We shall start off the day with a Kindie class. I joined forces last minute with fellow teacher, Gina. We followed pretty much the same plan as the last two days but instead of making a spider we just coloured a witch. Her kids were all into things and having a good time. Masahiro, of germ factory fame, was all into things as he always is. At one point he went parading around the room singing a Japanese song while dancing with a box of crayons. This is why I can't stay mad at him for being the provider of all that is snot. Another girl, Ami, is the one who had the break down last week. She didn't participate in anything today. When we made ghosts she stood there with tears in her eyes holding onto the tissues to make the ghosts. I told her she could do it, "Here, do it like this" and I showed her. She just shook her head and welled up more. Poor dear. I still made her do a bit of it cause I don't believe in codling kids but there's something very sad about this little girl. Colouring was also an issue, so she just sat on my lap and cried and I held her. Terribly sad.
Next class were my super stars. It's a class of six girls between 8 and 12. They're on a fast track through the text and the previous teacher didn't know that. It was a fast speed to begin with, but now that we're like 15 pages behind, we're having to go at break neck speeds. They're handling it well so far. I feel like I've really bonded with the whole class. It was great to play some games with them today and just have fun with no school work. We joined classes with LeeAnne so we had 13 kids all together. It really was a party. It's tough having a "party" when you've only got 2 kids. You can do the same things and they still don't feel like party games with only a few people. We pitted our classes against each other. My class had one less person so I got to join in and be the 7th person on the team. We did the ghost toss into baskets. My class rocked it. We won like 11 to 7 or 8. We smoked LeeAnne's class. Next was the ghost race. We got beaten pretty good. I unfortunately annihilated the kid that I was competing against. I have good diaphragm control. It's the singing. And I've been doing these games all week, plus trying them out before the Hallowe'en classes started to make sure that the games would all work. I blew once and my ghost was half way down the table. I would've felt bad if my win had made a difference, but we were so behind that it didn't matter and everyone thought it was really funny. We did Trick or Treating with LeeAnne hiding in the kitchen. We had a FABULOUS toilet paper race. It was intense and awesome. We had a narrow win. We di the blindfold the teacher and give them directions thing. And we did some Pictionary. I was so proud to see some of the quieter kids in my class, Yuzuki in particular, speak up and get the answer right. LeeAnne's class tied us on the Pictionary. So in all we had an even number of events that the classes had won. It was kinda lame to have an actual tie cause it's what all lame teachers try to do...have a tie so that no one feels bad. But it was a legitimate tie. It was a really great time.
The last kids class we also joined with LeeAnne. It was pretty funny cause she has like 7 students who are all interactive and into things. I have three students who are the Bringers of Death. It was really funny to see them all come together for one big class party. Case in point. All of LeeAnne's students brought costumes or put on costumes once they got to the school. Mine, shorts and t-shirts. We could barely convince them to put on masks that we had at the school. One kid, Ayato, a boy, went so far as to refuse candy by refusing to put on a mask. We were joking saying "Oh, no costume, no candy", with full intention of giving him candy. He was like, [shrug] "Okay", and walked away. I gave him the treat bag anyway but he wouldn't take it. They're so funny. We tried to do things in teams as classes but with the discrepancy in numbers it was just too hard so we had them do it in split teams. Things went relatively well. We changed the blindfold the teacher thing to blindfold one of the team members to put the face on the pumpkin. We also did a make a monster game where you roll the dice and each number gives you the body part to draw. It seemed like they had fun. Today they were actually not to bad. They talked a lot amongst themselves but Misako only told me "No" once when I asked her to do something, and I saw her smile on several occasions throughout the class. It was funny that after class I apologized to LeeAnne for bringing the Bringers of Death in with her great kids, and LeeAnne was like, "I'm glad I don't have your kids every week, they're something else". I thought they were good today.
My last class is an Adult class that I adore. They're all really talkative and interactive and interested to learn. I had a good time giving the girls sparkle stars for their eyes like mine, and then I had to give some to Yoji as well. He's a middle aged man, and a really great sport. We talked about appropriate topics of conversation in Small Talk. It was a great time. I love that they talk and we have real conversations and I give them English info as we go along. The hour flies by. I wish all my adult classes could be like that. Normally I'm watching the clock as the minute hands go about as slowly as the hourly hands should.
Gina and I decided to keep on the costumes for the train ride home. Call it an experiment in staring. I had already taken off my wings, but I put on my tiara and she kept her cat face paint on. We're used to getting looked at, but tonight the looks were a little more prolonged and there were more stifled giggles from some of the female riders. One lady watched us, like blatantly stared, for the entire ride on one of the trains (we take two to get home from Nishi-Shiroi, it's up in the boondocks). At one of the stations this man got off the car in front of us and then walked by the window in front of us, he stared at us as he walked by, Gina smiled at him and he got all flustered and put his head down and walked faster. It was funny. We're the crazy foreigners. If you saw some foreigners on public transit (I know this is a reach for Dad, seeing that he's so well versed in the ways of public transit) dressed up in costumes, would you stare? I would look, smile to myself cause they look silly and carry on with my life. I don't understand people who stare. But then, that's what we were going for.
