53 on the JLPT.

Oh well.

...I don't even remember what I got last year. Is that better or worse? ^^;;

Had my last classes with my Kawashimo sixth graders today, who were some of the most amazing, smart, lovely classes I've taught in my four years here. Managed to only cry in two of the three, and hopefully not TOO noticeably. One of the teachers took many, many pictures at the end with my kids being uberdorks, which I asked him to send to me and hopefully he'll remember. I was kind of half-laughing half-crying for most of them, so they're going to be some very strange pictures, I think. But I still want them.

The other class I cried in gave me a book of messages, which is not uncommon. I have many of them. But, still...each year I'm more and more attached to the kids, which means the effect the things have on me grows each time. I just sat in the teacher's room and sniffled while reading them all this year. I think some of them might have actually meant their little notes about how my classes were always fun and they learned a lot. I think my favorite one (and I do hope the kid is proved wrong and his JHS English experience is absolutely amazing) was, approximately translated, "before you started teaching me, I was very stressed and worried about learning English. But you are very kind. I had a lot of fun in your classes and learned a lot. Now that I'm becoming a JH student, though, I'm worried about English again."

There was also the rather adorable one that said because she watched my Japanese get better over three years, that motivated her to learn English. So take that, fucking JTEs/BoEs who say that it's bad for the ALTs to learn Japanese! ^^;

Current Mood: melancholy

Do Japanese third graders really have entire class periods on morality?
Because I was reading the daily schedule on the blackboard yesterday and I
swear that's what was written in for fifth period.

I mean...how much can you teach a child of eight about morality? Unless
America and Japan are very different, I seem to recall that about that age
it was "don't steal", "don't hurt others" end of story. Wasn't until high
school that you got into the fun things like "George and Bob are leaving
down, and need money badly. George steals breaks into a store and steals
$1000 dollars, Bob goes to a nice old man and says he needs money to cover
hospital bills. Which action was worse?". And then, of course, college and
the goddamn trains. -_-

Various people have (for some inexplicable reason ^^; ) asked me to share activities I do with my students in the non-scripted classes, ie the ones where I'm still coming up with my own things. Since work and pretty much nothing else is weighing heavily on my mind right now, I figured this would be a good time to do that. I assure you I have not forgotten about finishing the Korea report. Indeed, I just wrote one out by hand for my grandmother, who has no computer, is completely hopeless with such technology and hates digital photos (...she's still getting digital photos. They're just printed at high quality on high-gloss 4x6 photo paper, so I'm hoping she won't notice). I don't seem to have forgotten anything particularly important.

( here you learn just how boring I actually am )

Current Mood: apathetic

Well, taking a page from corellianrogue's book, I shall do this in pieces, or you shall be reading boring text and looking at boring pictures for a year.

So, without further ado, Krill's adventures in Korea.

( Departure and stop 1: Pusan )

Current Mood: moody

#124+/- : Winters in Japan, when you can get strawberry-flavored EVERYTHING.
Some better than others, but the good ones are good

Still don't know why strawberry is considered a winter flavored here, but
they make damn good strawberry pudding, and their strawberry soda is really
damn good, much less disgustingly sweet than the American type.

Pies, puddings, pocky, pastries...all strawberry. Yum.

And, yet another strange food from Japan, we have "sweet and dry" ginger ale made by Suntory.

Which, for some reason, requires sexualization. "LOVE MODE" ginger ale. I'm sure everyone can appreciate the value of bright pink soda dressed in a corset. And, of course, the BL fans watching this can get a bit more amusement:

Front:


Back:

Current Mood: blank

In the exact opposite vein as the previous post (and sorry to do two in such short notice), have I ever mentioned that I have lovely, amazing kids, who are entirely beautiful and gorgeous in the personality sense?

Today was KS 6nen, who are entirely awesome as a group, and includes one of the best senseis I have on top of it. As a result, it's generally a fun experience.

Today's lesson included having the kids draw various activities in their textbooks, as preparation for the next lesson, where they'll do self-introductions using the book, with things they can and can't do.

The following list is some of the gems:

( A lovely list under here )

Honestly. I have some of the greatest kids ever.

Current Mood: impressed

Oh dear. Since last month, I knew I was going to be part of an observation class on January 19th involving people from Tokyo. That was a bit confusing, but for the most part I figure it's for the best if I just act the same in demo lessons as I do in normal ones. The kids and teachers are used to me, so it just makes sense to do that. I saw no reason to do differently here.

Today, I learned the details of that lesson.

100 people from schools around Yamaguchi prefecture. Teachers, mostly. That's a scarily huge amount but, again, I see no reason not to act normal. HOWEVER...the head of education in Yamaguchi prefecture, and a delegation from the NATIONAL head of education in Tokyo.

This is...really damn scary. Why the hell did they decide to come to my little school in Yamaguchi prefecture? I'm kind of terrified.

And it's two months away. I'll be a wreak on the week of. oO;

xposted

Current Mood: scared

First off, Marifu looks like a war zone today. More than half the students
and probably 3/4s of the teachers are masked. I've also been given hardcore
virus-killing chemicals to use in the English classroom. Maybe we can
mutate them!

Secondly, I have the silly story of silliness to tell.

See, the current lesson we're teaching revolves around "I have" (and is
mostly filled with really stupid activities), the vocab being colors and
clothing. At one point, the computer program has two people that are kind of
like paper dolls, which you can dress up in clothing of different colors.
Things such as skirts, sweaters, t-shirts, and socks.

Thing is, I discovered that you can put the boy in the skirt if you want.
This highly entertained me, as well as getting the kids to pay attention.
Because cross-dressing is hilarious. Also, at the time, my senseis and I
were role-playing as the two paper dolls. If the HRT was female, I would
take the boy, and if the HRT was a guy, well, I would take the girl. So, I'm
teaching away, and end up with a guy teacher, who is one of the more fun
ones to teach with. Not the best at team teaching, but really great with the
kids, and so they tend to pay attention, making them one of the classes that
learns the information the best. So I plop him in the skirt, and after he
blushes and the kids laugh their asses off, he comes up with "Oh, yes! I'm
not actually Japanese right now. I'm Scottish. They wear things like skirts"

My respect for him increased ten-fold in that moment.

Then, later, we were singing a chant. We had quite a bit of extra time, so I
decided to make a competition by splitting the class in half and seeing
which one could sing the loudest. So the first half stands up and sings.
Then the second, and now they know what's going on. The group is about 15
kids, and my Scottish sensei comes up with "and I want to hear you harmonize
too, because you look like Exile. If you don't
feel like doodling off to the Wiki link, Exile is a Japanese vocal group
with 14 members, thereby going for the idea of "if you get enough members,
you have at least one that will appeal to each person in the world". Like Korea's Super
Junior, except many of the members of Exile can actually sing, and pretty
well, too. They're the top-selling group in Japan. But that's all beside the
point. Just the fact that my sensei came up with this, and told the kids
that they should harmonize because of it, is incredibly amazing.

Man, I love my senseis that have fun with their kids. I say as I go to
teach with the goddamn one that makes them cry

Wow. So, today I ate lunch with the ninensei at Kawashimo. That was all well and good, and was neither exciting nor unexciting.

However, as I was walking back down to the teacher's room, one of the girls followed me. Tiny little thing, one of the smallest in her class and very adorable.

Except...halfway down the staircase between the second and first floors, she did the full-on "fuck you" gesture (whole forearm thrust with arms crossed, and middle finger) and said it quite loudly. I told her that was bad, which she found hilarious, and promptly chased me down the hall doing it again, and again, and again. A veritable little broken record of fuck yous and lewd gestures, performed by a child who barely came up to my waist.

I'm really curious what she was imitating, though. I mean, just the finger or the words would be one thing. But the arm gesture is quite a lot more rare and shows up in...more extreme...entertainment. So. Yep. Mysterious. and hilarious

Current Mood: blah

Well, I promised an explanation. This really doesn't belong here since it's supposed to be a blog about interesting things, not me wanting to strangle my senseis. But...eh. Sorry?

Anyway, I have one class at Marifu which is kind of hell to teach. Getting the kids to say anything is generally torture, and it takes the power of two draft horses and every bit of supportive "mistakes are ok" attitude I have to get them to say something above a whisper, if they'll say anything at all. I always come out of that class utterly exhausted.

The problem...this guy is actually one of the most motivated about teaching the kids English. And the most stressed about them doing badly, I think. He yells at them constantly, insisting that they get it exactly right. Hell, he tells them to do it differently even when I think they're doing quite well. Heck, he makes them say it differently AFTER I've told them they've got it right. Um...this is terribly arrogant of me to say, but you'd think I might know when the pronunciation is ok, seeing as I am a native speaker of the goddamn language these kids are learning.

Anyway, today...in insisting that his kids get every fucking thing right, he proceeded to make two girls who were trying their goddamn best start crying, just because he didn't think it was good enough. Or loud enough. Their pronunciation was perfect. At least I could HEAR them, which is more than can usually be said in his class (and no wonder. They're terrified of getting it wrong. Or right.). Hate. So much hate. These poor kids are being conditioned to hate English when they've got at least six more years of it staring them in the face. I want to punch the guy so bad right now. Rage.

On a more amusing note, I do love trying to teach my kids "dress". Entire classes manage to be under duress. Why on Earth this damn book doesn't include a lesson on phonics (or articles/particles/plurals. You can't really do like/have without those) I do not know. It is frustrating. Oh, and my senseis were discussing what to put on the walls to decorate the English room a bit more, coming up with "Happy", "Smile" and a few others. They wanted the equivalent of ganbatte, so I convinced them to put "Fight". Because despite the use in similar situations, I stand firmly by my opinion that "good luck" is in no way a good translation. And that it would be quite disheartening to have a giant "good luck!" on the wall of my classroom. Might as well use "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". So, yup. "Fight!" it is. ^^;

Current Mood: discontent

Every year since I got here, my ichinensei have come up with their own specific torture for that year. The first year it was kancho-ing, and I spent my first nine months here wondering if I was going to live out my entire Japanese life like the gentleman from Gaijin Smash. Except I had ichinensei elementary school students, and they missed more often than not. I had bruises on my hips a few times from their attempts when they were overzealous. Occasionally they got my knees, which was amusing. My ass is not exactly small, so at least hitting the general area seems like it would be possible.

The next year it was taking flying leaps onto my back and clinging like monkeys. Let me tell you, when there are 150 kids all doing that every time you walk down the hall, it's a bit scary. o.O

This year? This year the new gaijin sensei torture is (drumroll please)...

...boob poking.

I have 120 kids (only three classes of ichinensei this year instead of four) who run down the hall, take flying leaps, and poke me in the breasts. I've even had a few actually use a pickpocket-like approach, where one would distract me so one of their friends could poke my squishy mounds.

I live such a weird life.

Current Mood: amused

Tuesday. Interesting day. We're doing an "I like" lesson at Marifu ES right now, and one of the things the kids have trouble with is the fact that they need the "s" sound at the end of the sentence. For liking giraffe is generally frowned upon and all. ^^; As a result, along with many things I had on the blackboard was a large "S" to remind them. This resulted in the following adventure:

Current Mood: confounded

Want.

I can't have. My puppets are already mostly having to stay behind as it is,
but that's just gorgeous.

They've just released a
Hippo and an
great new kitty too. But neither of them hold a candle to the panther.
It's kind of amazing.

Huh. I just saw my first Japanese condom ad ever, and it was on TV. Weird.

Very boring, though. Bunch of people standing there. Still.

Ok, that's the end of the randomness. Please return to your regularly
scheduled programs.

Right. Everyone knows I use files from anime, TV shows, movies and, uh, Tohoshinki to tote things to classes. It reached a new level of silly today. This is what I am carrying in:



Five files. Four fandoms. I am a fangirl, no question.

Current Mood: embarrassed

For once, there was fauna in Motomachi that wasn't a bat, a cicada or a feral cat:




It was this bug, who I found in my stairwell and who was kind of amazing. For one, he had polkadots. Little white polkadots all over his body. They're kind of hard to see in the photo. Secondly, which you can see, are his feelers, which were twice the length of his body. He was cooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

Current Mood: bouncy

That is all. Not much to say, really. It's a dessicated fish corpse with sesame seeds.

Current Mood: distressed

"Sex OK?"

Honestly. How does one respond when asked that by a sixth grader?
They...know what sex means, at least some of them, but I'm not entirely
certain this one did or, if he did, whether he put it together exactly what
he was asking. It was an even more baffling moment than when they give me
the finger and I don't entirely know what to do because I have to tell them
it's inappropriate without being able to actually explain WHY. ^^;