Just another random day

Last Friday night Ian and I were at home watching TV.  It was just another random night with absolutely nothing special going on until we heard the beat of a drum.  At first we thought it was coming from the TV show, so we ignored it until the sound got louder and louder.  We paused the program, looked at each other in bewilderment, and rushed to the window to see what was outside.  Sure enough there was some guy beating a drum and several followers walking on the road behind our house.  We crept on them, watching them from the window wondering what the heck they were doing.  We tossed ideas back and forth as to what it could be, but we never really solved that mystery.  Oh well!  …….just another random experience in Japan!

I have been having some pretty fun and crazy dreams lately.  Over the weekend, I dreamed that Ian and I were vacationing in the rich people country of Monaco.  (Monaco is a tiny country in southern France that hugs the Mediterranean Sea and is most famous for its wealth and Monte Carlo.)  I remember standing on the cliffs overlooking the sea and thinking that wow, the Mediterranean is crystal clear.  (While I never saw southern France’s Mediterranean Sea, I did visit the Spanish coast during my study abroad days in Europe, and that sea isn’t the clearest….)  I also remember that there was this fun slide/roller coaster to take travelers down the mountainside.  It was incredible!  I also remember accidentally swimming with my phone.  I know that it was my phone because it had the same red lined casing that my Japanese cell does.  The phone was in my pocket, (…..because in my dream my bikini had a pocket ) but I had forgotten about it and went swimming.  As soon as I immerged from the water, I realized my mistake and pulled the phone from my pocket, thrusting it at Ian, begging him to fix it.  (What makes this dream even funnier is that THAT actually happened to Ian last summer.  He forgot that he had his phone in his swim trunks pocket and took a dip with it in there.  Oops….) 

The next dream was even crazier.  I dreamed that One Direction came to Japan and that I was friends with Harry and Louis.  Harry came over to my little house for a visit, and we were sitting around the kotatsu drinking tea and catching up like old buddies.  I told him that I have some students at the JHS who are crazy about One Direction and that I needed to get a picture with him to prove to the kiddos that I actually know him.  He agreed, and I tried to snap a quick picture on my iPhone, but we had to take it a couple of times.  The first one blurred, and the lighting was bad in the second one.  (When I was telling Ian about this dream, he interjected there and said, “So even whenever it’s someone famous you’d rather get a picture on your iPhone camera than my high quality professional one??”  Hey, I don’t control what happens in my dreams!  )  Harry stayed the night, and the next morning I walked him to the airport.  (You know….because the airport is TOTALLY within walking distance.  )  However, it had rained all night, and the bridge we needed to take over the river was almost completely flooded.  There was only a small strip of walkable path down the middle, and the rest was covered with brown flood water.  While I feel like this would stop any normal person from crossing, it was time to go to school, so all of the Japanese students were walking to school.  Whenever they saw me with Harry from One Direction, they stopped and stared.  As we were walking across the bridge, we met the one girl from my third grade class who is absolutely and positively in love with One Direction.  I introduced her to Harry, and she couldn’t stop squealing.  That was the most emotion I’ve ever seen from a Japanese student!    Then, Louis was on the other side of the bridge calling for Harry and telling him that he was late.  My student squealed even louder, and if I didn’t know any better, I thought she was dying.  Louis came to meet us halfway across the bridge and introduced himself to her.  I guess the emotion overtook her because she ran off.  Ha, ha, ha!!  I walked with Louis and Harry the rest of the way to the airport and watched them fly off on their private jet. 

*sigh* I wish I actually knew the boys from One Direction!  Call me a pop princess, but I think that they are absolutely adorable and would love to meet them!  Plus, it would totally make me #1 cool teacher at school if I could bring Harry or Louis to class with me. 

Mr. Fujiwara has given me a task at the JHS.  Hurray!  Since he has rushed through the textbook, and we are completely finished with it in first, second, and third grades with there being six more weeks in the semester, he wants me to think of warm up games to play every day for the first 10-15 minutes of class.  Last semester when he asked for warm up game ideas, he ALWAYS wanted me to play hot potato.  At first the kids liked that game, but halfway through the semester I saw their looks of dread whenever they saw me carrying the “hot potato” ball into class.  This semester Mr. Fujiwara has given me free reign on warm up games, and I have been ROCKING it.  I don’t want to toot my own horn, but BEEP!  BEEP!  There have been a few times when I just couldn’t explain the instructions to games or something was too difficult for the kids to understand, but I feel like sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes.  Now I make the directions extremely simple and demonstrate or gesture when possible.  Usually most of the kids understand what I say after I explain it twice, and I’ve actually been having a good time planning and playing some of these games because kids get SO COMPETITIVE…..especially with the group work games.  Whenever I pin one group against the rest, they are DETERMINED to be number one, and suddenly they forget that they’re actually learning and not just playing a game.  Teaching = success!!   

Yesterday was my elementary day, and as usual it was a welcome break from JHS.    I love elementary kids’ enthusiasm!  Plus, for the most part they are genuinely excited to see me!  I have noticed that a few of my sixth graders have started making fun of things after I say it, but those are my sixth graders.  I’m not a fan of that class…..  However, more on them later!  Kids at elementary school aren’t required to wear a uniform yet, so anytime that I’m at the elementary school I’m on the prowl for funny Engrish shirts.  They most certainly aren’t difficult to find!  Yesterday’s best shirt came from a second grader and said:

Indiana: change

Missouri: show me state of gasoline

I don’t care how much Engrish I see, it won’t stop surprising me.  Just when I think I’ve seen the worst something like this happens, and my brain hurts.  The thing is that the shirt was almost….ALMOST correct.  I can overlook the “Indiana: change” part.  That’s just…..whatever, but the “Missouri: show me state of gasoline” part kills me.  Missouri is the “show me” state, so they ALMOST got that part right, but then the shirt maker had to go and tag “gasoline” onto the very end, and I’m right back to square one of being utterly confused.    Oh, Engrish!

Now….back to my sixth graders.  Like I said, I normally hate that class.  I don’t hate them all, but there are certain kids in that class that I want to drop kick, and they completely ruin the class for me.  I dread going to that class every week for that reason.  Yesterday was the BEST sixth grade class period I think that I ever had.  Since we’re nearing the end of the textbook, my sixth grade teacher suggested having a review day, so we did.  He introduced this new and fun game that the kids absolutely LOVED.  We played it for almost the entire class period.  It goes something like this: the first person in each row stands up, and I say a word in English.  The first person to shout out the correct translation in Japanese can sit down and allow the next person in his/her row to stand up.  The object of the game is to finish your row first.  The kids went WILD for this game, got SUPER competitive, and wanted to play again and again and AGAIN.  It was incredible to see the kids actually EXCITED about learning English.     Usually that class is like a bump on a log and could care less about English class.     

Alright.  That’s all for now, fellow blog readers.  I’ll write again soon!