A blog a day keeps boredom away!

Since school isn’t in session now but I still have to come to work, I have long, boring days of pretending to look busy.  All of the other teachers have at least a little work to do, but I.  HAVE.  ABSOLUTELY.  NOTHING.  TO.  DO.  Yet, I still come to school everyday because this is Japan, and that is what people do…..WORK!  I spend my days online, blogging, or going through my desk.  During these boring days, much more random stuff happens.  For example, yesterday Ms. Higashi (the office lady) grabbed me and tried to explain something to me, handed me a pair of scissors, and we went outside.  I helped her and the principal pick cucumbers and eggplants in the school garden.    It was just like being at home and helping Daddy pick butter beans and peas! (Well…..minus the fact that I was in a skirt and dress flats…..)  We gathered about a bushel of cucumbers, and Ms. Higashi told me to take some home.  I gathered a few, but she told me to take more and shoved a few more into my bag. 

Today I got offered even more vegetables from my elementary school.  The fourth grade class grew cucumbers and eggplants this year, and when I walked into the teacher’s room this morning, there were two huge flats of vegetables on the table.  I was instructed to take some….why thank you, fourth grade class!

The day before that, I had an absolutely wonderful conversation with some of my female co-workers.  We took about an hour and a half long tea break mid-morning and talked about the most random things.  They asked about my mother and where I planned to take her and what we were going to do during my vacation next week.  My vice principal told me that she’d love to practice her English with Mommy and that she wanted to practice a little English everyday with me.  I love her!    She’s just the sweetest!  They told me that my Japanese was good (I know they were lying.  My Japanese is horrendous.) even though we were playing gesture game and using my iPhone to translate phrases back and forth.  I told them that Japanese is a very difficult language for me to grasp, but I can speak German and Spanish, and they seemed very blown away by this.  An American who can speak something other than English or Japanese……whaaaaaaaaat??    I spoke a little Spanish for them, and they said that it sounded like a river—all of the words flow together into one sound.  When I spoke German, they said that it sounded like “ga. ga. ga. ga. ga.”…….meaning that it was very broken, sharp, and guttural.  I’ve often wondered what English sounds like to a non-native speaker, so I asked.  Ms. Higashi thought a moment and then said the same thing: “ga. ga. ga. ga. ga.”  Apparently English to a non-native speaker is like what German sounds like to us.  It makes sense that English and German would sound similar since English is a Germanic language, but it’s not a very beautiful sounding language now is it…? 

Everyday I’ve been going home for lunch to eat with Mommy and Ian.  It’s been really nice, and Mommy’s been a champ about eating everything that we put down in front of her.  So far she’s had (and liked!!) sushi, takoyaki (little fried octopus pancakes), okonomiyaki (savory Japanese pancake), yakisoba (noodle dish), yakiniku (indoor grilling), curry, and several other dishes.  We tell her to try a food or take a sip of this drink, she does, and generally likes it.  I’m not sure what’s on the menu for lunch today, but I’m a mere ten minutes away from it, so I shall wrap this up and get ready to go home!