Call me crazy, but I have a wild hair. I thought that next summer Ian and I could take a motorcycle trip out west. We have all of these friends who live out west now, and it would be great to see them again. I pitched the idea to Ian, and he immediately agreed. He started planning our stops in South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore, Seattle, San Fran, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and a few other stops. We only have about two weeks of wiggle room, so I’m not completely sure how much of that is physically possible, but I think it’s a great idea! Being on the bike would require us to travel EXTREMELY light, and I think it would be fun to live on the road for a bit. Plus, neither of us have seen the west (outside of our honeymoon trip to Washington). While I’m not already planning out our stops like Ian, I am excited for the possibility of this. It really depends on a couple of factors…….so we’ll see how it goes!
And speaking of Mr. Reed, we’re both excited to announce that he found a full time job! Woo-hoo!!! He’ll be going back to the winery in Paducah, which is excellent on all accounts. Not only is it full time, but he knows the owners. He loves working for them, and they (for whatever reason, ha, ha, ha!) love him. They know that he is going back to school, so his working hours can easily incorporate his school hours. We honestly couldn’t be happier about this situation!! Woo-hoo!
For me it’s so weird to think how only just a month ago I was hating things here and ready to leave. I hated going to class, I hated the kids, I hated the racist things kids would say, and I was just ready to go. I’m not sure if it’s because my time is coming to a close or what, but for the past several weeks, I’ve been loving my kids…..even the ones who I dislike! It seems like lunch room conversations have been great, at break kids have been coming up to me in the library, and the little meanie-weenie kids haven’t been bothering me as much. It’s times like these when I wonder why the heck I’m not staying for a third year!!
During break time, I’ve been going up to the library and working on goodbye presents, paper necklaces for my eikaiwa kiddies. I know it sounds weird, but the way you roll the paper, the necklaces don’t look like paper but rather textured beads. It’s actually pretty cool. Everyday kids come over to me and ask what I’m working on. When I show them, they think it’s the coolest thing that I take paper and make it into necklaces. When I offer for them to try it, nine times out of ten, they do it. Since it is a time consuming process, and it takes about forty beads to make one necklace, I don’t mind their help at all! It’s been pretty funny to see who will help….I’ve had both girls AND boys come over and want to roll up some beads. They’ll work on them for the entire break time, which leads to great conversations! Plus, I wore my paper bead necklace the other day. I didn’t even think about it, but one of my 2-nen boys immediately recognized what it was as soon as I walked in the door and said something like, “You finished it! That’s so cool!” For the rest of the class period, I heard whispers about Melissa-sensei’s cool paper necklace.
A few weeks ago, one of my JHS boys asked me, “How are you?” I told him, “I’m happy! It’s Friday!” He said, “No. You are already dead,” and walked away laughing. I had to pick my jaw up off the ground after that. Had I just received a death threat……? I was confused about where he learned that. (However, kids learn A LOT from TV and movies and will pick up on these phrases. For example, Obama’s “Yes, we can!” phrase was all the rage when I first got here.) It took me a couple of weeks to figure it out. The same student approached me again in the library one day and asked me the same question. I had forgotten our previous encounter and fell for the line again. Once he saw the horrified look on my face, he said, “Joke…..Japanese…..comedian.” Apparently it is the punch line of some comedian’s joke. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH. That now makes a LOT more sense now…kind of.
Anyway, that’s all for now. We had a wonderful, wonderful weekend in beautiful Amakusa (the islands of Kumamoto) this past weekend, so I still need to blog about that. I’ll write another blog tomorrow!!
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