What Do I Do With a Slacker? My 9th grade activities are getting better. I had them putting together fractured sentences, and that worked pretty well! Afterward Tomomi gave them a handout. I walked around the classroom and noticed that one of the students was drawing on the back of the paper. I asked him if he was finished and he said yes. I asked him to show me. The paper was blank. I told him to get going and do it then I walked to the next group of desks (they were still in groups from my activity.) Out of curiosity I turned, and he was back doing his drawing again. Tomomi-sensei was in the middle of helping other students so I did not want to interrupt him. I wasn't sure what to do. (Unlike the 7th or 8th grade guys, I'm a lot less comfortable around the 9th grade guys.) I didn't do anything. Luckily, when some of the students were writing answers on the board, I noticed Tomomi talking to him so I was relieved. Tomomi is very good at encouraging students like these. My gut reaction was to tell the slacking party to shape up and do the work. I think Tomomi, having been a student who had to work hard, has more sympathy than me, who did well in junior high school without too much effort. Will have to work on that.

I Have the Nicest Tutor! Not only did Iwato-sensei send me a New Year card (with such perfect English, I thought it was from back home -- sometimes, since she is my Japanese tutor, I forget she used to be an English teacher) she also offered to drive me to the bus center for me and Laura's trip to Kyoto later this month. She is so sweet! That's an hour drive! On her New Year card, she also expressed that she'd like to hang out with me, which would be kind of neat. I think she's about my age (though married) and it would be fun to have another person to karaoke with.

Yet Another Christmas Party I was invited to another Christmas Party. I was already invited to one happening in two weeks (a potluck in Miyoshi that "other foreigners would be at"), but this one is for the 22nd at the same place I get tutored. Unfortunately, that is also when the staff trip is for the Jr. High teachers.

Advantage of the Staff Trip I had to admit that it was pretty neat to walk into the town hall building and actually recognize faces! Cute smiley-guy-with-glasses even smiled at me. Apparently, Tamura-san would like to do a January issue despite that I will just be getting back from vacation then. Then again, she also told me that March will be the final issue, so it makes even more sense that she would want January. Ironically, the April issue was the first issue of my predecessor's that I ever saw and I won't get to do an April issue.

Nursery School Mix-up I finally just asked Maruyama-san outright, "Why do you always ask ME if I'm going to the nursery school? Do I have a choice?" Turns out I do! Do'h. It makes some sort of sense, but I kind of mentally included it with my 'work duties' (since my being there sort of Fosters Internationalization; at least gets the little ones used to being around non-Japanese.) Now I know (and will try not to abuse the privilege.) Today wasn't bad, though. I had massive numbers of cute kids surrounding me who wanted to be lifted into the air and turned upside down and spun around. I can do that for awhile and a LOT of kids wanted to do it today. I did have one kid hit me (and I got another breast comment from a girl) but other than that, it was pleasant. I saw a couple of the younger kids I don't get to see as much, including the twins who can't walk without aid. Later, I even learned how to make an origami star! All the kids, including me, got a little piece of colored origami paper. She folded it, folded it again, folded once more very precisely, then cut at an angle. When she unfolded everything, it was a perfect 5-pointed star! How cool is that!

Fractured Sentences For my evening English conversation class, I handed out pieces of paper with bits of a sentence on it and had them put it back together, demonstrating that there is more than one correct answer. (For example, showing that "Last night, I went to Hiroshima with my friend to see a movie." also works as "I went to Hiroshima last night to see a movie with my friend." and so forth.) It worked pretty well, though my warm-up activity (doing the months of the year to a beat, switching languages every go, was not as rowdy as the 'bon' game where I had us saying the days of the week in order to a beat and adding an increasing number of people saying 'bon' at the end. I actually messed up during the game once (which amused the heck out of my students considering that saying the days of the week should be no effort for a native speaker).

Even Some English! I was really tired today and just trying to imagine planning for the record number of English classes next week makes it worse. But on a higher note, I received quite a few questions in my mailbox; questions like, "What kind of cake does Melissa want to eat on Christmas?" and "Has Melissa ever eaten mochi?" They always address me in the third person, like I wrote above, though I usually translate it in the second or first person since it sounds less like Dobby that way. Also, "Who is Melissa spending New Year's with?" The two I got in English were, literally, "Who do you love?" and "Do you like volleyball?" It's nice to see the question spark back, at any rate. I wonder who writes these? The same bunch of people? Girls? Boys? In groups? Alone? I'm curious, but part of what inspires the questions, I think, is the fact that no one knows. I still answer them in both Japanese and English.

No Trick I missed the first half of Trick, which made the second half even more baffling, but still full of complete randomness and silliness. It appears, however, that the season is ending next week. Japanese TV has the shortest seasons in history. Dramas are more like mini-series. Glad there's DVD.

Big Spider Nope, not a real one. I had a vivid dream about one last night, though. (I so rarely remember my dreams when the alarm wakes me up, so it is neat to remember one so clearly on a weekday.) The giant arachnid did not scare me in the dream at all, but I noted that it was Very Large and seemed to be getting closer as I walked across a hilly landscapes alone then got into my car. I wonder what this represents, if anything? My fears that I think will never happen are approaching?

Burning and Freezing I'm actually getting used to smelling kerosene in the classrooms. That's just wrong. It's also ironic, though. Although the gas-burning fire warms up the classroom marvelously, they still have to air out the classroom, thereby letting the cold air back in. I'm glad I have electric heaters at home. One thing that is really irritating me, way more than the smell of kerosene, is the way that the bottom half of the school uniforms have not changed for winter. The boys still wear these thin, printed pants and the girls wear SKIRTS with socks that do not quite reach their knees. Here I am, massively bundled up and the kids are freezing! That just seems unnecessarily cruel to me. There's a point where being uniform reaches stupidity. Worse is that they are still wearing the plastic slippers. Brrr! I wear my summer toe-less shoes in the heated culture center and my feet still have gotten cold every time. I'm thinking of buying warmer indoor shoes and meanwhile the kids are freezing their asses off with no choice. Erg. I really want to talk to the girls about this and see what their opinion is. Not sure how and when to bring up the topic.

Thunderstorm I know this will sound ridiculous, but I think thunder in Sakugi sounds different. While sitting in the staff room, we all heard a loud crash in the sky followed by silence. I was thinking it could have been everything from a fighter jet to a gun going off until we started hearing it repeatedly and it turned out to be thunder. Weird, but cool! Thunderstorm in Sakugi! (Though it seems cold enough for snow. Can you have a thunderstorm with snow?)

Parking Tower The snow was mostly melted today, but it was so pretty to look out my window yesterday and see, to my surprise and delight, a couple centimeters of white snow covering everything! Yay! Anyway, I very (very) whimsically decided to do something today that I've never done before: drive to Hiroshima city. I've driven that far before, but with never with intention to actually park downtown and that's the rub. I figured, though, that I owed it to myself to at least check to see how bad it really was before resigning myself to always taking the bus. Getting there was easy enough: it is a straight shot from Funo on a single local highway all the way down - it took less than two hours. I was terrified once I was in the city, though. Although drivers aren't as crazy as in other big cities, I'm just not used to having to make decisions quickly (i.e. do I turn here? is this a turning lane?) I drove around tiny side streets off the main drag for awhile without luck. I had a sudden bout of worry since all the parking lots I saw were Strange and Narrow. They had very odd things between the wheels and baffling ways of paying not to mention being just too darn small. I wanted to just find a regular, familiar looking parking garage and was beginning to wonder if there were any. I eventually found a candidate, but a car was blocking the entrance (I discovered later after memorizing the lit-up kanji, that there was no spaces left anyway.) I turned back onto the main drag, then turned back into the maze a couple streets down. I lucked out! Not only was there a place to park that I could deal with, but I was being GUIDED by men wearing purple jackets! I love being guided. I think that's part of why I love Japan. Americans could not do the same thing without appearing aggressive, but purple-jacket man was very polite and bowed the whole way, guiding me to one of two entrances. I pulled my car into the single spot and gathered my belongings. As I left, he gave me a ticket and I watched my car disappear diagonally, then up into a tower. Unusual but entirely painless. I expected I would pay a fortune, but it was worth it for the lack of stress. I memorized my location and set out for the stores!

Salvation Japan! I had a fairly successful Christmas shopping day downtown, though the English section at the Kinokuniya was a LOT smaller than the Tokyo one -- I should have been thinking Christmas a couple weeks ago. I did find enough English to satisfy my needs, though. Once again, Christmas music was playing in nearly every store (the Beatles Christmas song is particularly popular) and Christmas decorations were on every storefront. Strangest thing I saw: the Salvation Army! I was even thinking a couple hours ago how I would never run into them here in Japan, but not so! They were not in Santa suits, but there was bell action and their little donation thing said "Salvation Army" on it. (Or I could have been wrong: They might have borrowed the donating tin and been doing something entirely different.) Anyway, among other things, I found out that the next Lord of the Rings movie doesn't come out until FEBRUARY! The torture!!

Conclusion For the few hours I spent here shopping, it was actually cheaper to pay for the gas and parking (1000 gas and 900 parking is 1900 yen) than it would have been to take the bus (1450 each way is 2900 yen.) Good to know from a money standpoint, but traffic on the way out was terrible. I imagine if I took the expressway (a 2000 yen toll) it would have been faster than the local highway, but then it would have cost more. It was stop and go for miles. Bleah. So, for future reference, if I'm just doing a day trip or want to stay until evening, driving is worth it to save a little cash and not worry about what time I'm getting back. Otherwise, I'm sticking to the convenient bus.

For Those Who Are Interested Both of you. The Japanese version of the Chicago musical movie does NOT translate the songs, only the dialogue, in the dubbing. Granted, I wouldn't wanted to have tried to match their perfect voices, but since they have dubbed songs from musicals in the past (including even Jesus Christ Superstar) then I thought they might give it a go for Chicago, too. Nope, not yet.

Umm I completely forgot what I did today. I know I went to the culture center because the elementary school told me I didn't have to come in today. I probably hung out, studied Japanese, went home for lunch (or did I bring a bento?), maybe even went to the Jr. High and prepared for my lessons. I CAN'T REMEMBER! Argh!