Week of January 9th to 13th

Happy New Year everyone!! 

It’s 2012, and the holidays are over, and that means back to the grind.

Monday

Public holiday in Japan.

Tuesday

Well. Here we go again. Today I was supposed to have 5 classes. FIVE. On Friday, I went over to ask Mizushima-sensei if he minded cutting 4^th period with 3-2, since they basically had an extra class over everybody else and I didn’t wanna have to prepare an extra music lesson just for them (you wouldn’t think, but those things take AGES), and I figured that since he is constantly cancelling his classes with me, he couldn’t say much about it. Well, he seemed really surprised, but said fine, and sure enough, took the opportunity to tell me to not come to 2-3 during 3^rd period, because they had to prepare for the tests on Wednesday.  Fair enough, that still left me with 2-2 and 2-1 with Shigeki for 1^st and 2^nd period, and then 3-1 in the afternoon 6^th period. Nice cozy little day with not too much, not too little free time.

So I show up this morning, print my ninensei lesson, and then when Shigeki-sensei finally makes an appearance in the staffroom (5 minutes before class) I go “oh, we have 2-2 now and 2-1 right after, right?” and he goes “aaaaah *teeth sucking sorry….” and there goes my morning.

So I ended up having one class today, which involved watching a movie for 40 out of the 50 minutes of lesson time. We finished watching Hairspray, and like 90% of all the students had “lost” their papers, which made me pretty cranky, and made us start late cuz Shigeki sensei went down to photocopy more. Furthermore, at the end of the class, he proceeded to translate every single question into Japanese, which made me want to pull my hair out, but I was too tired to give a fuck. So let me recap, we watched the movie with subtitles, and then he translates all the questions… and the point of this ENGLISH activity was??? Urgh… at least he’s only a few years away from retirement… *facepalm*

Thursday

Bad class with 2-4…. Masaya was apparently reliving his 3^rd year of existence when he decided that it would be funny to repeat every single thing I said *sigh* the that was followed by a bad class with 3-4, but what was I expecting, really?

One funny thing that happened was Mao and Minami, chasing me down the hallway to ask what “yeah man!” meant. Except that Minami kept saying “yemen” for the first 5 minutes and I had NO idea what she was trying to say. lol. they followed this by asking me what air quotation meant, and then asking what was “XOXO”. I think they’ve started watching gossip girl… I told them to come ask me after lunch, which they did. and oh boy, trying to explain air quotations to kids who can barely understand English, in a country that doesn’t understand sarcasm was FUN! -_- but nevermind, I like those kiddies. Afterwards, I asked Minami if she liked gyaru magazines cuz I was cleaning my house and could give her some old ones and she said I was “gyappu”. I had never heard that word before and Mao tried to explain it to me, and apparently it’s being something that you don’t look like you are? like living a double life or having a secret identity. lol. Then as I was walking back into the staffroom she shouted at me “Vanessa is secret gyaru on weekend!”  well… not so secret anymore, I guess!

Friday

In 1-6 Shoki kept removing hair from my pants. lol. Wait, that sounds wrong. I should probably mention that I shed my hair like a dog, and you can usually find long strands of blond hair all over my clothes at any given time. Shoki, this 3 feet tall little kid with a constant smirk like he is soooooo up to no good, has decided that his favorite thing to do now is to remove the hair he can spot on my clothes… weird? yup. but at least it’s entertaining for the other kids in class :p Yuuya was annoying, but actually did the test and the game earnestly. I guess he was in a good mood. He also got a really horrible haircut. I wonder if his mom cut it, cuz it looks really bad. lol.

1-4 boys were arm wrestling with Tatsuki when I walked in (the little kid who is kinda “slow” and “spaced” and kinda the class mascot) but the hilarious thing was that he was beating all of them (with his usual dazed face). Little baby Hideaki kept stealing glances at me the whole class and then doing this shy-giggle-thing and hiding when I looked back. He is suffering from the same attention disease as Ayumu and Masaya in 2^nd grade… Towards the end, Atsuhiro kept saying that Yuka-sensei looked like she didn’t have a boyfriend. lol. Oh and I went to pester Akira-chan a bit and called him “Akira-chan” loudly in front of all his friends and went “I like Akira-chan cuz he’s so cuuuute!” and poked his cheek, and they all fell over themselves laughing, saying “she says she LIKES you!” “you’re kawaii!!!! Akira-chan kawaii!” and just dying… I’m a bad teacher.

Week of November 28th to Dec 2nd

Monday

First period was 1-6 and it was fun. Yuka-sensei has this “pointer” thingie from the 100yen shop that’s basically a stick with a squishy cat paw at the top. Both the kids and I LOVE the cat paw and always want to play with it… in fact, Fumiya and I have really bonded over our love of the cat paw… Fumiya is this really fat, jolly kid who now sits in the first row. So, most of the class was spent with me waving the cat paw at him, and him trying to grab it. lol.

In 2-4 Masaya was being a horrible little shit again… although there was that one funny moment where I made big eyes at him and he went “hey, are you wearing color contacts?” and it just made me laugh because, with the amount of staring at me that he does, you would think he’d have realized by now my eyes are actually blue…

In class with 3-1, Minoru (who is a really diligent kid, really good at English) and Seiya (who is a brat who cares more about his hair than anything else – especially English) were swapping this little paper around, writing notes to each other. When I tried to grab for it, they of course wouldn’t let me, but I managed to see that they were writing questions to each other… in English!!! Minoru had written “do you have a girlfriend?” and Seiya answered “yes, I do”. lol. WTF?!! Well, I guess they were practicing English in a way that was more entertaining to them, but still, I was kinda baffled. More baffling even is that they kept at it for pretty much the whole class. The rest of the class involved me and Minami talking about the Korean drama “You’re Beautiful”; explaining to the boy in front of her (to his great interest) how you made “sculpt” gel nails; and telling Yuta that I was 18 and having him believe me. lol. I told him that I was a genius and had gone straight from elementary school to university and he was like “really?” lol. When he realized we were making fun of him he went “me too, me too. I didn’t go to high school or junior high school” and the other kid laughed at him in Japanese going “then what are you doing here?!” Fun times. The mood of the classroom was really good and genki, but they were pretty much all doing anything but the work they were supposed to be doing. Oh well!

Tuesday

Today I had 1-7 first period, and it felt like I hadn’t seen them in ages and they were like “Vanessa, yaaaay!!” when I walked in which was sweet. They were super genki the whole time… Oh! One funny thing that happened was that, we were doing possessives today, and they had to ask each other “do you have XX’s bag?” or similar questions, and there is this kid whose name is “Shu” and so when his group realized that saying “Shu’s” sounded like “shoes”, that’s ALL they were asking for the whole duration of the game. “Do you have Shu-zuuuu bag? hat? car?” and then they would all break into fits of giggles. Cuteness.

Then I had regular English with 3-5, and it was kinda funny cuz Kazuma was NOT sleeping. He had his head on the desk, and TRIED to sleep, but he would always go back and open his eyes and just look around at whatever was going on. It cracked me up because obviously he is trying to stick to his bad boy image or “I don’t give a shit”, but he was super awake. Just sit up, kid. I even went to talk to him for a bit and he was all chipper (even though he kept making the girl next to him translate for him) and then he played the game earnestly with Ryohei afterwards *shakes head* Oh and, I also noticed that the girl who looks like Angela Aki (forgot her name, bad me) is dating the boy next to her (tall lanky kid called Shusuke. Smart kid too) because she had purikura of the two of them stuck to her pencilcase… Awww, cute. But seriously, what’s with all these 3^rd grader couples of kids who are sitting next to each other?? That’s 3 now! (That I know of…)

Aaaaaaaand, I guess that’s it. I had 3-2 and 2-6 scheduled, but as usual, Mizushima-sensei cancelled his classes with me, and surprisingly, so did Hasegawa sensei. Apparently, those big regional tests we’re having on Thursday have everyone freaking out. I was a bit bummed to miss my weekly class with 3-2, but oh well…

Wednesday

First period was 1-1 and they were their usual genki selves. There is this one tiny little boy called Fumiya in that class, who showed up to school this morning wearing a snow hat. Now I know that, this being Japan and all, there is NO WAY that the teachers would let him wander around with a hat on just because he was cold, so I figured something must be seriously wrong. So I asked Aoshima-sensei and he told me the kid had surgery for a brain tumor!! And of course his hair fell off cuz of chemo or some other treatment… but apparently now he’s fine :/ Poor baby! Well, he seemed genki enough during class… When we were playing the game, he kept wandering round and round the classroom, and when I assigned him to this group of boys, he refused to play with them, and kept wandering, til I realized he just wanted to be with his friends who were in another (already complete) group, so I was like “ok, fine, you guys can be 6!” and he seemed pretty chipper. There was another girl I tried to put in another group who were only 4, and she completely refused to move and just sat there the whole time. Actually, she always does that, she’s like a freakin’ zombie and never does anything and whenever they play group games I always have to go coax something out of her cuz she completely kills the mood of whatever group she’s in… I mean, I get being an outcast and all, but you could at least TRY. I really have no pity for her at all because it seems to me that she puts herself in this situation. The kids in this class are actually really sweet and warm, and when we do have group things, they usually try to include her and coax her to play along and she just does nothing. Big fail.

Damn, what is it today with kids who don’t wanna play?! There was another shy girl in 1-3 who refused to go into a group. I suggested her two different groups of girls to go with. Even asked one “is it ok if she plays with you” and they nodded yes, and I pushed her over – like physically, with my hands to her back – and she just planted her feet on the ground and refused to move, staring blankly into space. She didn’t even go back to her seat to sit, she just stood there in that one spot for the entire time. Even Aoshima-sensei tried to get her to go, a bit later, but to no avail. Seriously. The rest of them enjoyed the game pretty well, with one usual group of boys waaaaay more eager than the rest, who played like 3 times to everybody’s 1… my little Dinosaur boy seemed a bit out of it though, he was kinda just wandering around.

Oh and btw, on my way back from 1-1 in the morning, I ran into Taisei (3-6) who just randomly started blabbering at me in Japanese “It’s cold… it’s really cold” (I agreed, but actually today is super hot… like almost 20C) followed by “my stomach aches, I don’t feel well…” and he just kept blathering on as he went up the stairs… lol. It was sooo random. haha. I guess he’s sick cuz that’s really kinda out of character for him.

Thursday

Teeeeeests!

Friday

I guess that I forgot to write anything for that day… 

Ooooh, I remember! I had 4 classes back to back in the morning that day, and I was gonna leave early in the afternoon cuz I was going to Tokyo for the weekend, and then, in the staffroom around 1:45pm… like seriously 10 MINUTES before I was gonna leave… Aoshima-sensei comes running up to my desk – panting – and goes “Vanessa, we have class now. Today is B week” and I’m like “what?!?!” all panicky. I was not a happy camper. first of all, I’d already had classes all morning with no breaks (which if you don’t know, is really tiring… most “real” teachers never have anything like that on their schedule…), second of all, I’m just a lowly ALT so you would *think* that if I didn’t show up, the teacher would either be glad, or just let it slide and tell me after. but no, there he was standing in front of me, and ushering me back to class. I was also REALLY pissed off mostly because going to class meant I would leave school a good 30 minutes after I had planned, and alter all my plans and make me have to rush to catch the bus in time. Thanks Aoshima-sensei!! :(

anyhoo… I ended up making the bus on time and having a wonderful weekend in Tokyo, so I guess all is forgiven… :p

Week of November 21st to 25th

Monday

Was test day, so nothing too exciting happened.

Tuesday

Backstreet Boys lesson for sentaku with 3-2 and 3-1. The latter was surprisingly uber genki, even though it was 6^th period. Possibly because class was a nice break from the tests they’ve been having recently. Minami and co kept going on and on about my nails and exte, and about our karaoke date. Ayumi from 3-2 was in love with Brian, and a bunch of the kids from both class were like “are they really foreigners??” (referring to the BSB pics I was passing around) “some of them look Japanese”… :/

Wednesday

Holiday! Migraine! Joy!

Thursday

Hairspray lesson with 3-4 and 3-5… Went down better than expected with my two not-so-favorite groups… I was so sick in the morning I “skipped” 2-4 with Shigeki… he never noticed.

Friday

First period was 1-6, which was fine, and fun, except that Yuuya from 1-6 refused to do the test, which left me a bit confused because how would he not know at least one answer??? He was just trying to be a dick. He is usually so genki, so that made me sad.

Then I had 1-4 right after, who cheered a bit when I walked in, so that made me happy.  The boys in 1-4 ALL had like super messed-up hair. wtf. Baby Hideaki was pretending to have his eyes closed during mokuso and then giggling like an idiot and he saw I’d caught him. On the way back, I ran into Soma and his little posse, and they stayed to walk with me and chat shyly and were SO stoked when I grabbed their hands to demonstrate my human-heater powers. lol.

Then Mizushima-sensei cancelled our class with 2-5. Dunno why I’m surprised really… must be like a month or something since I’ve seen those kids!

Week of November 14th to 18th

Sooorry! This is very very retroactive… I wrote it the week it was happening, obviously, but then I never had time to edit it, and then I forgot about it. Plus, I thought no one was reading this blog :p  It wasn’t until I met up with a friend over the holidays, and she told me “oh yeah! I love your blog and I showed it to all my coworkers and they love it too!” that I was like “huh… people actually read it?!” lol. So I figured I should get off my butt and start it up again. And, since there’s no class until next week, well, you’ll have this (plus one more post) to keep you company…

I’m also considering changing the format a bit, and instead of doing a dutiful weekly diary, just do one-off posts with interesting things that happened or that I’ve noticed…

Anyways, that’s enough blabber for now… read on!!

Monday.

I was lazy and didn’t write it down and now I forgot. It was actually a pretty good day too! :p

Tuesday

Today is actually pretty slow since the only person who has NOT cancelled their classes with me is Hasegawa-sensei. Damn those tests, eh? I’m actually a pretty happy camper though, cuz I have a cold, and normally Tuesdays are 5-classes days…

2^nd period was regular English with 3-5, with me just playing the English parrot at the front, so it was of course boring as hell and nothing exciting happened. OH! But before class, while I was walking in the 3^rd year hallway, Takaya and Ryota (from 3-4) were dicking around and Takaya went “help me!” and started walking stealthily behind me… (like, at a crouch and moving his hands like when you’re skiing…) and I turned around and asked him “who are you hiding from?” but he couldn’t understand and I didn’t know how to say “hide” in Japanese. Then Ryota decided that this was the funniest thing in the world, so he decided to go place himself right behind Takaya and imitate him, doing the same exact retarded “stealth” walk… they followed me nearly all the way to 3-5 like that… lol.

5^th period was regular English with 3-2, which again was a bore, but it had its interesting moments since – of course – it’s 3-2. First up, a group of girls ambushed me on the way to the classroom and we started chatting (with Ayumi declaring her undying love for me again) and then they were trying to teach me this slang word which means “single” and it was something like “real-yu” but I really didn’t get it. Then they were like “oh! You should ask Daisuke if he’s realyu!” and at that very moment, Daisuke showed up and they were like “come here! come here!” and pushed me onto him and I just refused to do it… lol. Honestly I didn’t even understand what they wanted me to say and I was super embarrassed. Poor Daisuke was just completely confused.

During class, while the kids were working on their handouts (but a bunch of them had already finished) I went to scold Kota cuz he was studying math. We started chatting and then I said I was really bad at Math. He started pulling each one of his textbooks (and of course, by that point Dan was turned around in his seat and participating to the conversation too) and asking me if I was good at that subject. P.E? No. Science? No. Japanese? No. (They’re all laughing at me by this point) Social Studies? Ok. “Oh really? How about History?” Dan asks me, and I nod. I really liked history in High School. Then Dan goes (in Japanese) “wait a minute, she probably doesn’t study Japanese history…” lol. So they started asking me about the history of Canada. Then Kota asked me when the history of Canada started so I said “around 1600?” (yeah, I suck at history now… but I was good at it in school!! XD) and he scoffed and said Japan’s history was much older. After teaching them what “B.C.” meant (they were really into it!) they said that Japan’s history started about 3000 years B.C. lol. Anyways, it was a funny conversation that was interrupted by Hasegawa-sensei wanting to correct the paper… oops.

At the end of class, Daisuke waved me over and told me I was crazy. Then he laughed and said “You crazy today. You made a mistake”. There was the word “Argentine” in the textbook and I said it wrong. Cuz honestly, how the fuck should I know it was “ar-jent-een” and not “ar-jen-tyne”? But apparently he thought it was hilarious. So I told him “you know English’s not my first language” and he went “it’s not?!” with this stunned look on his face, “what is it?” so I told him it was French, and he was all impressed… it’s funny cuz I tell my kids every year that I speak French, and they always forget. :p

Wednesday

Only had one class today and it was with 2-1… Sadly, nothing super exciting happened, other than the usually dickery with the 2-1 boys, and perhaps a bit too much fan-servicing on my part… oh well! :p

Thursday & Friday

Those days were mid-year-seminar (which has been renamed something stupider this year, but I can’t be bothered looking it up), which is basically a two-day conference for JETs all over the prefecture. This is fun and useful in your first year… by the time your second year rolls around, you’re already bored, so imagine having to go for a 4^th time… JOY! Although it’s fun to see those other people you never get to see, it’s such a bore, and honestly, I’d rather be at school.

Sorry this week wasn’t very blog-worthy! Peace out!

Week of November 7th to 11th

Monday

First period was with 1-7 and they were genki and peppy as usual… the girls kept saying I was really kawaii over and over, and forcing the boys to tell me I was cute. lol. I wore my hair in a braid over my shoulder and apparently that was a big hit :p

2^nd period was sentaku with 3-3 and it was my first time doing my BSB lesson… it went overall well, but I was like “this song is sooooooo easy” when it started, but they totally couldn’t understand the American-y pronunciation of the song and were super confused as to the missing words. Oh well. They seemed to like the song and the video though. Brian was deemed the coolest. lol.

Then, same lesson with 3-6… aaah, my dear 3-6… you never fail to get a reaction out of me. I think it went well though, but both Taisei and Seiya were really sleepy so maybe the class wasn’t as lound as usual. It was Masamitsu and his little group that was the noisiest. When they got the pictures that were passing around, they decided that Nick looked like a Big Mac commercial (his mouth was opened) and proceeded to refer to him as “Makku” for the whole rest of the lesson, and they were looking for “Makku” in the video too… lol. They also waved me over at one point, pointed to Kevin’s eyebrows and asked me if he’d drawn them on. lol. I said they were real and they totally didn’t believe me. At the end of the class, I heard Masamitsu mumble to his friends “Vanessa’s music lessons are so fun” and I was just like “What?! Did I hear that right?!” that kid is soooo on-and-off… I don’t get him at all. Oh well!!!

lol, two random kids from another junior high school just walked into the staff room with the guy who usually sells sports goods (or something) and they were just staring at me like CRAZY. haha… that’s right, you WISH your school had a pretty ALT like me…. (yeah, I’m vain…)

Oh, I forgot to write this!! After school, when I was exiting the building, I saw some first year boys loitering by the gate and they were all “byyyyeee Vanessa!” and trying to chat with me a bit as I left. There was like five of them, and the group included Soma (1-1) and Yuuya (1-6) and Shu (1-2) and some other ones that don’t ever really talk. They were trying to tell me I looked so pretty and Soma was very obviously staring at my tits. lol. He’s like 12. Then they all kinda decided to leave at the same time as me and I thought it was cute. For a while they attempted to make conversation as we walked, but they pretty much can’t speak any English, so they soon gave up and ran off way ahead of me. It made me chuckle and I turned on my ipod and walked the rest of the way to the station. when I showed up at the train station, they were all there waiting. (They all live around here and DON’T need to be taking the train to go home). Soma asked me which stop I was getting off at, so I told him, before asking him where he was going. “oh I’m not going anywhere. see you!” and then he ran off again. wtf. lol. The funniest part was that while I was talking to them, these 3 kinda dorky-looking university boys were staring at us with this kinda “omg, I can’t believe these little schoolboys are talking with that blonde girl!” look, and when I passed them later they mumbled “beautiful!” at me, haha…

Tuesday

So here I was, really looking forward to the fact that I had only one class today, and that it was with my favorite group, and now they told me that I don’t, because since the 2^nd years are going off to like… “caretaking” training or something… Mizushima-sensei is going with them, so sentaku class is cancelled. pooh…

Wednesday

First period with 1-1 went well. Can’t remember much of it now except that Soma and his partner were soooooo eager to finish the crossword puzzle in time, so that they could get a sticker. Mr. partner was really giddy because I still had some panda stickers left, and that’s when I peaked a look at his name card and saw that nearly all his stickers were pandas. Oh yeah, that reminds me, at the beginning of the class, he was trying to steal one sticker off of Soma’s namecard and I went over and said “NO!” and he stopped and Soma came to grab his name card and told him, in English “you are bad boy!” and I laughed. then they both sat down and the kid asked “what does that mean?” to Soma in Japanese and he answered “I dunno”. lol! How the fuck does he not know?! haha…

Third period I had 1-3, and they were a bit more awake than usual, which was nice. The most entertaining part of the lesson was watching Dinosaur boy trying to impress the girl next to him – by constantly commenting on whatever to her – and watching the look of complete disinterest on her face. It’s kinda funny cuz I think he may have delusions regarding his coolness level. I mean, I love him. He’s like 3 feet tall and so so cute, but he’s kinda dorky. Earlier during the break, he had borrowed the glasses of some other kid and was striking these “macho” poses, while looking over the glasses… it was hilarious… I think in his head he thinks he is a cool playboy or something… the reality, however… lol!

Next period was 1-2 and they were as hyper as usual. Yuka needed the whole time to do grammar stuff so mostly I just walked around, tapping kids over the head with her silly “cat paw” stick if they misbehaved… or if they didn’t :p

I’m checking the comment papers from the music lessons with 3-3 and 3-6 on Monday. I started having them fill out a paper where they rate the song and write me a comment in English. It’s working really well cuz I can figure out if the kids enjoy the songs or not, and I was surprised to see that a lot of kids who seemed bored, are usually saying good things about the songs. ANYWAYS. I just got to Masamitsu’s paper. The last two weeks he wrote completely random crap (week 1 : I like apple. week 2 : dodosuko love <3) and this week’s jem is just kinda making my face look like this -> :/  he wrote “all over the woman love <3” wtf?! Considering I know who wrote this, there is no doubt whatsoever as to the meaning of those words… ooh dear…

Thursday.

Man… am I sleepy…. :/

Ooh boy. Staffroom. Before 1^st period. Everyone is all in a huff because Kazuma is not here again… don’t you people know by now?? Kid likes to skip school. No need to get all in a huff about it every single time! Geez…

On the way to class, Imari (who was chatting with these two other boys) stopped me to say hello, and then pointedly told them something that I didn’t catch. I made him repeat 3 times til I finally understood that he was saying “everyday ime-change” lol. Damn stupid hospital mask… the funny part though, was that he was telling them so matter-of-factly, like “I know that Vanessa changes her hair everyday… you may not have noticed, but I know because I’m just cool like that” lol. God bless you Imari!

Then I had sentaku class with 3-5, and even though they were all really sleepy, they were really into it… especially Kiyo, who was desperate to try to understand the words… It’s kinda funny to me how they really can’t understand southern American pronunciation; haha… the tv really does make everything better. Also some kids at the back were laughing at Nick’s hair, going “kinoko hair! mushroom hair!” lol.

On the way back, Daisuke chased me down and was like “Vanessa! Vanessa! Next lesson, what song?” and I said the Backstreet Boys and he made this confused face and said he didn’t know who they were. He said “Next time, Aerosmith! I like! Please let’s!” lol. I said “maybe next next time!” and he went off all happy.

4^th period was 3-4, and even though they were REALLY hyper during the break, class went pretty well. Of course most of them weren’t writing anything during the song, but I really think the tv has tamed them. They get really excited when the videos come on. yay! I don’t have to dread going to 3-4 anymore!

5^th period was 1-5, and they did their usual cheer as I walked in the class, which is always uplifting. A funny thing though, was that, as I walked by 1-6’s class, the kids went “ah! Vanessa da!” so I walked back and looked at the through the window while they giggled away. I did it like, 3 more times cuz they were calling my name. lol. I think they were sad that I wasn’t going to their class though. aww… they usually have English at the same time as 1-5 so I coulda been going there.

Friday

Finally Friday! yay!

On the way to class this morning, I ran into the boys from 2-1 who were heading to gym class, and after saying hello, I was just kinda walking ahead of them when I heard one of them say my name. So I slowed down, turned my head and went “Vanessa, what?” and Ryo got confused and repeated “Vanessa world?” so I just laughed and said “Vanessa World?! What’s that?!” and they all took off laughing and shouting “Vanessa world! Vanessa world!” lol. Wonder what kind of theme park that would be… wait, don’t answer that… :/

First class was 1-6 and they were really chipper. Yuuya especially was terribly bratty, but it was fun. When Yuka was explaining “over there” on the board, she went to the kids “do you know the song `over the rainbow`?” and the kids were kinda clueless so she started humming it and they booed her. Then they asked me to sing it and they went “oooh” and clapped. lol.

Next was 1-4 and I spent most of the time pestering this one boy at the front of class (Takumi, I think? not sure) and having to stop the two Akiras from play-punching each other… they’re sitting in front of each other now… I wonder if I’ll have to start calling them Akira-chan and Akira-kun like I do for my two Toshikis (who always sit together) in 2-2… lol. Little grumpy baby Hideaki was there too, and his hair got so long it just makes him look all the more like a grumpy teddy bear… He was just staring at me the whole time and giving me this kinda “what do you want?!” look, but then… why the fuck was he constantly looking at me?? This kid is very puzzling… maybe he just naturally looks grumpy and is actually a really cheerful person? lol.

Week of October 31st to November 4th

Monday

First period was 1-7 and it went quite well. They cheered a bit when I walked in but I think they’re doing it just to copy 1-5… Before class started, Ryunosuke looked at me, and he was looking at my hair and went “hmmm…. maybe I should dye my hair blonde too…” in Japanese. That was so fucking random. He’s a big tall kid with a buzz cut. lol.

Ran into Daisuke on my way to my second class and he basically ran at me going “Vanessa, Vanessa!!” and I assumed he wanted to tell me that he won at the chorus contest so I cut him off going “I know, I know, you won.” and that completely threw him off and he looked really confused, so I thought maybe he wanted to say something else after all and said “oh, ok, what is it” but then he just proceeded to tell me his class had won. In English. He is so cute because these days he keeps running at me anytime he sees me in the school and trying his hardest to tell me stuff in English. He’s trying really hard!

2^nd period was sentaku English with 3-3 and it went super well. They were genki and participative the whole time, laughing at my jokes and all that jazz… those are the best lessons. This one boy who was sitting at the front of the second row on the right kept getting “bullied” by the girls around him (the one behind and the one next to him), they were tickling him and/or poking him, but like, constantly for the whole class. I kept saying “stop bullying him” and “kawaiisou” (you poor thing) at him, and they just laughed… so at the end of class I randomly gave him a sticker because I said I felt sorry for him. He was all pleased with himself and put it on his name card. Hiroko was all shocked and kept saying “sekoi!” so I asked her what it meant cuz I didn’t know, and she pulled out her electric dictionary. Apparently it means “cunning” or “crafty”. Basically she was saying that the kid was putting on a show so I would feel bad for him… lol.

3^rd period was the same lesson with 3-6. they also had a good reaction but they were kinda bratty/noisy, and I had to shush them several times… also Masamitsu doesn’t like me anymore… he kept making little shooing gestures at me when I came near him… grr… and yet, he was kinda following along the class, commenting on various things. I dunno what’s his deal. pooh. Maybe he didn’t like me saying his hair looked like Dragon Ball this morning (I swear, it was like all spikey!! lol)

Daisuke and Imari ambushed me in the hallway and were just chatting at me excitedly, Imari was trying to ask me for candy, and Daisuke was trying to explain to me in English that he was going to AEON with his gf on Thursday (isn’t he so freakin’ cute??) and they were both tripping over themselves to get my attention and these two girls who were walking arm-in-arm behind me and watching the whole thing were like “nampa sareta naaa…” (basically saying the two boys were trying to “pick me up” lol). When they finally managed to get their stuff out, I told Daisuke he was a good boyfriend and he grinned from ear to ear, and I told Imari I didn’t have candy because I was poor this year. Daisuke laughed and told me – I swear to god – “too many accessories!” LOL!! These kids know me too well….

Tuesday

First period was 2-2, followed by 2-1 and they both went well but kinda whirlwindy so I forgot if anything really funny happened there. same with 3-2, except that it went really well and I had a pretty long chat with Dan and Kota, where Dan said he wanted to go study abroad in Canada, and that he had friends in Canada, and then I heard Kota mumble at him in Japanese “they’re not friends!” lol. I wonder if he has some little Canadian internet girlfriends or something?? That would explain why these two cool boys like English so much…

3-1 was entertaining to say the least. I think this class could have gone badly, but the tv saved the day so their attention was up the whole time. First weird thing was that when I walked in to class, Ikuto (the weird kid) came over and went “Vaneeeeeessaaaaaaa….” and just stood next to me and gave my arm a few little squeezes. Like he’s squeezing my arm fat and he likes it… did I mention the kid is weird? He did that to me last Friday as well, at the chorus contest. wtf…

Anyhow, another funny thing was this whole going way off topic for like 5 minutes while the kids were telling Shigeki-sensei that Aoshima-sensei wore a wig/toupet, and Shigeki-sensei didn’t know and the kids were just pissing themselves and they were like “you should ask him!” so of course he said “well I’m not gonna ask him that!” and then they went on “you should go to the onsen together! take him to the sento!” lol… This came about cuz I was teaching them the meaning of the word “shine” and someone brought about this one teacher who’s completely bald, and thus has a very shiny head…

Then after the bell rang, I was walking in the hallway and I’d just run into Yuka (the teacher) and was chatting with her when Minami ran out of the classroom shouting “Vanessa! kondou, asobou!” (it means “let’s play next time”, but basically “let’s hang out together” ) lol. A bunch of the guys laughed at her and went “you can’t say that to a teacher?” and Yuka was laughing, but I just said “sure, let’s go karaoke!” and she got super excited going “Really?! ok ok! Next Sunday!!”  Hum… not sure what I’ve gotten myself into here… but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t mind going karaoke with Minami so…

After school I went to the department store near my house to meet up with a friend for dinner, and I ended up running into two sets of graduated students! The first pair were both mine, and I couldn’t remember their names or if they had graduated one or two years ago, cuz I suck. One of them asked me “do you remember me?” and I said “of course honey! I don’t remember your name cuz I’m a bad teacher, but I remember your face!” and she said “yokatta!”  Cuteness. Then I swear like 10 seconds after I’d left them, I ran into one of my favorite kids from last year, Yuna who basically attacked me with a hug. She was with a friend from her new school, a super-tiny shy girl who seemed really well behaved and impressed by our relationship. I asked her Yuna if she was still dating Yuu and she went “No!! He was so bad!!” lol.

Wednesday

First class was 1-1… before class started, I was chatting with the group of boys near the window and one of them, Raimu, asked me in Japanese if I’d ever baked bread. It took me a while to get what he was asking because he was saying “pan tsukutta koto aru?” and I was hearing “pantsu”, which means underwear in Japanese, because he was speaking so fast, so I kept going “huh?!”  Anyways, I said no, and he went “whaaat?! When we were in elementary school, I asked you and you said you had!” Kid, how do you remember that? I can’t remember at all… also I possibly didn’t understand anything you were asking back then since I couldn’t speak Japanese very well… then he launched into a story (to these two other boys) about how I was in love with Kaisei. lol. (One of the other boys in that class) and I nodded, made a heart sign with my hands which cracked them both up. Then I went on explaining that it’s a joke, because when they were in grade 5, a lot of girls in his class were in love with Kaisei, so I said I was part of the Kaisei fan club too (he’s the only kid whose name I ever remembered from elementary school btw). The two boys went “majika?!” (no way!) and then, exactly at the same time, they both shouted Kaisei’s name really loud, on this super funny tone. lol. It was really really funny, though I guess you had to be there.

1-3 during the 3^rd period went better than usual… I was teasing that kid with the huge playboy smile and his little friend and they were totally into it. Then I went to 1-2 straight away because I didn’t wanna go down the stairs and all the way back up, and I swear, someone gave those kids sugar just before because they were completely nuts during the WHOLE break time! This one boy in the back, Kengo, was being “bullied” by about 3 different girls, and it was kinda hilarious. First of all, boys and girls don’t really mix in Japanese schools normally, nevermind touch, or participate in this kind of friendly bullying. These girls were all up on them! Climbing their backs, pushing them (oh yeah, there was another boy who got bullied a bit, but mostly just Kengo), ruffling their hair… when I showed up, Yuri – the girl next to him – was petting Kengo’s hair quite violently and he was laughing and squealing at the same time. lol. I walked in behind her and put my hand in his hair and started doing the same thing, and all the girls were giggling and Yuri told him “I’m not doing it!” so he looked up and went “ooh! bikkurishita!!” and everyone laughed. The second I stopped they got back to it and he started squirming “sensei! help me!!” so I went back over and I was like “sekuhara!” (you’re sexually harassing him!) and they just laughed and he went “yes! yes! sekuhara! stop!” in English… Anyways, they kept at it for nearly the WHOLE break… at one point I had to make a wall around the kid with my arms so she would leave him alone… lol.

The rest of the class with them was also really fun, but they were still so fucking hyper… even Yuka told me at the end “I’m sorry, this class is so crazy!” lol. It’s her homeroom actually, haha…. well, I’d rather crazy kids to zombie kids any day of the week….

Thursday

Today was a holiday. Japan has a lot of these random middle-of-the-week holidays… back home, when a holiday falls on a weekday, it just gets relegated to the nearest Monday or Friday, here, such rationale is apparently inexistent, thus middle-of-the-week randomness. There’s another one coming in about 3 weeks or so. wtf.

Friday

Veeeeeeeeery sleepy today…. thank god it’s a slow day. First period was 1-6 with Yuka, and when I showed up she was like “I need to just do grammar today, so if you wanna just go do your work in the staffroom, it’s ok”. I said I would stay, cuz the kids had already seen me and they get really confused if I show up and then leave, but figured I would bail the next one. A funny thing that happened was that, during the aisatsu, Yuka went “good morning everyone!” and the kids have to answer “good morning miss Shoji and Vanessa” and then one of the kids said “see you!” instead of good morning, to me, and after a few giggles I was like “eh? see you? ok, bye bye!” and I walked out of the classroom while everybody laughed. Yuka made the kid apologize and he was like “so-ri!” Awww… Other than that nothing too exciting happened except for the fact that this one kid Yuuya kept being a brat at the back of the class :p

Oh and, everybody is digging my blindingly bright pink shirt today, apparently… the school nurse just stopped me near the sink in the staffroom to tell me that my shirt’s color was “sugoi, kirei!” (that was random) and earlier I ran into Dan and Kota and one of them (who can remember, eh? it’s like they’re one entity…) said to me in English “oh! nice shirt today!” lol. gotta love that they are trying to impress me by trying so hard to speak English. and then, in the afternoon, the head teacher just kinda stop next to my desk and went “wow! nice color!” while I’m thinking like “dude, I’ve been wearing this shirt all day… you’ve just noticed??”

And on that note, my bed is calling. toodles.

Week of October 24th to 28th

Monday

First period was 1-6… it went well. This one little boy named Yuuta was like this when I walked in:

kid: hello!

me: hello.

kid: ohayo!

me: ohayo.

kid: (giggling) ohayou gozaimasu!

me: ohayou gozaimasu.

Kid and and friends burst into laughter. Glad I could be of service really. The rest of the class went fine, and then at the end of the class when Yuka gave them their tests back, they were all trying their damnest to hide their scores from me. but I always win. *evil laughter*

Second period was 2-4. Don’t remember.

Third period was 3-1 and, when I walked in, my crazy boys were all sitting on the floor in the back corner of the room. I went to ask them “what’s wrong, you guys are so quiet today.” and Kouki said “very very tired”. Yeah, me too, kid. Then that wacky one mumbled something that obviously had the word “oppai” (boobs) in it, and I made to kick his face with my foot (I’m nice like that) and he shouted “under hair!” and everybody laughed. lol. I’m not quite sure what he was trying to say… any ideas???

On the way back to the staffroom, I ran into a very sleepy-looking Kota who looked at me, followed by this pained thinking expression, and then said “next class, where?” and I said I had break after and he seemed confused so I said “no class, no. but we have class tomorrow” he nodded sleepily and walked into the bathroom. lol. So weird. I guess the kids like having a one-day weekend as much as I do.

Tuesday

First period was 1-7. They were generally peppy, as usual and I have nothing bad to say.

Second period was with 3-5. Mostly incredibly boring except for the fact that Ryohei apparently decided that he was going to be a host today, showing up to school with totally suji-ed hair (well, as much as he could get away with, with the JHS restrictions anyways) and cracking me up. There also was this funny part when they were doing the writing activity later on, and as I was walking by him, I heard the girl next to him say in Japanese “well just ask Vanessa” and he goes (in Japanese) “this person does not understand Japanese, why would I ask this person?” and I was standing right next to him, right? So I look down at him, and he looks up and I go “kono hito nihongo wakarimasen?” and the girl laughs and he looks guilty. So he asked me what the word he wanted to say in English, which was “lend” but I don’t even think he knew what he wanted to say in his head because he was just sooo confused… I ended up walking away. It’s funny and weird cuz he is usually quite good at English.

5^th period was with 3-2, and since they are my favorite class, it shoulda been fun, but just before the end of the break, Hasegawa-sensei came to tell/ask me that they were really behind so that she needed the whole class for grammar stuff… so besides a bit of tape-recorder-repeating, all I did was wander around and poke the kids who were falling asleep. Most entertaining moments were Daisuke trying to chat with me at the beginning of the class, telling me (as Ayano is standing right next to him) that he is broken-hearted, and when I asked him why he pointed to her and said “another love…” and made a sad face. Then she went “eh?!! no no no no!!!” and he laughed. I told him he was a liar and he was like “what’s that?”

Also Imari was pretty entertaining today, telling me that he had won the hello kitty plushy hanging from his pencil case at UFO catcher, but that he actually sucked at them. Then later, in the mini game, he actually sought me out to ask me the question (which I thought was cute) and then when they were doing this handout paper, I went over to tell him to write his name (cuz he’d forgotten) and he goes “No! No name!” So I asked him “are you no name boy?” and he goes “Yes! No! I am Michael Jackson!” lol. It was so fucking random…

6^th period was cancelled by Mizushima-sensei… dunno why but I totally saw it coming….

Wednesday

First period was with 1-1 and we did the math game. Nothing exceptional happened except that Soma burst into giggles at me when I was saying “see you” at the end of class, and I have no idea why, and it was just really, really adorable.

Next was 2-1 and it was a really fun class. All the boys were acting up so bad. (but in a good way?) and Wataru kept blushing whenever he saw me looking at him. They did pretty well on the writing activity so I’m happy and surprised! At one point, I was walking near to white-hair-boy (Yuta) and he went “hatsuon wa jouzu desu ne” (your pronunciation is good), but I wasn’t saying anything so it was kinda random. I asked him “in English or Japanese?” and he went “both”. lol.

As I was making my way to class in the afternoon, ran into 3-2 leaving, with Dan and Kota of course walking side by side. Kota spotted me, went “ha!”, elbowed Dan to look at me and said “maketa!” (you lost!)… wtf was that about? Are they taking bets on how I’m gonna wear my hair or something? That was soooo random….

5^th period was with 3-6. This class is kinda weird… they are either completely on, or completely off… today, they were on. They surprised me by being super cheerful the whole time. Even Masamitsu welcomed me into the class going “oh! beautiful!” (lol. I am wearing my hair in braids today… it always gets me a flattery reaction from the kids) and then I was making fun of him because he had two pair of pants on, and I was like “why are you wearing two pairs of pants?” and one of the other kids answered (in english!) “It’s different culture!” raising his hands and shrugging, which cracked up all the other kids. The reason why it’s funny is because that exact sentence has been studied in the last chapter of the book. Then they were like “sa-ge pants!” and I was like “what’s sage?” and basically they explained to me that it was “cool to have pants riding low on your ass…” lol. I told them it was like that in Canada too, but that one didn’t usually wear two pairs of pants on top of the other…

Anyways, the rest of the class was followed by more chatting and dicking around, and then, at the end I was explaining about “peek-a-boo” (the game we play with babies) to the same group of boys and they were just sooo interested in it. lol. Then the little kendo boy (forgot his name) pointed at my belly and went “do you have a baby?” and they all went “ooooooh!!” and I made to punch him. Little shit! argh! Then class was ending and they were like “no baby? no baby?” and I was like “no! I don’t have a baby!!!” and Seiya asked “do you have a boyfriend?” and I replied “no boyfriend either!” and he was like “zettai usso” (you’re obviously lying) and thankfully the bell rang, but I was still fuming! Little shits!! argh! (I mean that in a loving way….)

Thursday

First period with 1-2 was entertaining, to say the least… they were all soooo sleepy, but they were still trying their bests to participate… every once in a while I would stare at a kid and watch them notice me and then open my eyes real big and watch them giggle… (I entertain myself whichever way I can…) but mostly, it was the fact that Yuka caught Tatsuya trying to pass a paper around, and on the paper was this godawful ugly drawing of a person, and when she asked him who it was he said it was me :/ the character had big ginormous boobs. yay. and I’m wearing a super loose shirt today too, wtf…

I was supposed to have 2-3 during 4^th period, but Mizushima-sensei asked me not to come. I’m kinda bummed cuz I had only 3 classes today, and I like 2-3 so I was looking forward to seeing them. oh well.

Ok, so apparently there is no class this afternoon either cuz they are rehearsing for the chorus contest tomorrow. huh. On the monthly schedule thingie it says classes go til fifth period. I guess not :/

Friday

We had the chorus contest today and it was at the big fancy concert hall in my city. Every 3 years, Junior High Schools all over the city get to have their chorus contest there, so it’s my second time now cuz we had it there my first year. I don’t really have much to say about it because it’s the same every year, quite boring. and actually, we didn’t even sing the teachers’ song because apparently we were running behind schedule. I had NO PROBLEM with that whatsoever since I didn’t even know the song and it was in Japanese. I couldn’t even interact with the kiddies that much because the non-homeroom-teachers’s seats were on the second floor, with the parents, completely cut off from the kids on the main floor. I only saw them a bit at lunch time and during toilet breaks. For some reason everybody was squealing that I was so kawaii today. I guess wearing a jeans jacket makes me super kawaii :p

During one of the said bathroom breaks though, I saw these two teenage girls dressed kinda gyaru, and as I looked at them closer, I recognized two of my old students, who graduated two years ago. They were all happy that I recognized them, and one of them – Yuika – blew me away by chatting away in nearly perfect English. Actually, she was my speech contest kid that year, but even though she was better at English than her classmates at the time, she still had a hard time understand me all the time… but now… wow! and she told me that she’s going to do study abroad in Fiji next year! Wow, some people have all the luck!!

In the end, class 3-1 and 3-2 tied for first place, which was really surprising, but I guess it made more people happy. They were both quite good though, so I guess it’s nice. I can’t remember who won for the other grades, but the only ones that are really worth watching are the 3^rd year students, because the younger ones can’t sing at all. lol.