connection

My last class of the day today is a junior high class with two students. The boy was gone today, so Nanami and I were on our own. I asked her a few questions in the beginning...what she did today and things like that. Poor Nanami. She says, "huh?" a lot and overall has a blank expression on her face. After I had gotten everything out of her I could, I asked her to ask me a few questions. She asked me what I did today and when I will go to America. Then she paused, thought a little, and said, "Do you know Sponge Bob?" I said yes, so she unzipped her bag, which had what looked like a small animal attached to the zipper. I guess it was a stuffed animal, but it sure looked real. She pulled out her pen case, and then her Sponge Bob pen. She told me about his friends, and what kinds of animals they were. Actually, she didn't know many of the words in English, but that was fine. It was a teachable moment. After this, she started telling me about all the other characters that are popular in Japan (many of which were hanging off her cell phone and various other zippers)...Elmo, Miss Bunny (the rabbit from Bambi?), Lilo & Stitch, Charmy Kitty, etc. I listened like it was news to me, but really, you can't miss the prevalence of characters here. We ended up talking almost the whole class about these things. The cool thing is, I had started to feel today that I was never going to get her to talk about anything in English...and then we hit upon something she was verrrrry interested in. It felt good.

After I got home from work, Jesse and I stopped by the 100 yen store. I bought a pencil case for myself that says "friendry sea" on it. My other options were "fancy bear," "pretty flower," and "monkey friend." Another said, "Let's make the flower bloom in the mind. People who spent always the same time." I bought flashcards for studying Japanese...the ones I normally use say, "You are also perfect at this flash card!" Yay!! Very encouraging. Then, I bought stickers for my students. I bought the summer-themed stickers that have fireworks, yukata, goldfish, wind chimes, and wooden clog sandals.

Tomorrow I am giving a presentation at a seminar for Junior High School English teachers. Should be interesting, as I would tend to think they'd be the experts, not me. My notes for the presentation are in a pink strawberry notebook that says "Fruit Ranch: The coming of wisdom with time." Let's hope that wisdom comes forth from that little book for me tomorrow.

language barrier

Sometimes small children here will talk to me in Japanese. I think that they don't realize that English and Japanese are two different languages. They will look me earnestly in the face (which takes me by surprise as eye contact is sort of less popular here than in America, except with small children), and chatter away. Even after all this time, I am not always sure how to react. Lately, I've been opting for the act-as-though-I-understand response. The language barrier is even more difficult with small children because there are so many levels to the Japanese language, one of them being the language of children. Even though my comprehension of Japanese increases over time and older children are often a big help in learning new words, it can still be difficult with very small children.

So, last week, I was teaching a group of four-year-olds and they were sitting up to the table coloring a picture of jet (we were learning "j"). One of the girls started speaking Japanese to me. My guess was that she was finished, so I told her to keep going as I was enjoying the few minutes' break the coloring was giving me. A little boy looked up and told me something about the girl. I assumed he was saying the same thing, that she was finished. After I told him it was okay, he went back to his coloring. A few seconds later, he looked up and tried again. "Momoka ga..." he said really clearly, pointing at the floor under her chair. I looked over and saw a wet bottom, a wet chair, and a large puddle forming on the floor. Momoka was soon excused from class. I pulled a chair over the puddle. But in the spirit of being helpful, the little boy pushed all the chairs in to the table. Two kids stepped in the puddle in the meantime. Oops.

clothing tags and umbrellas and hobbies

I bought a new pair of pants yesterday, after trying on every pair in the store that didn't have lace or huge holes all over the place. It can be tricky buying pants here. Generally, I hold up a pair of "L" size pants and wonder if I ended up in the kids' section somehow. But I found some. I figured out that I have to go department stores instead of the mall-type stores where I had been looking. After the purchase, I was rewarded by this phrase on the tag: "if you want beauty legs & hip, you just gotta let me know." Weeeellll...I wouldn't mind "beauty legs & hip" but I am not sure these pants will do it for me...

It's been raining pretty heavily today. I work in the city near the airport on Tuesdays and it was pretty busy both when I arrived and when I left. Both times, I saw a whole parade of umbrellas walking from one train station to the other. As people exited the station, I could hear the "huwoop" of the umbrellas popping open...looking down the sidewalk, all I could see were dozens of umbrellas moving as one.

Also today...one of my more creative six-year-olds gave this answer when asked what her hobby is (my voice in italics): "My hobby is read (reading) AND cook (cooking) AND English (yay!) AND eto, eto, nan da ke, eto (flower arranging....), flower arrange. Sore dake. (What's your...) What's your hobby?" I am not sure I have ever heard a six-year-old claim that their hobbies included "cook" and "flower arrange" before! And I have heard about a lot of six-year-old hobbies the last year and a half...