A rather splendid day of silliness today. I started with an adult class where only one student showed up. The student who came is a really nice girl, 33 single (so in the Japanese world that means she lives at home still and will until she's married), has a boyfriend who she talks to once a week, and is really quiet. She's usually the hardest one to deal with in the class because, although she's nice, she's terribly quiet and won't contribute to the class unless directly asked a question. Makes it hard to keep a conversation going when it's just me asking her questions. But today was quiet nice, a little stilted at times, but still good.
My little kindies were in full force today. So cute and actually relatively well behaved. This is the class where Rui is usually OOC and Mei & Kana like to talk about and touch my boobs. And Miyu and our newest member Chihiro just stand there looking cute. Rui wasn't OOC, there was no groping and Miyu and Chihiro did their usual looking cute which is their specialty. They loved the ghost race but because of the school I was at today, the tables are really high and wide and so they all ended up on the table to blow the ghosts down to the end. It was madness and not so much of a race as a ghost blowing frenzy but a good time was had by all. I was a little nervous about them up on the table and my nervousness became justified when I turned my back to get the paper and supplies for the craft and I heard a thud. That's an awful sound. At first I was hoping it was just feet hitting the ground, but upon further investigation it was learned that it was actually Mei's face and knee that had made the sound. There were much tears and sobbing so I sat there for about 5 minutes holding the very hot and sweaty child with the other four around me in a semi-circle staring at us trying to console their classmate. It was really sweet. Rui went and grabbed tissues for me (I was impressed that he knew what I was asking for on my try) and said "Daijobu Mei", which is essentially "There, there Mei". Or at least that's the best interpretation in this case. It's not a literal translation. The demon child was so cute. He's getting better. So then we had the craft which I was inspired to change up a bit. Instead of tracing our hands I made legs of folded black construction paper and we taped them to a black circle that we cut out, then made a spider web on orange paper like the original plan that I did for the rest of this week and then glued the spider to the web. It looked waaaay better than the ones we made over the last three days. Their legs are all sprong-y and fun. Then we did some Trick or Treating and that was all we had time for in the class, what with the tears and all.
Then I had another trial lesson that I think was the best I've had since arriving here. She was a really nice woman. I asked her if she was nervous and she said she was really nervous because I was the first foreigner she has ever spoken to. Can you imagine? Never in your life have you run into someone at the grocery store who is not of the same ethnic background as you. Never have you had a cabbie from another country. Never run into someone in the school halls in University (or College for the Americans) who is student from abroad. She may have seen one or two foreigners from afar, but she has never spoken to a foreigner in her life. That blows me away. I told her that I was nice and that there was nothing to be nervous about. She said that she had heard yesterday from "young people" (I'm not sure what that means) that I was nice. I think the receptionist yesterday, Mika, told her that I was nice and maybe someone who was around (like another teacher) agreed with her. That's the general gist that I got from her. But I was touched that someone told her that I was nice. Ah, how easily they are all fooled. She was a really interesting lady and even though her English totally sucked she totally talked and tried to communicate with me. Fascinating how people differ. Here's a lady who has no experience in trying to achieve real communication in another language that she hasn't taken a class in since High School (she's like my mum's age, her daughters are 21 and 25) and she's doing better at interacting than most people who take classes from us. It's interesting to me how people differ in their language use and how they engage those around them. Interesting.
The next Hallowe'en goodness class Carrie and I decided to combine last minute. She has this horrendous class of Jr High kids, half of whom I've had make up classes in my former Wednesday classes on my former schedule, and I have my most wonderful amazing kids. It was funny to mix the class. Like, the complete opposite of the situation for me yesterday. Neither class wanted a Hallowe'en party, but damn it, our kids were going to have some fun and be silly if it killed Carrie and I and them along with us. We made them put on silly hats and I got out my star glitter, there was much screaming. You'd think we'd gotten them with fire hot pokers or cattle brands, but no, it was sparkly stars. We made them make ghosts and we did boys against girls ghost races. Some of them were too cool and didn't even try and just watched the other person beat them. Too funny. Then we made them Trick or Treat. It's amazing how difficult some teenagers can make it to give away candy. Then we watched some Simpson's Hallowe'en, which her kids liked because they wanted to sleep. My Yuichi was bored cause he wanted to get into English class to learn English. He loves English. I was hoping to get some photos, but my camera died during my kindie class.
My last class is my fabulous Returnees. One of the girls in the previous class is one of my Returnee's sister. I made her put on sparkly stars, so I told her that I would do the same to her brother. So of course, as the classes were switching, teenagers Takuya was sitting in the waiting area and she was finishing up at the reception desk, so I attacked him with the sparkly stars so that she could see. She giggled, a lot. He tried to get away, but I got him. It was a good time. He eventually forgot about them and left the school with three small sparkly stars at the corner of one eye. I'm sure he rode the train like that and didn't notice till he got home. That's the end of the Hallowe'en fun for today.
I went out for dinner after work at the 13 Palms with Taeko, Masanobu and Carrie. It was nice to get out and chat and I always like hanging with Carrie. I was tired though and I had had enough of talking so Carrie and I headed out just after 10. It was a really nice time.
