Things that drive me crazy:

After a few of last week’s classes, I decided to make a list of things that drive me crazy about my JHS students:

1) I hate, hate, HATE it when the smart kids finish worksheets quickly, get them checked by Mr. Fujiwara, go sit back down, and allow their dumb neighbors to straight up copy the right answers from them!  Ugh!  They do it because it’s a group based society.  What’s best for the group is what’s right, and everyone finishing their worksheets with the correct answers is what’s right.  They BLATANTLY do it all the time!  I stop the cheating as much as possible, but I can’t single-handedly watch an entire thirty-five person class by myself to make sure that no one is cheating! 

2) Frequently there is a dialogue or short story in the book that I read aloud.  I read each sentence once, they repeat, I read it again, they repeat again.  After we finish the dialogue or story, Mr. Fujiwara tells them to read it aloud once.  Everyone stands up and reads it aloud at the same time.  Once they’re finished, they can sit down.  It absolutely amazes me how EVERYONE seems to finish and sit down at the exact same moment.  Grrrrrrr……..

3) My first graders have a nasty habit of telling me “Come here” when they need my help on worksheets.  Could I at least get a “Come here, please”???

4) Nothing gets under my skin more than when I can tell they’re mocking me.  They’ll say something in a condescending tone or just say something and smirk whenever I don’t understand what it means.  It’s always the boys, too!  I asked Ian why his sex is so mean, and he said to think back to kindergarten.  When boys are mean to girls, it means that they like them.  I would prefer to be hated if this is how they show that they like me!! 

In other news, my mom told me two weeks that I need new tires on my car that she’s taking care of for me while I’m in Japan.  Great, just great!  That’ll be a nice $500 (at least!) thing that we’ll have to deal with when we’re home in July.  But wait!  The story gets better.    Ian told me that our car here also needs new tires since the ones we have on are darn near bald.  With rainy season here, we really don’t want to drive around on bald tires.  And to top it all off, Ian also said that he’ll have to change the tires on his motorcycle when he goes home this year.  THERE IS NO VEHICLE THAT WE OWN THAT DOESN’T NEED NEW TIRES!!!!!  What the heck, universe?

Enough belly-aching…..on to something that will make you laugh.  As you all know, I work mainly at the JHS, and at this age kids go through puberty.  One of my first grade boy’s voice is changing right now, and I feel so sorry for the kid!  It’s ridiculously squeaky.  Every time any of the kids come to the teacher’s room, they have to stand in the entrance, announce their name, and tell what they’re there for.  I feel so sorry for this kid each time he has to do that because it’s like “SQUEAK.  CRACK. CRACK. SQUEAKY SQUEAK CRACK,” and all of the teachers silently giggle under their breaths. 

I’m not sure if you guys could view it, but last Wednesday Venus was lined up right in front of the sun.  Luckily it was sunny that day, so we could actually see it.  I was on my way upstairs to the fifth grade classroom for class when I met some of my students in the stairway.  I was confused as to what was going on, but the good thing about ES is that the kids will take me by the hand and literally lead me to where I need to be if something big is going on.  They pulled me outside to observe Venus with them and even gave me their special viewing glasses.    How sweet!

That afternoon at the ES was club activities.  This time I decided to go to dance club.  The last time I went to it, they just sat there and talked about what dances they would do.  It was rather boring, but this time was much more fun.  The girls were actually dancing.  I joined in, but once they got to where they left off last week, they started making up the dance one move at a time.  The three fourth graders were in charge of a move, then the two fifth graders had to make up a move, and then the three six graders had to.  It kept rotating like this and was so very Japanese since they all had to break down the song together and create the dance together.    I learned that day that I dance like a white girl, but it was fine since none of the other girls were very good at dancing either, despite being in dance club.  Since they were making up the moves on the spot, by the end of the practice, some of them were already forgetting previously learned dance steps.  HA, HA!  It was MUCH more fun than the previous dance club!

Back at the JHS on Thursday, I was in the library, and I kept noticing some of the boys at the far table giggling and looking at me.  One finally said, “Yes, we can!” and I immediately looked over at them.  They were passing a book about Obama back and forth between them.  It should tell you just how obsessed the Japanese are about Obama if my little cow town of Yunomae has an entire book about his life and presidency at the JHS!  I highly doubt that there is a book about other famous American presidents like Washington or Lincoln in that library!

Finally, to wrap up this blog, I’ll tell you about a funny little T-shirt that I saw a woman wearing the other day.  On the back of the navy blue shirt, printed in the alphabet’s letters, it said Kuma-mura, Kuma-gun, Kumamoto-ken (Kuma Village, Kuma County, Kumamoto State).  It seemed reasonable, and it wasn’t until she turned around that I noticed something was very, very, VERY wrong.  On the front of her shirt in white script letters was KKK.    Don’t go to the States and try to wear that shirt, lady! 

Anyway, that’s all for now.  As most of you know, I failed my driver’s license test for the first time last Friday.  I think my next blog will be about that process and what a frustrating and stressful day it was!!