Note: sorry this is laaaaaaaaaaaate!!! I got way too busy at the end of the last day of that week to post… and then it was Golden Week, and then blogger was acting out so I couldn’t post. Not sure any of you was DYING to hear about my boring stories, but anyways, here they are :p
Monday
I ran into a bunch of the third years this morning as I was getting off the train. They’re all setting off for their school trip to Kyoto. I guess they must be taking the shinkansen. Still, this is kinda odd as it’s the first year it’s happened. (me seeing them) Oh well. I only have one class today, because the said 3rd years will be gone all week. chilllllll.
Aawww, the staffroom is really quiet now because most of the teachers are still at the morning Monday school meeting with most of the kids outside, and Ayumu and this other kid just walked in going “ohayou gozaimasu” quietly, and then he saw me looking at him, perked up and went “hello!” super loud with a big smile. *squeee* love.
Nothing eventful really happened during class, but when I was coming back to the main building, I could hear too kiddies arguing behind me. I turned around and it was Genki and another 1st year and they were arguing about which side you were supposed to put your arms for the C in the “YMCA” song. lol. Genki went like “ne, ne, docchi?” (which one?) and they both demonstrated with their arms and I pointed to the other kid, and he looked all defeated. Awww… why on earth were they singing YMCA anyway???
Tuesday
OKAY!! The little kiddies from 1-7 just freaked the fuck out of me! If you don’t know, in Japanese junior high school, it’s common for 2 representatives in each class to come to the staffroom 5-10 minutes before class and ask the teachers what the plan for the class is (although they’ll usually do that the day before) and “is there anything to bring?”, or in other words “we are your pint sized servants, so if you have shit you don’t wanna carry, please give it to us”. A) I always carry my own shit, and B) I’ve been here for nearly 3 years now and kids know to just not come and ask me. They’ll ask the regular teacher, who’ll say “it’s ALT class today” or something like that and they will just go back to class and wait for me to show up. Well, just now, before 1st period, before the first bell even rang, as I was still in my cranky not-quite-awake phase…. these two little kids sneaked up upon me going “Vanessa-sensei… Japanese Japanese japanese Japanese”. They wanted to know if they could carry my shit. wtf! That never happens.
Aaah, sorry I don’t have too many exciting things to say today… only two classes (1st and 6th, wtf) and a BIG migraine in between, soo…
OMFG!!! The new teacher… I met her in the hall and she just told me that she might be pregnant and she’s freaking out!! and she can’t really tell anyone about it and so she told me! Feels kinda huge considering the fact that I’ve known her all of 3 weeks. She is sweet and cute, like 3 feet tall, and pretty nice, but still. I feel bad for her. In Japan, it’s really common for girls to have kids at her age (25) but she’s still a kid in her head you know, she’s totally not ready for it, and I can understand that. But here, abortion is not readily available. It’s not covered by your insurance and it costs something like 1500$ + to have one. It blows. Her bf knows, and she said he doesn’t know what to do either. She’s going to the hospital tomorrow to “make sure”. *sigh* makes my migraine seem kinda trivial now, doesn’t it???
Wednesday
Migraine is still here… don’t think I will be writing much today :(
So my first class apparently doesn’t exist anymore??? There was a schedule change to the main schedule and nobody told me about it. So it resulted in me showing up to 2-4 and having the kids go “eh? Why are you here? We have social studies now!”. Great. During break I managed to talk to Shigeki-sensei about it and check if there was another period that I could go to 2-4 in two weeks, and there isn’t. I have class every other time they have English class. It kinda sucks because a lot of cool kiddies are in that class. So it means I’ll only see them once every two weeks. meh. Not gonna complain about having 1st period off though!!!
So I just had class with 2-1 now and I had forgotten this was the class with all my mini-boys! ^_^ They put a little touch of happiness in my poor migrained brain. Ayumu was flashing me huge smiles, the cute little boy (whose name I still haven’t learned) waving me a shy hello, and this one tall kid who kept going “eigo yomenai! eigo wakkannai!” all through the class (I can’t read English. I don’t understand English!) Went “HELLO!” at me, raising his arm in an almost military salute and looking so proud. lol. At the end of the class, when kids who had won the game were coming to get their stickers, Rei tried to sneak up on me even though he had only 3 cards (he needed 5) and I had to shoo him back twice. The second time, I called out, “no sticker for you, Rei-chan! Go away!”. Now you have to understand why my calling him “Rei-chan” is hilarious. A) “chan” is a cute tag that is usually only for girls, unless you are talking to a really young boy. B) Rei (who is I find terribly inaptly name… that name belongs on slender, pretty or shy boys IMO) is a big kid for his age, all bulky and manly, and he even has the beginnings of a tiny mustache going on, which I find hilarious since most GROWN Japanese men don’t even get facial hair… so he is not the “chan” type. Anyhow, I thought my calling him “Rei-chan” would upset him, but no, he just pointed to this other kid (a mini-gyaruo type… he curls the tips of his hair…) and went “he is haru-chan!” and laughed. Well ok then, from now on, Rei-chan it is! after the bell rang I felt kinda bad, so I took one of the flyaway stickers (a purple star) and went to stick it on his face, next to his eye, going “here you go Rei-chan!” and went back to grab my stuff. Then I heard Ryo go “Rei-chan kawaii~!” laughing at him, and then stopping and going “oh, actually, it looks really cool. You should keep it like that”. lol.
Thursday
I’m sorry if there’s not that much relavant stuff happening this week… a 3-day migraine will do that to you… honestly I was rather pissed off this morning cuz I thought it went away last night, but I guess not because I woke up to the sound/feel of my head pounding and my vision blurring this morning. Joy. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as yesterday, and it finally went away after lunch. Yay for fatty kyushoku bread.
Anyways, nothing special happened in 1-2, and then class with 2-3 went super well, but I can’t remember any of it, except that before class started, some girls were asking me if that was a dress under my big giant sweater (yes), followed by if I was cold, which I thought was a really weird question considering that a) it’s a super nice day outside and b) I’m wearing a super thick wooly sweater over it. they must have meant my legs, but then, all of them are wearing shorts all year round – even in the dead of winter – so where the fuck do they get off thinking my legs would get cold?? Weird. Oh and also, at the end of the class, there was 5 minutes extra so I decided to play hangman with them, and I swear, I’ve never seen anybody get into hangman this much! lol. They were shouting out letters at the top of their lungs, getting out of their chairs, and then clapping and cheering when they figured out a word. lol. It was so cute. Oh and, the boys from that class are still going around saying “I am vanessa!” eeeh… I guess it’s not gonna die out anytime soon… maybe they’ll have forgotten it after golden week!!
(author’s note: rereading the previous entries, I realized I did NOT write about that particular event! it must have been on one of my migrainy days… well I’ll just tell you now then, shall I? so anyways, it was during one of the 10 min breaks between classes and I was walking along the 2nd year hallway, heading back to the staffroom when one of those kids (Kazunari, I think… the loud one with the big ears…) jumps in front of me and goes, “hello! my name is Vanessa!” and then instead of telling him off, laughing, or ignoring him, I just went “oh really? I’m Vanessa too! nice to meet you!” and shook his hand. it cracked him and his little posse up, and I left to the sounds of them going “I’m Vanessa too! I’m Vanessa too!”… I thought it was funny at the time…)
I just had my last class of the day now, with 1-4, and it went pretty well. Yuka had this little pointer stick that was topped with a little cat’s paw and I couldn’t stop playing with it, which the kids thought highly entertaining. There’s this one tiny little boy named Hideaki in that class who looks so spaced and lost all the time. lol. He is sooooo cute!! I spent half the class doting on him, eheh… bad teacher. Then at the end of class, the JTE made them write their names in English (bear in mind that they are just learning alphabet, so this is actually somewhat challenging… for some of them) at the back of their files along with “I love English!” and while she was explaining it, I shouted “Vanessa!!” just before she said English, and one kid actually wrote “I love Vanessa” on his file. lol. I gave him a sticker :p shameless flattery will get you everywhere.
Saturday.
Yes, you read that right. Saturday. Yesterday was a public holiday, and instead of having a long weekend for my troubles, my school decided to have a PTA day right in the middle. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Seriously. And then they are not even giving us daikyuu (replacement holiday) on Friday, so we could have a long Golden Week, we’re getting it on Monday. Seriously, the guy making the schedules must be on crack. Anyhow, I’m not too cranky (for once) about being at school on a Saturday, because A) my migraine is GONE! and B) I am fucking off to Tokyo tomorrow morning! wohoo! and I am so excited about it, nothing can dull my joy, really. Oh, what’s a PTA day, you ask? Well, it usually happens about twice a year, it’s when we have school on a Saturday so that parents can come in and watch the lessons. Whatever, they should just have it on a weekday cuz it’s usually only moms who come anyways.
Anyhow, I have only one class today, with Yuka. It’s actually the demo class on 5th period where all the parents will come. It was supposed to be 1st period, but since she is chicken about teaching in front of the parents, she asked me to switch so I could teach it with her :p
Btw, this morning I saw Hayato at my train station (old 3rd year boy) and since I don’t really wanna talk in the morning, and I am wearing sunglasses and headphones, I just stuck my tongue at him. lol. At least I got a smile out of him. And his friend (who doesn’t know me) thought it was hilarious. eheh. Btw, tongue-pulling isn’t really common in Japan. Sometimes when you do it, you really don’t get the reactions you should. haha.
I ended up not being able to post this on Saturday because, even though I had only one class, Hasegawa-sensei asked me to do something for our lesson after GW and it ended up taking me all day and I was really busy!!!!
The lesson with Yuka went okay. It definitely wasn’t great. I even tried to involve the parents, but they didn’t get into it at all. And I was thinking “this is super super super basic level English here, there is no way you can’t understand what I’m saying and your 11 years olds do. Get off your fucking asses and play the game with them, you dumb fucks!” It’s like, why do you even bother coming to school to watch how they are learning if you don’t give a shit? That made me kinda angry. Well, maybe it was just that particular batch of parents… last year me and Hasegawa sensei did one that got a really good reaction. Oh and also, I was surprised cuz there were a lot of dads! Maybe the dads were pissed off at having their GW vacation broken in two? hmm…
Oh and yeah, there was a stupid ceremony at the end to introduce the staff to the parents. (That never happened in the last 2 years!) and it made me kinda cranky cuz, haven’t we had enough ceremonies already? and don’t they know us yet? urgh. Well anyhow.
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