I have really gotten used to my classes on Saturdays. This is a very good thing as I used to hate this day. I was hoping to get into the school early today to get some extra paper work done (like Parent's Day plans, they're a LOAD), but then things didn't really go as I had planned. I was going to get up at 7:30. I had the alarm set and everything. It went off as planned, I pressed snooze once, then I was going to get up. I found myself aboard the Millenium Falcon. I think that Darth has invaded my neighbourhood. Even if I could sleep with the windows shut (which it's already too warm to do..this summer is going to be very difficult), the windows do nothing to keep out the sounds from the 3, count them 3, schools that are all within .5-3 blocks of my house, and so I was brought back into the dream world by sounds of the Star Wars theme. My reaction when I am annoyed upon waking is not as many would suspect. I am not so inspired by my wrath, as many who have witnessed the disturbance of my sleep in Tilikum at night, to the fight response in the morning. I am much more inclined towards the flight instinct when disturbed in the morning. And when one is waking from the dream state into reality, where else would one "flight" to, but back into the dream world when so assaulted by the real world. And so this morning, I was lulled back to sleep, with my alarm now off, by that great work of John Williams. Da da dadada daaa daa dadada daa daa da da da duhn.
At 8:50, I looked at the clock after coming back into this world from a very odd dream world where I was on a special opps team and one of my fellow team members was a very large, very manly, man...though pregnant and out of breath as the two of us had to escape some sort of evil...in a mall...and make it back into the elevator to rejoin our group, um, yeah, about that...and then bolted up and out in the kitchen, about two steps. You would think that being an hour and a bit late, I would be able to at least make up a bit of time. Maybe even stay at an hour late. But no. I had made it onto the train by 9:25 (a miracle in and of itself, I actually made it to the station on my bike in about 7 minutes, breaking all current land speed records set on a mama-chariot) and I was about a minute from the station where I transfer when I realized that the keys to Kita were in my bra. I removed them from their hiding place (yes, I store all sorts of things in there, not just the usual contents that you would expect to find in a bra) and then thought, "Keys. These are keys. These are keys to Kita school. One needs keys to enter our schools. I am going to Makuhari where no one else will be for about another two hours. I need keys to enter our schools. I need keys to get into Makuhari, where no one else will be for about another two hours. Hmmm. I will put these keys, the only keys have on me at the moment, in my bag and not in my bra. Hmmm." Yes, it really did take me this long to process the previous information and to come to the mind boggling conclusion of "I FORGOT MY KEYS!!!!!!"
I would like to point out, at this time, a fact about taking the train in Japan as a foreigner. Most Japanese are not used to being in close proximal distance to real foreigners, so when they are in the presence of a foreigner they tend to watch them out of the corner of the eye. What this means for many foreigners is that you are constantly being watched. On trains around and in & out of Tokyo, people don't really care and this isn't much of an issue. But when you're on a train in the middle of burbia where people don't get out much...well, I get watched a lot. And so as I'm realizing that I can't find my keys, I'm searching everything, my bag, my pockets, my bra (just to make sure there's not more in there)...all the while, being watched serepticiously. I had to stay on the train and make it back to the station and get my card rescanned, like a total dork, by the station guy who couldn't figure out where I was trying to go if I was coming out of the gates that I had just scanned my card "in" at. I kept telling him that I wanted to come "here" "here" and he, not believing me, kept asking me where I was trying to go. I rode my bike all the way back home, ran in the door, grabbed the keys sitting directly beside my door, ran back out, and back onto the train, all within 20 minutes. I was faster than Speedy Gonzales. I liked that cartoon. That was a good cartoon. I eventually made it to the school, like two hours later than I had hoped to be, so although I didn't get any of the extra work done, I thankfully had enough time to do the planning for the day.
That was my morning till noon. I then had a run in with the counter boy at Matsuri. Don't ask. It's too long to explain and I'm still confused. I don't actually know what the issue was even still, and it's not the first time that it's happened after ordering the same take out order before. All I know is that I order something and put the money in the machine, and then the counter person comes back and says a bunch of stuff that sounds like Japanese to me and the only word I can understand is "oki" which means 'big' and then they end up taking more of my money. Whatever. Just give me my rice and raw egg.
Then I started my day of 6 classes, all pretty much in a row. Today in class, I almost cried. Now, before you get all pitying on me and start drafting an encouraging email in your mind to send to me, and some flowers, and maybe a nice little note in the poste, I almost cried because I was laughing so hard. I have this fabulous (read: crazy) class of primary kids. At first they were a little much for me, but now that I know the kids I find that I'm much more lenient when they go a little nuts because they do try hard at times. I had only 2 of the boys today because most of the other schools in the area had Sports Day today (a Saturday, try pulling that one off in North America..no way that would ever fly), hence the Star Wars theme music of my morning, and the other 2 students were absent. I love these boys. Understand that I really do enjoy teaching them. One boy is one of my favourites of all the kids that I teach. His name is Kenichi and he loves the Mariners. He was born in Seattle while his father was posted there for work, but they moved back to Japan when he was like a year. He loves Seattle, although he hasn't been there in years, he still loves the idea of Seattle. As do I. He's a bright kid, he just doesn't concentrate. I love when he really wants to know how to say something in English, because he likes English, because that's what they speak in Seattle, and I can see it on his face that he's really trying to take in what I'm saying. He baked me cookies once. I love Kenichi. That class spoke so much English when I first took it over that I had to implement the "No English Challenge" o-meter, where if they spoke too much Japanese then the wouldn't get their English Challenge stamp for the day (collect enough stamps and you can "buy" a little trinket at the school). This is a big thing for them. The EC stamp is cold hard currency in their world. I intended to do the o-meter for a couple of classes then the use of only English would go up and then we're cool. Kenichi comes into the class now and grabs a whiteboard marker and draws the NoEC-o-meter himself. He even tells on himself when he has whispered something to a friend in Japanese, something I would be willing to overlook every now and again, but not him. He's a fanatic. So I had Kenichi today, and this other kid Ryo, who is pretty funny but gets too violent for my taste and just a little bit overboard. I don't mind when the kids want to run around and blow off some steam, it's fun. But when there's a kid who if you give them a foot then they get completely out of control, then I try to keep them on a shorter leash. Ryo is one of those kids. I like him, but he kicks or punches the wall just a few too many times, over nothing, for my taste. So these two come in and the other teacher at the school decides to play a joke on them and go into the class as if he's going to teach them (he's a GIANT guy and often freaks kids out, but they love him for it) and chases them around the class once. It was great fun. They've never been happier to see me. And that set the tone of the day. I started by talking to them about the weather and whatever (T: "What day is it today?" S:"Today is Saturday" T:"How's the weather?" S:"It's sunny, cloudy and hot" Read: overcast and humid). Then they noticed the flashcards from the previous class. I think, 'Hey, perfect time to do some new vocab that will be coming up soon, just a little preview'. "What's this do you think? Hmm" quizzical looks from both, "He's walking to school" "He walk to school" "Yeah, he's walking to school, good" "What about this?" "Aaaaaah" It's a cartoon for 'take a shower' but it's a lady so the boys usually get all funny about it. "Oooooh, that's right, she's taking a shower, tee hee" As Kenichi covers his gaping mouth and his eyes bug out, and Ryo kicks the wall. At this point I start giggling to myself. Then comes a man buttoning up his shirt (let's not take these two pictures in sequence, I have enough childish behaviour to deal with in a day, I don't need it from more adults than I already deal with) "What's he doing?" Kenichi: "Dressed, he dressed" "That's right, he's getting dressed" at which point they repeat and then start to show me 'get dressed'. I start saying "please don’t take your clothes off in the middle of class", but I'm giggling too much to really be that stern about it. They think this is hilarious as I say "Kenichi, keep your shirt on, Ryo, pull your shirt back down", but all was for naught. I lowered my eyes for a moment to try and regain my composure and set them straight. I looked up and there was Ryo in the middle of the classroom pulling his shirt right over his head and swinging his shirt away like some sort of pudgy, 9 year old, prima-donna chip and dale's. "Ryo don't!" and then he stands in the middle of the room in his pants and a wife beater flexing his arms and doing deep lunges like a chunky Japanese Herculean demigod. Think deep lunges. I am now on the verge of tears and really completely beyond any poise or self-control as I'm just trying not to completely laugh out loud. As I sat there, shaking and fanning my face with the flashcards, he eventually stopped and put his shirt back on and returned to his seat. I do believe that class was one of the greatest moments I will have teaching, from Kenichi telling on himself when he spoke Japanese, to the look their faces when they realized it was a girl in the shower, to Ryo's Arnold-esque theatrics, to them calling me a grandmother, and then when that got the desired reaction I became the grandmother of everything in the room, especially the rubber rat that sits up on the window ledge. There was great delight over that one. Makes ending up with 7, yes, not 6, but 7, classes today bareable. And hey, even if I can never have kids, I can take solace in knowing that I'm the grandmother of a rubber rat in Japan.
