Irasshai: November 2005

tam just sent me these pics of my sister, marijke and her when they were little. can you see who's who?

PNG

last weekend's musical rehearsal in murakami and the subsequent discussions about the papua new guinea trip this year got me reminiscing about last year's trip. the only photo's i've still got on my computer are ones taken by troy's father. i hope this will maybe inspire a few of you in the musical who are humming and hawing about the possible cost of the trip...to decide to go. no matter what.

hangman bloopers

so the strangest thing just happened. i was teaching a 3rd grade junior high class. i was teaching with a JTE who always has me plan the whole lesson (and execute it as well...he's very shy and young). he's always really nice, but i don't think has a lot of confidence, especially when he teaches with me, because maybe he feels that, as an english teacher, that his english should be better. (very common among JTEs). so for most of the class i played a horserace quiz game with the students (thanks, luke!). it was great and i think the kids really had a lot of fun. after we had about 10 minutes to kill so i played hangman with them. target grammer: she is the woman who wrote nani nani. so i had up as a hangman sentence: i am the teacher who teaches this class. the students were good at picking letters, and whether they fit into the sentence or not, i'd write the letters on the board. so first i wrote S then E and then a student put up his hand and said X. ok so it's really funny that i write SEX on the board. they're JHS kids, of course they're gonna think this is hilarious. anyway, as soon as the kid said X, the JTE walked over to him and got right in his face and said something, obviously quite stern but quiet. then he turned and walked out of the room. leaving me in front of the class for the next 5 minutes. i'm not sure why he got so upset...maybe because he felt as though the students were disrespecting me after having taught a fun lesson with them. and actually he's the only teacher who has yelled at a class for about 10 minutes straight after they were a bit noisy. he kept saying that i don't come very often and that they should respect me. i just said, 'geez, i didn't even notice. it's nothing like the little evil brats at my other school'. but i did appreciate the fact that he was trying to help. i wish more teachers could be like him. however...the hangman SEX thing? it's just kids being kids and i think maybe he overreacted a little. i later passed him in the hall when i was walking back to the teacher's room, and he just shook his head and said, 'i'm sorry, i'm sorry'.

my eikaiwa class (enkai)

moose on the loose

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/28/moose-051128.html

i find it really annoying.

i guess there's a specific way that the bowl of rice and bowl of soup should go on the lunch tray? but i haven't quite learned this 'certain way' yet since at all my schools they're always placed differently, and no one really seems to care that much. the other day i had placed all the rice and soup bowls on 18 trays. a teacher then came over and moved each and ever bowl of rice. it really pissed me off.