled at the kids. 
I hate, hate, hate whenever this happens. It’s such an awkward situation because I can tell that the kids are devastated by the shame the teacher is throwing on them, yet they have to sit there and take it. We tried playing the game again in complete silence, but it kind of lost the fun, so I suggested to everyone that we move to the English room at the end of the hallway. They agreed, and as we left, each kid wanted to touch some piece of me—hold my hand, hang onto my shirt, touch my leg, so we moved like an amoebus blob down the hallway.
We continued playing 1,2,3,4 game for a bit, but then it turned into “Let’s inspect the foreigner.” It’s amazing how those kids can both raise and lower my self-esteem at the same time. After everything I’ve just said, it seems like they would only boast my confidence, right? They’re cute, and I know that it’s innocent, but they grabbed my arm and stomach fluff and said that I was fat. It was more like “Kimochii!” which means “pleasingly soft”…….but we all know what they meant. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I didn’t already feel a little fluffier lately, and now I have kids confirming it. Dislike. They pointed at my stomach, and I thought they asked me to show it to them, so I lifted up my shirt a little bit. (I have a hairy belly, which I used to be very ashamed of, but now I just accept it as a piece of me.) All of the kids had this look of horror on their faces, and I swear to you that a few jumped back in fear. Then, once they got used to it, they wanted to pet it and pull on the hair. We quit that game pretty quickly, but they kept trying to pull up my shirt to pet the belly hair. Attention children! The foreigner is NOT a petting zoo!
Since we were playing in the English room, the dreaded blue mats that I blogged about last week came loose, and I spent all of cleaning time and some of fifth period re-connecting them. It REALLY bothers my OCD if they come loose! At first a couple of girls tried to help me to put them back together, but a) it honestly works better if just one person does it, and b) I could tell that they needed to go back to class. I told them that it was okay and that I’d finish it by myself, and they debated about it for a moment before agreeing. They all told me “arigato” (thanks) and gave me a hug before leaving. Japanese elementary kids are cute enough to make me want to start having my own kids……almost.
Conclusion: I LOVE ES DAYS! You never know what’s going to happen!
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