Greetings all.
I love ES days for so many reasons….one of them being that there is never a dull moment! A kid will do something that makes me giggle, my vice principal will strike up a conversation with me, I get to play with kids all day, and in general the mood at my ES is much more happier and fun than at the JHS. This past Wednesday was an exceptionally good day, and I have plenty of funny stories from it:
In fifth grade, the kids are wrapping up the last lesson in the book, food. Items like orange juice, milk, green tea, fruits, hamburger steak, rice, sushi, natto, french fries, pizza, spaghetti, bread, salad, miso soup, hot dog, hamburger, cake, parfait, yogurt, cheese, pudding, fried chicken, curry and rice, soup, and ice cream are some of the words from that lesson. One of the games that we played in class on Wednesday was to make a “healthy lunch”. Each of the kids has a deck of mini-cards with pictures of the food on it. They had to say, “_____, ______, _____, and _____. This is my lunch. It is healthy.” My fifth grade teacher did an example to show the kids. She asked what was healthy to eat for lunch. No surprise that the first response was RICE. Then they came up with a few other things. The kids had five minutes to flip through their cards and choose a couple of things to have for lunch. As I walked up and down the rows looking to see what the kids selected, I was surprised to see the same few cards for each student’s healthy menu: only Japanese foods. Almost every kid had some sort of combination of miso soup, rice, sushi, green tea, and natto. (One girl had ice cream, parfait, and pudding for her healthy menu. A girl after my own heart!!) It was as if Japanese food was the only healthy selection. To be fair, the foreign food in that lesson, things like hamburger, french fries, fried chicken, and spaghetti aren’t exactly the epitome of healthy foreign food…… Even without that, they by-and-large only chose the Japanese foods. Milk, fruit, yogurt, and salad are international healthy foods, but it was as if ONLY the Japanese foods could be healthy.
Since it had rained all night before, the ground was too slippery and muddy to go outside and play for recess. Did that stop us from playing? Heck no! We just had to do it inside. I played with my third graders, and they taught me a new game that was kind of like hide-and-go-seek. Two people had to wait outside of the room while the rest of the participants hid. I very quickly learned that there are only so many places to hide in a storage room. There were a few cardboard boxes and paper signs that were big enough for the kids to hide behind, but the big ole foreigner had to get creative. During the first game, I hid in the locker that has all of the brooms, rags, and dust pans used during cleaning time. It took them a good minute to find me in there!! During the second round I laid flat on the ground next to the window and covered myself with a curtain that had fallen down. All of the other kids called me “Melissa goes-toe.” When the kid who was it got close to me, I jumped up, and I’m pretty sure that I scared him half to death! Ha, ha, ha!
After lunch I had my first graders. Good gosh. I love my first graders, but sometimes they can be very, very, VERY hyper. After all….they are only seven years old! When I have class with them during the morning, it can get a little crazy just because they are so excited to see me. However, having a class with them right after lunch and recess is RIDICULOUS. SO. MUCH. SCREAMING. It’s not like they were bad kids or the teacher didn’t care. They were just wilder than bucks on Wednesday. We went over body parts, and I was having to literally SCREAM the words to them over the noise they were making. “EARS!” “MOUTH!” “TOES!” “HEAD!” We played fruits basket, which turned out to be a very, very wrong thing to do when kids are that hyper. They ended up piling on top of one another on the floor before both the teacher and I started yelling at them. Then two of the boys tried to sit down in the same chair. Instead of solving the problem with a peaceful round of janken (rock, paper, scissors), one of the boys started hitting the other one. He was throwing decent punches until the teacher yanked the two apart. While I couldn’t understand exactly what she said, I pretty much knew that she was telling them that they were bad boys and game time was over. Luckily that was right at the end of class, so we moved the chairs back, reviewed the words once more, and I went back to the teacher’s room to enjoy the quiet. After that class, my ears were ringing. No joke!
Both my vice principal and the teacher who sits next to me at the ES are big movie buffs. I’m not sure what initiated the conversation, but we started talking about movies, the Oscars, our favorite actors/actresses, etc. It was one of the most enjoyable conversations that I’ve had with teachers! I asked if they had seen the movies that got a lot of Oscar buzz—movies like Django Unchained or Les Mis. Neither of them said yes, so I told them that Django Unchained was amazing. The teacher asked how I saw the movie because it didn’t open in Japan until March 1st. Ummmmmm……. I said that I watched it online. That’s all I had to say, and he pretty much understood. He was like, “Ah. I see.” We both agreed that musicals are dumb, so there was no need for either of us to EVER see Les Mis. I told them that Jennifer Lawrence was born in Kentucky, and they were amazed. They asked who else was from Kentucky. I said George Clooney and Johnny Depp. They were in awe. Both started asking more questions about Kentucky and America. The teacher said that he’d like to go to America, but that it was too dangerous because everyone has guns. *sigh* I (once again) had to have the conversation that America is not like Die Hard or Mission Impossible. Yes, people own guns. I told him that my brother, husband, and father all own guns. He said, “See? It’s dangerous.” I had to tell him that just because they owned a gun didn’t mean that they were dangerous or bad people. They just enjoy hunting and ONLY use their weapons for that. America is NOT like the movies. There are not random gun fights, explosions, or high speed chases on the expressway every day. He said, “Yes, but in the movies it is like that, so I think America is like that. If it is not, why is it like that in the movies?” ENTERTAINMENT! Nothing is entertaining about normal people going to their normal jobs on normal days of the week, so Hollywood dresses it up. I think I FINALLY convinced him that America is not one big gun fight because he said that he’d like to visit one day after he gets his passport.
The weather the past couple of days has been incredible. The highs have been in the upper 50s, and the night is only slightly chilly…..a VERY warm (ha….no pun intended) welcome! I haven’t worn a winter coat to work at all this week, and I’ve stopped wearing my long johns. Spring is here, y’all! On Wednesday after work, I went on the most glorious walk around town. It was just nice to get out and enjoy the beautiful warm weather. Yesterday when I got off of work, I immediately came home, opened up all of my windows, and aired out the house. That was the first time this year. I even washed a load of clothes and allowed the breeze from the window to dry them. I finally closed the winters last night at around 9 PM.
It’s no secret that I’m not a good cook. I try. I really do, but it just doesn’t happen for me. Last night I planned out what to have for dinner. The tofu that we received from the mechanic was still sitting in the refrigerator, and Ian doesn’t like it, so he won’t eat it. I knew that I’d have to use it on a night when Ian worked. I also had a pumpkin that was getting ready to go bad and need to be used. I dumped some rice in the cooker along with a can of tomatoes and fajita seasoning to make Mexican(ish) rice, grilled the pumpkin, and started to sauté the tofu in yakinuki sauce. I tried a bit of the pumpkin once it cooked. The skin was very tough and brittle. I assume that this was because it was old, so I trimmed all of the skin off of the pumpkin. Once the tofu was finished, I tried a bit of it to see if the taste had gone through. As soon as the piece went in my mouth, it came out. I didn’t know it, but it turns out that tofu has a shelf life. Nothing is worse than bad tofu. It tastes like bland and bitter disgustingness. UGH!!! I automatically threw that in the trash. So……..my dinner last night consisted of old pumpkin and Mexican rice…..not the best. :( I suck at cooking and thank the good Lord above that Ian knows how or else we’d be eating more meals like the one above. :(
That’s all for today! Happy Friday to all!
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