Ah screw it...

The number of 8th graders home with the flu reached a certain cutoff today- they're sending the rest home early. without lunch.

i thought it was funny when they handed out a data table of influenza in the student body.

But my Yiddish, however...

In the middle of class today I stopped by a group of students to explain a grammar point. Not getting the gist across in my native tongue, I switched to Japanese.

"Oh my god!" said one girl, "he speaks japanese!"

the boy next to her looks at her quizzically. I keep explaining... whatever it was that I was explaining.

"Wow, he's really good!" she's just spitting with amazement at this point.

the boy on her right interrupts. "he lives in japan! what do you expect? you need japanese to live here."

way to go, dude on her right. it's not uncommon for people over here to be shocked a foreigner who's even somewhat comfortable in their language. while in the states complementing someone on their English would be unthinkable, we foreigners get it all the time in japan

ex:

"Good morning."
"My god, your Japanese is AMAZING"

point being: next generation seems to be stepping up

Flatware

i'm correcting papers right now.

One of my students misspelled the past-tense of "speak" as "spork"

The Ghost of Jumper Cables Past

Last night I was washing the dishes, my doorbell rang.

It was an older man (somewhere between the age of 30 and seventy five - this country doesn't age for fifty years then BAM! they're older'n hell). He stood leaning forward into the doorway, hands on hips, making very direct eye contact.

"do you drive that suzuki?"
"yeah, i do" i reply
"yer light's on"
"oh, thanks!"

i shut the door for just a moment to put on my shoes, but when i open it again he's gone. completely. i checked the street as i walked to my car. he just went [poof] in that single instant.

Thank you headlight fairy.

Me too, kid, me too

one of the questions that invariably comes up in my conversations with japanese middle school girls (don't look at me like that - i'm a teacher, remember) is whether or not Adam-sensei has A Girlfriend. In Japanese or suprisingly enthusiastic English, it always comes out.

Just yesterday a student took that conversation in a direction i hadn't heard before. hearing that yes, i had attained A Girlfriend, the 8th grader clasped her hands and looked hopeful.

"ohhhhh I definitely want to marry a foreigner." (she's assuming that Girlfriend is Japanese - she's not)
"why's that?" I ask
"I want half babies! they're soooooo cuuute."


PS japanese middle school girls are also fascinated with my arm hair.

Mornings are hard....

Here is an actual email I sent to my office in order to explain why I was late to work (rarely happens!) a week or so ago. Reading over it today i decided it belongs here:

On January 30th, 2009, I arrived at [middle school x] at 9:45 AM. Though I did not miss any scheduled classes for that day, I did come to work an hour an a half late. I apologize for my tardiness and offer this explanation.

The night before I had driven down to Otsuchi-machi in Iwate to stay at a friend's apartment. The times I had done this previously I would leave for Takizawa at 4 AM and arrive back in town well before the start of school. This particular morning, however, I bumped back my departure to 6 AM, thinking I'd drive straight to work. While I left promptly at that time, traffic apparently caused by an accident on one of the small roads outside of Otsuchi meant that it took a full hour to get out of Kamaishi, a trip that usually lasts 20 minutes. Soon my car and i found ourselves trapped in the bumper-to-bumper shuffling grid of south-central iwate rush hour (which, confusingly, exists. When I realized, quite belatedly in retrospect, that I would not arrive at work anytime around 8:15/30, I pulled over to call the company. I also purchased a sandwich at this time (delicious). My car soon was soon back in that bizarre phenomenon of inaka rush-hour traffic. Escaping this, I made good time heading west through the mountains at my car's top alpine speed of 60 km/hr. At some point, most likely while busy wondering if I would actually get there in time for my first class, I missed a turn somewhere and ended up... somewhere else. I don't know where. Lots of cattle, though. I followed signs for the misleadingly-named Kamaishi expressway (which curiously starts in Hanamaki city and ends at Hanamaki Aiport... rougly 60 km short of its namesake). I picked up that highway and took the toll road north traveling at speeds previously thought impossible in my current vehicle. Deemed impossible, in fact, or at least a very bad idea, by my mechanic at my last inspection. I got to school just in time for second period, grabbed my materials, and spent a surprising amount of time teaching some 15-year-olds how to pronounce "discipline."

[from then I do some very sincere knee-scraping which I will spare you. in the end, nobody got hurt and i didn't get fired. hoorah.]

TEST IS OVER

ok, so... I'm really going to try to get back to posting on here. once a month. I'm done studying, my life is in order, and you have a right to know what's going on in my life. Maybe.

Oma uh-oh (written in October, sorry)

I've talked about the Oma Tuna Festival before on here (there should be some pictures if you sift through the posts from two years ago). This year would have been my third time attending.

Would have been. Things didn't turn exactly as planned.

The problem provably wasn't so much that I volunteered to drive, it's that I volunteered to drive Sam and Allie. Since Sam lives several towns to the north, it only made sense that we try to drop his car off on our way up to Aomori to save him two hours on the way back.

We came up with a plan. A very bad plan.

Sam would take the slow route north, avoiding the highway in favor of the tamer route 4 - yes, that route 4 - which gave Allie and I time to grab her stuff from the station, jump on the highway, and reach Sam's exit exactly when he would arrive. Sam parks somewhere nearby, hops the fence, and away we go!

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

So Allie and I head north as planned. Reaching the agreed-upon exit, we pull over, drape our legs out the window, don sunglasses and enjoy ourselves a nice summer day. Allie cracks open a chu-hai (open container laws? wuzzat?) and browses my ipod.

I call Sam. He's late. Not just late, lost. We're gonna be here a while. Allie digs around her purse for the second chu-hai (there's a reason we're friends).

My phone rings. "I'm at the exit," Sam says, "but the guys at the gate are giving me weird looks." Whatever. He makes a break for it, sprinting up the entrance ramp.

About this time my car's noticed by a passing patrol car in the oncoming lane. bit of an uh-oh. a small man in full patrolman gear (bright blue fireproof suit and a gigantic, shiny white helmet) dashes across the highway frogger-esque, protected the large yellow "Slow down!" sign he is waving frantically at vehicles barreling towards him.

He's perched on the guardrail at the median when I roll down my window.

"Is there a problem officer?"
"No stopping!"
"I'm just waiting for a friend."
"No stopping!"

We're shouting across a pretty busy highway (for Japan). I'm wondering if I'll get deported if he loses his balance and dents somebody's bumper.

"He's on his way now, though..."
"You can wait at a rest stop just ahead."
"Gotcha, sorry..." I start the car and head off. Deportation: postponed

Sam, meanwhile, had rounded the bend in the ramp just as we drove off. Poor guy has to run BACK through the toll booths and get back in his car.

Eventually we do the smart thing and get off the highway together, leave Sam's car at a convenience store, and head north.

We don't make it in time for the festival. Too many booze stops.

(worth it)