Weekly Digest: week of April 18 to 22nd 2011

Monday

Real work starts today! but urgh… I showed up to school to find a “modified” version of my schedule, telling me to “please add” these two new classes to my B-Week schedule, that – oh – just happen to be on Friday afternoon and bring my daily total to 5 classes. In a row. FML. *sigh* that said, I’m just about to go have my first class with with new 1^st years! Wish me luck!

Maaaaan… I am so dead. I forgot how hard it is to just even stand all day, haha… what a lazy slob I am. well, anyhow, I had class with 1-7 and can’t remember much about it other than Aoshima-sensei was late and I had to kinda improvise for the first 5 minutes, not knowing if he wanted me to teach this class and whatnot… it ended up being ok, and the kiddies were cute, and into it… then I had the sentaku intro class with 3-3, and then 3-6 and it was fun, if slightly boring and I can’t really remember much of that either… I do remember that Hiroko told me she didn’t like English and was bad at it and I looked at her with a big fucking question mark on my face like “huh?! You’re always coming to chat with me and trying so hard to speak English!!” I was really surprised.

On the way back to the staffroom, ran into Minami, who of course started chatting me up. I told her I was so tired and I felt like an “obasan” to which she went “no, no! young! young!” lol. And so I tried to explain to her I just felt tired LIKE an obasan and she left me by saying… “kyou wa, Monday, ne. Monday is obasan day. minna obasan”. lol. Love the Japanglish there.

Tuesday

Oh man, 4 of my 5 classes of the day are done and I’m sitting down for the first time. つかれた～ actually, a lot of really fun/interesting stuff happened, but since I had no break in between each class and spent the breaks dicking around with the kiddies in their classrooms, I forgot most of it. I’d forgotten how cute the old ichinensei are!!! The 2^nd year classes, so far, are super fun. My 2^nd class of the day, 2-1, was especially adorable. It’s like they took all the super cute mini-boys, who are 3 feet tall, with adorable baby faces, who look like they still belong in elementary school, and put them all in the same class. When I arrived during the break, one of these adorable creatures came up to me and went “good morning!” and then opened his new text book, looked at the model conversation and went (pointing at his friend) “This is Toshiki. He likes dog. He is a member of the track and field club…” TOO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously. Oh, and Ayumu is in this class and he was being an (adorable/funny) little dick the whole time, and kept going “long time no see!!” at me (but like 10X in a row…) it was funny.

Byyyy the way. A little side note on Ayumu. There are several reasons why this kid is memorable. First off, his name is Ayumu. It’s a pretty uncommon name, and the only other person I’ve ever seen with it is that Men’s egg model guy, so it makes me giggle. Then, even though he is only like 3 feet tall, and most likely weighs under 50lbs, he has a super loud personality (and laugh!) and walks around with a little confident swagger, which is hilarious. Finally, he’s got a little twinkle in his eyes, and is always smiling and/or winking. Oh, oh! and he has a beauty mark under is eye!! (which I find really attractive on men… I hope it doesn’t make me sound like a pedo… but you get my point) Anyways, so in conclusion, as you can see, he’s most definitely gonna grow up to be a playboy and break a million hearts. lol. how could you not love him??

3^rd period was fun too and 2-3 was a genki bunch as well. It had that one super genki kid from 1-6 (damn, I can’t remember his name… ends with –ki… also part of the 3-feet-tall club) and that super loud tall one. what’s his name? he has a weird name… anyways, little one made me try on his glasses (which were super delicate and pink… wtf Japan…) and then everyone ooohed and aaahed and said it was “chou niteru” (they really suit you) and so I went into a little shpiel about how I’ve got really bad eyesight and I wear contacts every day, and they all went “maji?!” and so I brought my eye like an inch away from little one’s face so he could see, and that made the other one smirk and go “wah! she’s really close to your face!”, causing #1 to blush, but then he went “ah! honto da! blue contacts da ne!” and I smacked my forehead, as I explained, for the millionth time that the contacts are clear, and my eyes are just that blue. Which brought on more “ooooh… sugeeee!!” Oh, and another random comment made by tall boy… when we were talking about how the glasses suited me, he said I’d probably look hot with black glasses, so I told him I had some, and then he giggled and muttered to his friend that black glasses are “eros”. That’s the Japanese word for “sexy, slutty, horny, pervy…” you get the idea. Dork. Gotta be careful! My cute little ichinensei boys are starting puberty!!!

Then 4^th period was sentaku English with 3-2, and it was just the intro class with Mizushima-sensei and they had to chose which textbook they wanted to use (easy, standard or hard) and they took FOREVER, and then they were SO quiet, which was so weird. I was bored and tired while they were quietly doing that, so I sat down and drew a namecard that said “#1 crazy” for Daisuke. lol. I gave it to him later when he was trying to make his own. He didn’t think it was funny. haha. Well, not as funny as I thought it would be :p in the end, I helped him make his “real” name card too because somehow he couldn’t get it like he wanted. lol.

Okaaaay… that Ikuto kid, is officially the creepiest ever… he basically spent the whole class muttering, very loudly “Vanessa… sexy…” or other various comments portraying to me… and telling me that this other boy in class was in love with me… and when Shigeki-sensei was telling his stupid story about going to a European onsen and showing up naken when everybody else wore swimming wear, he exclaimed loudly “was Vanessa there??”. I kinda just ignore him, but it’s pretty creepy.  The whole class was pretty much just dicking about the whole time and I watched Nichika arm wrestling a few other boys, Nami confessed to me that she and Dan from 3-2 were now dating and was sending me giddy, knowing smiles for the whole rest of the class after that, and Minami chatted about my nose again. lol. She pulled up the bridge of her nose between her fingers and went “look, Vanessa nose” lol. Then she asked me if I’d had surgery. lol. Seriously!! Get over my damn nose!!! but anyways, at the end of the class we played this easy word game, where I would call out a topic and 5-6 kids would write as many words as they could on the board and whoever had the most correct ones would win… well, the last topic was “animals” and Minami wrote out the most words (she had like double anybody else) but they were almost all wrong!! She wrote out “hoosu” for horse, “labitti” for rabbit, “ziburu” for zebra… it was just hilarious. Poor darling took it in good form though and was like “don’t mind!” and laughing. After the bell rang, a bunch of them swarmed me to tell me their song requests for the next unit, and we ended up singing Ke$ha and Justin Bieber together for no reason at all… good times ^_-

Wednesday

Morning. I am SO sleepy today, it’s not even funny. Seems kinda abnormal… meh.

Today I had my first class with 1-1 and they were pretty cute. Raimu and Daiki from my old elementary school are in that class, so that possibly points to future mayhem. Ayaka’s brother (former 3nensei fangirl) is in that class, and omg, I recognized him in 5 SECONDS he looks just like her… There is also this one super cute kid, whom I’d run into in the stairwell last week and had told me his name was “Johnny”. lol. Well he (after trying to pull the Johnny crack again) admitted that his name was Soma –  future heartbreaker, and future favorite student of mine, most like. He kinda looks like one of the 2nensei boys, but when I asked him if he had an older brother, he said no. So that’s weird.

Had class with 1-3 at 3^rd period but they were kinda disappointing and boring… then, it turned out that I did have class with Yuka-sensei for 4^th period (there was something else written in the schedule) and I was cranky cuz we didn’t have time to finish my game cuz she made them do a stupid alphabet chant at the beginning. Also, I’m too sleepy today… I just want this day to end. *sigh* one thing I was surprised with though, is that she was REALLY strict with her kiddies! I wonder if that’s her approach, since she is so young (and short) to get kids to respect her… it seemed a little bit forced :p

Aaah, and we had natto for lunch. AGAIN!!! I just want to violently bludgeon the lunch lady with a pencil… we used to NEVER have natto with the old lunch lady… like, maybe once a year or something, it was super rare. This new girl has been here for 3 months and we’ve already had it like 4 times, I swear. Never mind that she tends to whip up really weird menus too… but natto once a month is just WRONG!!

Thursday

Zombie again today. Except I’m not actually sleepy. I’m just kinda dazed and I don’t care. I ran late this morning cuz I stayed too long in the shower, and so I ran out of the house with my hair still wet and a half-assed outfit that really did nothing for me at all, but I had no time to change. Still, gotta love my kiddies, as they were still muttering behind my back that “Vanessa sensei is so kawaii”… aaah… bless them. Anyhoo, I had class with 3-5 with Shigeki sensei, and I pretty much did fuck all. I had them do their namecards for the whole 30 min that was allotted to me. Also, this class has like zero personality. I think last time when I was chatting with them in the hall, I must’ve been speaking to the only 3 genki kids in the bunch… oh well. Also loud Mr. Playboy was absent. Afterthought: I just realized that 3-5 is Hasegawa-sensei’s homeroom… and her homeroom last year was 2-5, also the most boring in the year… coincidence? hmm…. :p

Now I have one free period before having to teach every other one today. During the break, I ran into Yuka, the new 1^st year English teacher, who is super cute and short. We had a little bitch fest together, about having too many classes, being unable to diet, unresponsive students, and general life stuff… then before I broke it off to go get coffee she went “aaah… too much complaining…” and I said “no, no! it’s good for the soul!” lol. So there you have it, I am not only perverting fresh young minds here, I am also jading newbie teachers. yay me. lol.

Okay, I am seriously out of it today… class with 2-4 was okay, and it has MASAYA in it!!! XD I told him he was the “#1 crazy” and he loved it so much he wrote it on his name card. lol. There is also one new kid named Seiji. He looks like he should at least be in 3^rd year – he’s so tall. And what kind of parents name their kid Seiji nowadays?! Anyways, he’s cute and I have been assured that he was “very crazy boy” (which is why we were having the whole conversation with Masaya in the first place) by the girl sitting in front of him, so I’m sure he’ll become an entertaining character.

Then I had class with 3-4, and that should have been fun, but they just sucked all the little energy I had out of me with their zero understanding of ANYTHING I said. I mean at first it was cute and fun, I was dicking around with Ryoga and the baseball boys, and chatting with Risa and the girls at the back, but then it was like, they made me repeat in Japanese every single thing I said! And when I was explaining about the stupid music paper, they couldn’t even understand the simplest sentences and I just wanted to pull my hair out!! I guess it’s just one-of-those-days, but still. Also, Bad Ryota and Shiomi-kun are a terribly annoying combo… *sigh* now gaman for two more classes!! urgh…

One of the girls from 3-4 wrote “Arashi is Happiness” on her paper. lol. I know she wanted to list the title, like this : “Happiness” by Arashi, but it just cracked me up so much. Other lol-worthy bad romanization include “Suriraa” by Michael Jackson (he actually wrote his name correctly though!), Averil Raven, Ready Gaga, and Buster rhims. lol. Oh well, at least they’re entertaining…

Finally!! I’m done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! okay, so class with 1-5 was good, but the only thing I can remember was this one girl who excitedly told me that she liked ViViD and squealed when I “confirmed” (where does she get her information??) that I liked them too… Seriously, what is it with all these tiny little girls who like visual kei popping up?!? Not that I mind, it means more fangirls for me, but… lol. Usually JHS kids like Arashi and that’s pretty much it :p

Then, in 2-6 it went well also, but I was just soooo dead, I can’t remember anything… only that that kid who looks like a cuddly little… well I dunno but he’s just so darn cute! and he has little glasses which make him look intellectual, but he’s so baby looking that it’s cute, and he’s got his leg in a brace and is always clomping around… anyways, he’s terribly endearing. He’s in that class. Him, and the girl I’d met last week who lived in Bangkok and whose English is awesome. She was basically the only one laughing at my jokes the whole time, and her hand always shot up every time I asked a question, bless.

And now, half the boys from 2-3 are going around shouting “my name is Vanessa!”, “I’m Vanessa too!”, “I’m Vanessa too, too!” and they think it’s hilarious… (well, it is kinda cute, but they’re retards :p) it’s cuz of a conversation we had at lunch time… one of the boys thought he’d be a smart-ass and say his name was Vanessa, but instead of replying “no you’re not” I said “what a coincidence! My name is Vanessa too!” and they thought it was hilarious, and so I guess they’ve been parroting that since lunch time. lol.

After school, when I was walking toward the station, listening to loud music with my headphones firmly plugged in my ears, I turned around to find one of my ex-students riding next to me on his bike, trying to catch my attention. lol. I *think* his name is Hiroki, but I’m not sure. I’m a bad teacher. lol. I remember him as part of the Uverworld posse though. There were a few of my old 3nensei boys who were really into Uverworld, and one day one of them found out I liked them too and then I was suddenly cool to them. They were a group of kinda forgettable boys – not popular, yet not quite nerds. And they were all pretty quiet, so I never noticed them much. So I was surprised when that kid actually made an effort to come over and talk. He seemed so happy. and so different too, and it wasn’t just the lack of uniform. I asked him if he enjoyed high school, and he said yes, but that he was going to night school. I was like “huh?” and so he explained that he goes to school from 4pm to 12pm, and then during the day, he works! In construction!! lol. No wonder he looks more “man-like” haha… but still, it made me a little bit sad, that for whatever reason, he can’t enjoy being a kid anymore. Still, I was proud of him. He left when we reached his house and gave me a huge wave of his arm, and a loud English “good bye!” as I walked off. awww….

Friday

Oops, so turns out I had 1^st and 2^nd period today, and not 1^st and 3^rd. but whatever, all is well. It was class with 1-6 followed by class with 1-4. 1-4 had this really funny kid named Akira in it, who was loud and taller than everybody else, and had big giant bags under his eyes, poor kid. I even asked him at the end of class at what time he’d gone to bed and he told me “10pm”. I was really surprised! I said I thought he looked sleepy and the other kids laughed as he exclaimed “yada! sensei kara, sono…. yada!” (no way! coming from the teacher…!) and I felt a bit bad, but I laughed too. But the funniest thing was that, during the quiz, when they had to guess my favorite food (between sushi and takoyaki), he was wondering loudly which one it was and then was like “maaa… kansaijin-ppoi kara, takoyaki!” (she looks like a person from Kansai, so she must like takoyaki!). How on earth do I look like a person from Kansai?! I’m white, and I’m speaking English to you!! lol. Then another question was “what am I good at” and they had to chose between “drawing pictures” or “karaoke” and he went “oh well kansai-jin like karaoke so it must be that!” lol. wtf! I love this kid already. haha.

Then I had class with 2-5 just before lunch, and it was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that Atsuya is in this class, and he is such a little nutjob that even a minute in his presence is entertaining. Of course, he sucks at English. He looks kinda “slow” but I really do suspect him to just act that way on purpose. Anyways, today, he kept making “slurping” sounds when I was showing pictures of Easter chocolates, and it was just terribly inappropriate, awkward, and kinda funny. Sitting right next to him was Shinji, this gorgeous little halfu boy (Hispanic/Japanese) who is super keen all the time and quite possibly one of the smartest kid in their grade. What an odd couple. lol.

Oh and, FYI, the boys from 2-3 are still walking around, greeting me with “my name is Vanessa!!” :p

Have a good one!

Weekly Digest : April 11th - 15th 2011

Monday

Just ran into Minami, Yuka, Nami and co (all the fangirls together! I wonder if they’re in the same class this year?) and they were all commenting on my extensions and trying to get me to tell them how much it cost (HA! not gonna happen… ) and then suddenly they all started telling me I looked like Alice in wonderland. lol. Must be the ribbon in my hair…. but I’m neither wearing blue, nor an apron so… it’s weird.

Tuesday

Eh, well nothing happened again today, and I was honestly ready to shoot my own brains out, but after pestering Hasegawa-sensei about class schedules once again, she said that I could come to her classes this week, from tomorrow! woot! So I spent the last couple of hours preparing a cute handout for the lesson… I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to do actual work. lol. and tomorrow I’m gonna actually HAVE class… I could cry tears of joy. lol. You people have no idea what acute boredom for several days does to a person… (well, of course, unless you’ve also been an ALT ^_- )

Aaaww, 10 minutes before leaving time, I ran into Kaho and Hiroko, the two student council leaders, and they were like “ah! Vanessa! See you!” and I noticed that Hiroko had cut her hair really short and I told her that somehow it made her look shorter… :p She said to me “I am one-five-three” (153cm), so I told her I was 163cm and Kaho exclaimed “same!” so we measured ourselves back to back, and sure enough, we were the same. And then she said, in Japanese “but I’m not done growing”, and tried to say it in English, but to be fair, that’s kinda hard so she struggled a bit. I said I was pretty much done growing and then she laughed. Then she added “drink much milk everyday! tall! tall!” lol. Cute girls. They left chatting about how awesome it would be if they grew up (no pun intended) to be taller than gaikokujin.

Wednesday

Kyoto-sensei just made a speech telling everyone to go home at night. hahaha…. if you don’t know, Japanese workers are notorious for staying at work ridiculously late, and teachers aren’t exempt of that ridiculous tradition. Noticed how I said “stay” and not “work” late? It’s a very Japanese thing. You have to look like you’re working hard. So regardless of whether or not you even have any work to do, leaving early is viewed very badly, and then it becomes a pissing contest as to who can stay the latest. Now, I’m not sure why Kyoto-sensei wants people to leave earlier, (probably cuz he wants to fuck off early and can’t if there are too many losers still hanging around…) but he came up with this ridiculous story (that I’m sure is true, but it doesn’t have much relation about the situation in our school) about this old lady teacher in another school who died from over-exhaustion or something. Anyways, he was like “your health is important. I don’t want you in this school past 8pm.” lol. FYI, I leave school at 4:10pm every day, just like it says in my contract, thank you very much.

So! Finally! I have class! Since Rie-sensei took pity on me yesterday, I accompanied her to class with 3-2 and 3-3. Since it was the first class of the year, it was really boring, listening to her talk in Japanese about how the class would function and “why are we studying English?”, but then would could play the game I’d prepared for the last 20 minutes, which went down well in both classes. It’s interesting to see the new layout of the classes since the kids have been all mixed up again. Both classes had a good mix so far. I look forward to seeing the other 4. 3-2 has crazy boy Daisuke in it, and Imari as well. Funny boy. And 3-3 has Good Ryota, Tomoya (I don’t think I talked about him much yet, but he needs a special entry of his own. kid drives me nuts, in both good and bad ways… lol.) and Hiroko. This should be interesting.

Now, in the break between 2^nd and 3^rd period, I stayed in the 3^rd year hallway cuz I was just going next door. Of course, Minami harpooned onto me and started chatting about my extensions and whatnot. She even smelled my hair, because apparently extensions are supposed to stink, and exclaimed with joy that my hair wasn’t stinky! lol. Then, two of the soccer boys walked over and were being dickheads, and Minami asked them who was cuter between me and her. I didn’t really understand what they said but I think they insulted Minami’s face and so she said I won by default. lol. Thanks. After I left her, I walked over to 3-3 and was greeted by another group of girls who were chatting. They all wanted to chat, and honestly I don’t remember what we were talking about, but then Nami accidentally grazed my boobs with her hand as she talked and I raised my eyebrow at her and she giggled embarrassedly and went – to Yuka, who was standing RIGHT next to me – “ne, ne… omg, I just accidentally touched Vanessa’s boob! *shock!*” (in Japanese) and I just laughed cuz she was talking as if I wasn’t there, and then she asked me, in uber polite Japanese, if she could touch my boobs and I made a big X sign with my arms and went “no” and everybody laughed. Then, she spent the next minute or so saying “urayamashii….” and then “jealous” after I’d taught her the English word for it. break time is very educational…

At the end of class with 3-3, I gave out pencils as prizes for the winners (cuz I had forgotten to buy new stickers…). So a few kiddies came up to collect their prizes, and apparently it was a VERY hard decision, and it took them forever, and Good Ryota was there and was saying stuff in a super girly way (I think he was imitating one of the girls) and gesturing in an effeminate way (it was obviously on purpose) and so I went “are you a boy or a girl?!?” and he replied to me with a straight face “New Half desu!” lol! I burst out laughing really loud, which of course prompted the rest of the class to laugh at me laughing (this always happens. apparently me laughing in surprise at anything is funny). anyways. LOVE that kid.

Oh and guess what, teachers say funny things to me too. Usually, after lunch, I like drinking some herbal tea. I have a box in my desk and I’ll be drinking a different flavor every day. When I was chilling in the “kitchen” waiting for the tea to soak in my hot water a bit, the school nurse (who is neither young, nor hot, fyi…) asked me if I was drinking tea (she meant English tea) and so I told her I was drinking blueberry tea today. She exclaimed “BURUBERRRY?! sugoi! yappari, Vanessa wa oshare da naa~”. I looked at her, kinda confused and she explained to me that I wasn’t only “oshare” (fashionable) with my clothes, I was also oshare at many other things…. hum… well I guess if you only drink green tea all day, every day, drinking blueberry tea would be an innovation…

After I left school, I was walking to the station, listening to my ipod, as usual, when I was ATTACKED by 3 of my students. They spotted me from inside a house across the street and ran across the street (dangerous), squealing like little piglets. One of the little girls shouted at me “neee Vanessa-sensei Alice Nine suki, ne?” and I recognized one of the two little ichinensei (well, I guess she’s ninensei now) girls who are into visual kei. I laughed and nodded and she squealed and went “I love this teacher!” (in Japanese) and went in for a hug, and then kinda backed away. I opened my arm gesturing that it was okay to hug me and she squealed again and gave me a hug. lol. I have talked to this kid maybe twice last year. She is in love with the visual kei band Nightmare, which I don’t like very much, but I do have 2 of their cds cuz they are one of the “big ones” and before I knew anything about VK, I used to think they were ok. lol. Anyways, we chatted a bit and then I left cuz I was gonna miss my train. One of the other girls there was the new student I ran into a few time who has greeted me in decent English. she looks like maybe she’s half or something. I remember her name, cuz it’s Minami (like my #1 fangirl) and she said she’d been living in Bangkok for the past 3 years, which is cool! She’ll probably feature in more blog entries since her English is really good and she seems friendly ^_-

Thursday

This morning I had my first class with 3-4. It was a bit of a bore because my JTE went over her time and ended up finishing talking 10 minutes before the bell, which wasn’t enough time to do the activity, so I just had them write their namecards. Interestingly, this class has both Ryoga (adorable, fun, LOUD brat), Bad Ryota (tends to do fuck all in class and bring a lot of people down that path with him), and Shiomi-kun (younger brother of my now dearly departed perv Ryuhei…), who refused to write his first name on his name card, even though I know that it’s Shuhei :p What’s up with that? He was sitting in front of Ryota, too… I hope that’s not gonna be a bad influence on him!! Anyways, speaking of that little devil, halfway during Hasegawa-sensei’s “speech” he opened up his activity book and started copying down the answers from the answerbook… *sigh* WHY they give those kids – who can’t even string 3 english words together properly – the answers to their homework before they do it is just beyond me… Like, OBVIOUSLY they aren’t gonna try hard to do the work if they have the answers right there… *sigh* anyways, when Shiomi saw Ryota was doing that, he started doing it too… but without checking the answers! Good boy! (even though they both really should’ve been listening). Ryoga was surprisingly well behaved… only asking me to write his name on his name card for him cuz he couldn’t be bothered. lol.

Urgh… so I showed up to class with 3-5 on fourth period, only to find out that there was no class since my JTE wasn’t back from her health check… THANKS FOR TELLING ME!! Still, I did notice that it seems to be a really good group. The kids were all trying really hard to tell me – in English – what they were gonna do instead of English because Hasegawa-sensei wasn’t there. cute. Also in this class: Mizuki (who was making giant smiles at me the whole time) and the two soccer “playboys” who were making fun of Minami and I yesterday. Should be interesting….

Friday

Yay! It’s Friday! and I had a nice surprise waiting on my desk this morning… my schedule! woot! It’s decent… I have between 3 and 5 classes a day, and it generally seems well balanced. the only thing that kinda blows is that I have 1^st period EVERY SINGLE DAY on both A-Week and B-Week schedules. blah. Oh well. Could be worse.

Now, I just had class with 3-1. Guess what? This class has both Minami, Nami AND Yuka in it… oooh boy… it also has Kouki (genki basketball kid) and that weird boy Ikuto (I just learned that today since I had them make namecards)… that kid must have some kind of disability… he’s sooo weird. When he was in 1^st year. he used to just draw massive circles on his paper, but like, violently? just over and over… sometimes ripping the paper… last year he got more “normal” I guess, but he rarely does anything in class, and needless to say, his English proficiency is close to zero. That said, he seems to have developed a crush on me in the last couple of months… as was proven again when he just randomly spewed out “Vanessa… sexyyyy….” today, when I was talking to Kouki and Minami (who are sitting in front of him). He makes me laugh more than he creeps me out though. This should be interesting… oh! and Mao (Emma Watson fangirl) is also in this class. In fact, she came to chat after the class, to tell me that it was Emma Watson’s birthday. lol. (Emma Watson is the girl who plays Hermione in Harry Potter… I have no idea she has a big girl crush on her, but it’s funny.)　Oh, and also, at the end of the class, Nami randomly came to ask me if I had any purikura to show her. umm, no. last term we were doing show&tell, that’s why I usually had my puri-book with me, but it’s not like I carry it around with me all the time!

Later, I had class with 3-6. I’m not sure if it was just because it was the first class or what, but I have a feeling this will be the “quiet class”… well, not really, I mean they did answer when we asked them questions in English… and there are a few of the loud soccer boys in that class, as well as that kid with the flat face who kinda looks like Miyavi… and Teppei, who is like the smart “cool” kid. I dunno. Maybe I was just bored. haha… we’ll see what happens.

All in all, I am quite happy with how the 3^rd year classes ended up getting mixed up. There’s a few of my fave kiddies in every class and I think the energy will be good. Looking forward to actually TEACHING them, lol.

Week Digest : week of April 4th - 8th 2011

Monday

So up until about 3pm, if you had asked me, I would’ve said absolutely nothing exciting happened today. But then, around 3:05pm, the secretary lady comes up to me, as I am the only person sitting in the staffroom and asks “Vanessa, don’t you have to be at the board of education today?” FUCK! With all the special lunches and welcome enkais and boredom of the day, I had totally forgotten that we had an ALT meeting at the BoE today. fuck, fuck, fuck… it takes about 40 minutes to get there from here, so I knew I was gonna show up and the meeting was gonna be over. Sure enough, I caught about the last 5 minutes of it, and then Motoko-sensei had me make a “public apology” to the new Kachou-san, but all in all, it was pretty harmless, (especially since another dumb fuck had forgotten about the meeting so I wasn’t alone) but then she pulled me aside, after I’d paid rent and said “Vanessa…. about your hair…..” and made a face. Oh shit. I felt crestfallen. I knew what was coming, and I’d actually heard Domoto-sensei exclaim earlier today that there were red bits in my hair, but he laughed at it and he is always such a sweetie, so I didn’t think much of it. In fact, I didn’t think anybody would care, and honestly, I’ve gotten away with so much worse in the past, I am quite frankly surprised that they did this time. I asked if someone had made a complaint from the school and she nodded. I felt horrible. I think, looking back, that if she had simply come up to me and told me to change my hair, I might have argued and fought a little bit, but because I was already in an embarrassing situation, I felt so bad I didn’t argue at all. I also wonder if she used that as a way in… because in the past, although she has always “frowned” at my style and said “it would be better” for me to tone it down, she never overtly asked me to remove something. Anyways. We’ll never know, I guess. and after stewing in anger and breaking down into tears, I managed to take the red bits out by myself (saving me a trip to the hairdresser’s that I couldn’t afford anyways) and take myself to the welcome enkai that I REALLY didn’t want to go to.

Said enkai was pretty normal. At a fancy hotel and I was stuck at the loser table again (table where everybody ends up leaving to serve beer to other people around the room) but it wasn’t so bad. The male secretary dude kept coming over to fill up my glass and was like “drink up!” which was funny, and my new JTE, who is this super cute 25y.o. bubbly girl straight out of uni, came over to chat and she seems to want to be my new bestest best friend. lol. Could be worse. Also, the one other young dude (not the hot teacher) who is new to our school and looks like he actually belongs in the school baseball club (cuz he looks about 15 and is BROWN, with a shaved head) came over to chat. Him and my new JTE are friends apparently and went to the same high school and university, and so she introduced him and it was very very obvious that he was crushing on me and she was trying to “help him out”. She was asking me “Vanessa, do you like Japanese guys?” and I said yes, and then she asked my type and I said “cute face” and she asked “oh, like him?” pointing at him who was sitting right there listening to the whole thing…, so of course I had to say “yes” even though he’s not really my type. Then she was asking him if he thought I was beautiful, to which he answered yes… And then there was a conversation between him and Yabe-sensei (the annoying teacher) where he told him that I’d just broken up with my boyfriend so it was his “chance!” *sigh* not that I mind but this guy really needs to mind his own business.

Anyways, look forward to new developments on this situation ^_- I ended up going home straight after, because there was some confusion about the nijikai, and I’m broke anyways, and I’m sleepy enough this morning to be glad that I didn’t come home at 1am.

Tuesday

Urgh. I would REALLY like it if people told me when they are gonna have fucking morning meetings that start before the time I’m even supposed to arrive to school. *sigh* after all the crap that happened yesterday, it was SO not a good feeling to disrupt whatever dumb meeting was going on with my arrival… especially since the ichinensei teachers were all sitting in front of the door with fold up chairs and I couldn’t even get in. double sigh.

The rest of the day was really uneventful, with everyone in meetings and me staring blankly into space… I did have lunch with the 3^rd year teachers at a nearby udon restaurant, which was nice.

Wednesday

Today is the new year’s opening ceremony! We just finished the morning one, which was actually 4 different ceremonies (really it’s just one big one) where the new teachers are introduced to the new 2^nd and 3^rd year kids, and then all the staff and who will teach what homeroom and what club… there was a really weird speech by our new Koucho-sensei, and then introduction of the student council. I had to go on stage and bow. Fun times. Poked my tongue out at Ryoga from the stage. maybe not the most professional thing to do. lol. but he laughed ^_-

I guess I should talk about the new Koucho-sensei. He is very tall, looks like a crooner from the 70’s and has that kind of “smooth” manner too, which I think is funny. He seems like a nice guy, but like I said, his speech was really weird. Our old Kyoto-sensei, used to speak at the speed of light (regardless of whether or not he was making a speech) and make never-ending speeches at every single opportunity. I could never understand a word, but at least he seemed very passionate. This new guy, well, his speeches are much shorter (thank god) and he speaks at a pretty normal pace, but while he was doing the speech today, he kept pausing (for like 5+ seconds breaks) after every couple of words, and it was just kinda odd.

Aaah, I take back what I said about Kouchou-sensei not making long speeches… the one he made for the entrance ceremony this afternoon was horribly long, and with all the random pauses in between and his complete inability to emote, it put everyone to sleep *sigh* oh well. The ceremony itself was uneventful, the new 1^st years are really tiny, I recognized a few faces from the elementary school, and there are so many new kids that there are now 7 classes instead of 6. After the ceremony, all the kiddies trouped out to the front lawn to take pictures with their families and homeroom pictures, but since nobody told me (I think Hasegawa sensei tried to, but she explained herself rather badly so I didn’t get what she meant) I only found out when I tried to leave around 4pm and everybody was still there, crowding up the entrance. Oh well.

Thursday

There is another ceremony this morning, but it’s a mystery ceremony to me cuz no one told me mum about it and honestly, what else could it be now?? Maybe a ceremony to introduce the new kiddies to the old ones? Who knows. Also, I think high school entrance ceremonies might be today because I ran into a few of my old 3nensei on the way to school and they were all dressed up in their new HS uniforms and accompanied by their parents. It was cute ^_-

Aaah, well, mystery solved. It was a ceremony to introduce all the clubs to the new students. It was a little interesting, even though pretty much the only thing I understood was the number of students in each club… lol. Every club did a little “display” and some of them, (like the kendo or judo club) were really cool to watch. The brass band played a song. At the beginning and end, when the new students trouped in and out, everybody clapped, and since I always stand near the door, the kiddies could see me really well, and it was fun to see the – sometimes surprised – looks of recognition on the faces of the ones I used to teach in elementary. After that everybody left and I did my dutiful role as school mascot and smiled and waved at the departing masses. Masaya was staring at me so I stuck my tongue at him (which usually makes kids laugh… or frown in confusion :p) but he stuck his right back at me and it was just weird… lol. Minami came over to tell me that my extentions were “oshare” and I commiserated with her that I had red bits in it before, but that the school made me take them out and she was like “that’s lame! kawaiisou” lol. I love her. Then when everyone was out of the gym, I left, and ended up following the basketball boys, who all started acting like idiots after saying “hello” (the only English word they know…) to me. The worst part is that, even though they are such dumb brats, they’re some of my favorite kids ^_- I smacked them in the face with my scarf a few times… they acted offended but thought it was funny. I asked them if they’d had a nice vacation but only good-Ryota understood my question and he had to translate to the rest of them. Then, bad-Ryota (there’s two of them. both in the basketball club) answered “no it isn’t”. Which is totally not the right answer even if you wanted to say no…. *sigh* teaching English is such a worthwhile job!!! Anyways, it amuses me to no end that these two are friends… and that they both have the same name but are sooooo different. Good Ryota is this super-cute tiny boy with curly, floppy hair (yes, it’s really curly!) an he’s always smiling and clowning around. He’s always genki in English class and I think he’s a good student all around. He’s really into basketball. Bad Ryota has the demeanor of a bully. He’s super scrawny and always looks ready to punch someone. He has a tendency (when I come up to him in class to explain something) to go “wha-gee-goo-gaa-ga?!” or other random speech pattern that to him sound like “fake English” to demonstrate that what I’m saying to him is gibberish. I have a feeling that he’s gonna grow up to be a super hot jerk… eeeh… *sigh*

Aaah, crap. On the way to the staffroom I ran into this incredibly annoying old lady, who is a “school volunteer”, whatever that means… mostly she trims the edges of the bushes on the school grounds, and rants about shit a lot. But she can speak English, and every time she sees me, she just HAS to come and chat for a half-hour or two… and she spits. She’s kinda sweet, I guess, but I just really don’t like old people… anyways, I haven’t seen her in ages actually. Maybe in a year, even. Kyouto-sensei doesn’t like her and she told me last time that he doesn’t want her in the staffroom distracting the teachers. But I guess she has come to pay her respect to the new Koucho or whatever since she’s in his office chatting right now… anyways, she made a really surprised funny face when she saw me and went “wow! 3 years” and I nodded with a fake smile and quickly ran away. I remember having a conversation with her last year in March, when she was asking me if I was staying at this school another year, and I said yes and she said “that’s impossible cuz ALTs never stay at this school that long”, and I argued with her cuz – seriously lady, I think I would know better than you! Anyways, hence the shocked look on her face this morning. It was kinda priceless. lol.

Friday!

End of the week! yay! This morning on my way to school, I saw a lot of my graduated 3^rd years on their way to high school. ^_^ first off I saw Hayato on my way to the station near my home, and it was so funny cuz he looked so surprised to see me there, but his new school is near my house. It’s a really good school too! I was surprised a funny kid like him got in! I guess he must be really bright too ^_- then I saw a few kids get on at the station of the school where I teach, and they were like “ah! Vanessa!” and then at the street light a block from the station, I saw Shoma pass me on his bike, and he’s the one who waved at me and flashed me a huge grin! It made me go “awww…” cuz usually, when I encounter students, or ex students, I’m usually the one to initiate contact.

Well, anyhow, today’s gonna be another long boring day. Baseball kid (the teacher who was crushing on me from the enkai) has made a mysterious reappearance though, (I haven’t seen him in the last 3 days) as he was sitting at his desk when I entered the staffroom this morning. I think that he’s the new hospital teacher though, cuz he was chatting to the other hospital teacher earlier, and their desks are together. That would explain the vanishing act. It figures that he would show up today though, since I’m dressed all sloppy :/ oh well.

Okaaaay… it’s just after lunch now and I am bored out of my freakin’ mind. You would *think* that I could find ways to entertain myself for 8 hours with internet access here, but after several days of the same regime, you have pretty much exhausted all your possibilities, and unless people on your facebook/twitter/blogfeed, update regularly, you are pretty much stuck. Never mind that youtube is blocked and that watching movies or playing videogames is pretty much frowned upon… I’m dying for class. Or ANYTHING to do. Anyways… I went on a little excursion to find Yuka, my new bubbly JTE, because she told me yesterday that I should come visit her class (since I was so bored) I was actually gonna go this morning, but then the 1^st years were wandering (in an orderly fashion) all over the school, learning about the proper ways to open doors and shit like that (they are not born knowing that they have to say “shitsurei shimasu! sensei-gata ohayou gozaimasu!” apparently….) so I decided that after lunch would be a good bet to casually make my way into her classroom and stay there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find her anywhere. Not in the 1^st year (mini) staffroom in the main building, not in the one in the southern building, and not in her classroom either. So I’m stuck back here (at my desk) twiddling my thumbs for the next 3 hours… *cries* but anyways, my 5 minute trip was still entertaining (and it killed five minutes…) since I ran into a lot of new kiddies. It’s funny because the ones I taught before smile at me and say hello, while the ones who have never seen me gawk in wonder. It’s funniest when groups of friends are a pairing of the two, because then the newbie kiddies are forced to say hello to me, and then run off giggling. There was even this one teacher on the first floor who kept telling groups of kids who went by “say aisatsu to Vanessa in English!” and so they would all echo “hello!!” before running off in case he forced them to talk to me more. lol.

Newsflash! brief interruption to my boredom! one of the teachers (who so rarely talks to me I don’t even know his name) came up to me and was like “Vanessa. shashin. ima” (picture. now) and he led me downstairs so that the school photographer could take one bright snap (I’m still seeing spots) and me and tell me to go. So nice that, even after 3 years, they still never tell me these things :/ oh well, at least my hair looks ok :p

On the way back to the staffroom, I ran into Hiroko (whom I now believe is definitely running up for position as my no.1 fangirl) on the stairs and she was like “English, kite ne!” (meaning, in our pidgin japanglish: come teach English in my class!) and so I told her that I would next week and she was like “honto?” all hopeful, it was cute. She was all sniffly cuz of allergies and so I told her to take care. She was holding my hand the whole time. lol. cutie pie.

And on that note, I’m gonna wish you all a good weekend. I don’t think anything interesting is likely to happen in the next two hours, and I have to upload this before I go, so… toodles!

Weekly Digest : week of March 28th to April 1st

^{FYI, if you are wondering why there haven't been any updates in a while, it's cuz we are in-between school years now in Japan, and so there are no classe, i.e. no kiddies to spew stupid shit at me :p}

Monday

I took the day off

Tuesday

Back to school after a week off! blergh…. didn’t do much. Of course, there are no classes, but some students are here cuz they have club activities. One cute thing that happened was that when I went down to the toilet, a bunch of kids from the student council were writing some “thank you” message on the common board and Hiroko (who is fast becoming my new Shinobu… i.e. rushing at me for a hug whenever she sees me) jumped up at me and was like “Vanessa, Bye Bye!” and I told her “I’m not leaving yet”. She cocked her head like she didn’t understand but I just repeated my English more slowly and then she said “mada bye bye janai?” and I just laughed and nodded. I thought it was terribly cute. Literally it would mean “it’s not bye bye yet?”

Wednesday

Today is the farewell ceremony for the leaving teachers. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Japanese schools love ceremonies. I showed up to school and found a LOT of omiyage on my desk! There are 5 packages, plus the one I got yesterday, that makes 6. If you don’t know, it’s customary for the teachers who are leaving to give their coworkers small presents. I think it’s a bit lame cuz they should be the ones getting stuff, but hey, I’m not gonna turn down free stuff. lol. I think I recieved more than some other people cuz I know more of the teachers who are leaving. Two are English teachers that I kinda like, one is the hospital teacher who has a crush on me, and there is one that’s unsigned so I dunno who it’s from and one I can’t read the name in kanji. Then there was another one with a personal written note all in Japanese, and so I asked Mami who it was from and she said “it’s from Kouchou-sensei” (the principal). “Eh?! He’s leaving?!”. Apparently so. I’m a bit bummed cuz even though I never ever talk to him, he’s really chill, and I’ve heard horror stories about other people’s kouchou-senseis. I hope the new guy is nice and/or that I don’t have to deal with him at all. Anyhow. Can’t understand the whole note but the gist of it is something like “you are always making fun classes for the children, so thank you”. I thought that was really sweet and touching. I am just a dumb ALT after all so he didn’t need to bother. Anyways, the kiddies are coming back today for the ceremony, even the 3nensei that have already graduated. Should be an interesting day.

Ceremony was rather uneventful, and I noticed – with sadness – that a bunch of the 3^rd years weren’t there, including my favorite perv, Kouki. tear. There goes my fanservice. lol. After the ceremony they all trouped out and gathered on the school grounds for one last goodbye. Yoshino gave me some yatsuhashi that she got on a trip to Kyoto, which I thought was really sweet! (and I’m eating as I’m writing this), I took pictures with some of the girls, and at least a million of them squealed out “exte! exte!” pointing at my hair. lol. I had pulled it up in a ponytail to make a little less obvious, but, I guess the secret’s out. Well, none of the teachers have said anything, so :p

At lunch we had a special “ladies’ lunch” which we usually have every year, except that this time instead of going to the restaurant, we had bentos in the meeting room, and that instead of being just ladies, someone invited kouchou-sensei. it was a bit weird at first because all the women teachers were acting all coy and “kawaii”… made me wanna gag, really, since most of em are over 40, but whatever. After a while the atmosphere relaxed a bit and it was quite enjoyable. Could understand about 50% of the conversation, which is more than I can say for what I usually grasp at dinner parties… we have one tonight btw, should be interesting…

I left early in the afternoon (and Kyoto-sensei let me not take nenkyuu, which was sweet!) to go buy a present for Mami. I felt bad since she had to give everybody presents, but she was the one leaving, and she has been there for me for the last 3 years, and however annoying she sometimes can be, she has been helpful and I liked teaching with her. So I got her this cute Minnie cup from KiddyLand cuz she likes Disney characters.

The party itself was ok, but as usual, way overpriced. I mean, who cares that it’s in a fancy hotel?? 7000yen for two hours is too much. Never mind that we will have ANOTHER party to welcome the new teachers next week, and that I had another one last week with the BoE people. *sigh* no wonder I’m broke. Anyways. We randomly picked where we sat (you had to draw a seat number from a little box of origami papers) and I ended up at Kyoto and Kouchou sensei’s table again. Seriously? At least Asuka was sitting next to me (young and she speaks English), though that didn’t last long since, because she’s leaving, everybody wanted a piece of her. Anyways, it was really annoying because all the girls at the table were fighting each other to “serve” everybody (as is the Japanese tradition… girls and younger people have to serve… in fact, you will never see old/important men lift a finger to reserve themselves. if – god forbid – their glass remains empty for whatever reason, they will not fill it up again…) which I thought was well stupid, and I was really annoyed by it cuz I was hungry and wanted to serve myself. but whatever.

It was pretty uneventful. Everybody that was leaving had another teacher make a speech for them, and then made a speech. There was little opportunity to chat, and then the 2 hours were up and I escaped the fuck outta there before nijikai (that you had to pay for in advance cuz it was in the same expensive hotel).

Thursday

Well, I showed up at school on time well and good as usual, and then at 8:15, motoko-sensei (from the BoE) calls me to “scold” me cuz I haven’t done my follow-up health check and it’s Kachou-san’s last day and she needs it before 3pm. fuck. So I trecked it all the way back downtown and headed to the hospital. I thought the hospital would be a better choice than the clinic since it’s just next to the BoE… WRONG!!! first off, I had to go back home to fetch the original health check result paper (fucking めんどうくさい) which made me lose about 30 minutes. Then I go finally go back and sign up and I get a paper that I can’t understand that says I must pay 3,150yen. Wtf, but whatever, I just wanna be out of there. I should mention that I was already in a bad mood and pms. So I go where the lady tells me, and soon enough a nurse calls me and checks my blood pressure. Sweet. That didn’t take long. Then she tells me to “go over there” and wait by door no.6 until they call my number. There is a little screen that intermittently shows the 3 follow up numbers for each room and mine wasn’t listed. Great. I wait and finally another number is called for that room, and so another one appears on the list. Not mine. Fuck. The screen rolls 3 more time and my number still doesn’t show up. At that point I have waited by door number 6 for over an hour and I am not a happy camper. I get up to ask the front desk if I’m coming up soon and she goes yes “mou shouchou matte kudasai” (please just wait a bit more). I’m so frustrated and I go sit back down. If I had gone to the clinic, this would’ve taken 15 minutes tops. I curse my stupidity as I wait some more. 3 more numbers roll. Mine is still not showing up. I am tearing up and ready to bite someone’s head off. I am wasting my precious nenkyuu for this. I go back up to the counter and ask the girl to give me back my files, I don’t have time and I will go somewhere else. of course, I’m so stressed out that I can’t string sentences of Japanese together properly so they seem a bit confused (but then maybe they were just dumb cunts too as they didn’t look all that bright) and they tell me that they can put me up the list but that I still have to wait after people who have appointments. Well fuck you too. I say I have no time, I have to get this done before the afternoon. This they seem to understand. I say that I can’t wait another hour and they promise me that it wouldn’t be that long. Thank god they were right about that. Anyways, I ended up getting passed around 12:20. A few minutes before I was up, Motoko-sensei called that she was coming over to see me cuz it was her lunch break. She arrived just in time to explain the situation to the dumb doctor, who really didn’t get it at all and kept arguing that I should be given medicine for my high blood pressure, while all we were both thinking was “sign the damn paper so we can fuck off!!!”. Then finally he did, and I could leave, and Motoko-sensei explained the yellow paper to me, which said that I had to pay that money cuz I hadn’t been to the hospital in over a year. Well, isn’t that nice! If you’re healthy, you get rewarded by having to pay more money! Well fuck that, I am never going to that place again. I announced her that I was taking the rest of the day off, and she surprised me by telling me that I would only have to take nenkyuu for the afternoon. Sweet. I went home. Binged on chocolate while watching Hairspray, and passed out.

That was my Thursday.

Friday.

Today is April 1^st, so today is the day that the new teachers come in. as of yet, I have only briefly seen the new Koucho-sensei as he said “good morning” to me in English in passing, and it was somewhat awkward as I was – very professionally – texting on my phone… but whatever. Now the staffroom is completely empty, as everyone is in a meeting welcoming the new teachers and informing them about “stuff”. I’m quite glad I’m not expected to go as I probably wouldn’t understand anything and would be bored out of my mind, but it’s still a bit weird. I hope some of the new teachers are hot :p

Ok! So it’s now after lunch and all the new teachers have been introduced! There are a few young ones, one of which is REALLY cute, but unfortunately doesn’t teach English… I didn’t catch what he does teach. Don’t think he said it, but the newbie English teacher is this SUPER cute, tiny little j-girl… hopefully she’s nice and we can get along. I had to do an intro speech all in Japanese too… and I was shaking so bad (which is stupid cuz if it was in English it woulda been so easy) but I managed to deliver it pretty flawlessly, and so a bunch of the old teachers “booed” when I said I couldn’t speak Japanese well. lol. I really can’t! anyways, now everyone is just kinda hanging around in the staffroom and I’m not sure what’s going on… we’re gonna shuffle the desks around this afternoon, but I dunno if it’s gonna be in 5 minutes or in two hours. *sigh*

Speaking of which, I didn’t think my desk was gonna move because, in the 3 years I’ve been here, my desk has always been with the “free” teachers in the same line as Kyotou-sensei, and if I moved it was either one desk to the left or one to the right. Also, instead of everybody just taking their crap out of their desks and moving to a new place, they actually move YOUR desk all the way to its new position. I remember I thought that was really weird in my first year. Now I just kinda sit back and do nothing as other people work, like the good little princess that I am :p oh but yeah, so apparently this year, I am moving up with the 3^rd year teachers, and I’m gonna be sitting next to the hot gym teacher! yay! He’s short and married, but whatever… also, when Kyouto-sensei told me I was moving, he said “Vanessa always looks cold by the door. It’s warmer over there”. Whether or not that is the reason for my move, I thought that was really sweet! I AM freezing over here everytime the goddamn door opens!!

Ok! So we are live from me new spot… it’s pretty sweet! Ishida-sensei already made TWO attempts at conversation (lol) the hot new teacher is in the same “line”, and almost all the English teachers besides Aoshima-sensei and the new girl are here in the same line too. And I am NOT near the door. downside: since I don’t have my back to the wall anymore, pretty much everyone can see whatever’s on my screen :/  oh well… as a 4^th year JET who is leaving next year, I’m past the point of caring if everybody knows that I spend 80% of my time on facebook…

Anyways! Today was fun… now it’s time to go! Next week’s mission… find out hot teacher’s name… lol.