(It’s been a super long time)
I’m terribly sorry for the nearly two month absence. To make up for it, I have fun stories!
So, Tuesday was my birthday! I’m 23 now! Woohoo! A couple weeks before, the 3rd grade teacher at Naka Takeno asked me when my birthday was and when I told him the date, he was pleased to know it was going to be on a Tuesday. I was too! I always have such a good time at Naka Takeno so I thought it was great I’d have my birthday there!
But first: Pictures from everything because writing it is exhausting lol
I was scheduled to teach 3rd grade and then 5th and 6th grade as usual. I wouldn’t have class until 2nd period so I just relaxed in the staff room. Suddenly, I heard someone addressing me. It’s one of the 1st graders! He was asking me to come to his classroom. Usually, one student is sent to fetch me for class – I started to panic a little. I didn’t have anything prepared for them! I looked at the calendar again and nowhere on there did it say I had to teach 1st grade. As I fretted, I walked with the boy to his classroom, preparing my apologies and explanations as to why I had nothing planned. I walk into the classroom and they’re all so happy to see me. Just as I was about to address the teacher, she said “せいの！” which is to be the Japanese equivalent of counting, “1, 2, 3!” before starting something together. At that, all the children started singing me happy birthday! I couldn’t stop smiling! They were all so cute singing to me in English! I beamed and thanked them when they finished. I went back to the staff room feeling like a million bucks. I hung out in the staff room for a bit longer until second period where I had the 6th graders. When I came into the classroom, they sang me happy birthday too! So sweet!
The day continued on with the third graders and a fun lesson with animals. Soon enough, it was lunch time. I sat with the first graders. During the beginning of lunch, we noticed the sixth graders file into the lunch room but they didn’t sit down. They were going to go on a field trip but before that, they had to do my interview! At Naka Takeno, whenever it’s someone’s birthday, the birthday person has an interview with questions like, “what’s your favorite food?” and “what’s your favorite animal?”. Since it was me, the English teacher, the 6th graders wrote out their questions in English. They were, “What is your favorite food?” (macaroni and cheese), “Where do you want to go?” (Australia), “What do you think of Naka Takeno?” (I love it!).
After my interview, the school wished me a happy birthday. Lucky me, the lunch on Tuesday was a derivative of Chinese food, so that was awesome and delicious. Naturally, since it was my birthday, I wore my Sonic t-shirt. One of the fourth graders , who is officially my Sonic buddy, started chatting with me about all the characters we knew. I got so caught up in the conversation, I forgot to put my bowls and plates away! We both laughed and everyone else laughed too. It was a nice sunny day so after lunch we played outside. I sat by the 5th grade girls and watched them try the stilts (yeah, so Naka Takeno has stilts now. In case I hadn’t mentioned this before, Takeno Minami has stilts for the children to play on too. I’m telling you, they should be in the circus since they’ve already got the unicycles too). While I watched, an older gentleman who I met before at Naka Takeno came by. Last time we met, I was a bit…surprised. I was in the staff room and he was walking by when he saw me. He summoned me to the window, waving his hand not the Japanese way (which is palm down and flinging your wrist backward) but in the Western way. I came over and he started speaking to me in English with a crazy accent I could not place. Okay, it wasn’t crazy, but he kind of had an amusing voice. We chatted and then he left. So anyway, this Tuesday, he was there again. He asked me what was going on in my life and I told him it was my birthday. At that, he proceeded to give me the American man-friend greeting…which I was expecting even less. If you are unfamiliar, it’s what a lot of guys do when they greet their friends: a handshake followed by a hug while still holding hands in a bro like manner. Because they’re bros…anyway, moving right along now! So yeah, this guy does that with me and I’m half-jokingly thinking, “Oh, oh, wow, you’re really not very Japanese, are you?” in my head. Once he was gone, I went back to marveling at how good these kids are with the stilts.
Recently, my favorite song has been “I AM THE BEST” by the K-Pop group called 2NE1 (pronounced kind of like twenty one). I was in such a good mood/I’m always humming or singing something, I started humming that while I watched. One of the girls looked at me and asked me whether what I was singing was what she thought. When I said yes, she had this delighted look on her face and told me that she liked 2NE1 too! And thus, my new friendship with one of my students started. We went through and listed all the artists and groups I knew and liked, complete with my poor renditions of their music, which they all found amusing. We gushed over T.O.P., one of the rappers from the group Big Bang, who is totally the most awesome one of them all. We were very excited and the 5th grade homeroom teacher came over to try and figure it out. The girl, in a teasing way, told him to leave, he wouldn’t have any idea what we were talking about (harsh, right? Hahaha!). And sure enough, he didn’t! We told him we were talking about K-Pop and he didn’t even know what K-Pop was. I admitted that if it weren’t for my old roommates, I probably wouldn’t have been so invested. My student told me how she watches the K-Pop ranking on the musical channel on TV every day. She laughed when I told her that I watched K-Pop music videos on YouTube just like she did. Probably thanks to NHK, since they often do language lesson TV shows, she had started learning some Korean words. Sadly, Korean has a knack for not staying in my brain because the pronunciation blows my mind. Nevertheless, I told her to teach me what she had learned. It was funny, how that role reversal just occurred.
And then, it was time to go back inside for cleaning. Before my next class, with the fifth graders, the English teacher told me how that one student told her how happy she was to talk to me. I was happy to talk to her too! I’m so grateful that I happen to be interested in the same things as my students. When I walked into the fifth grade classroom, I was surprised by the chalkboard. The whole thing was taken up by a message that said, “Talia-sensei, Happy Birthday!” in Japanese. I couldn’t stop smiling again. It was so lovely and adorable and made me feel so special. I ran back downstairs so I could take a picture of it and with my kiddies. After class, I had nothing else to do. I noticed that some of the kindergartners were outside playing so I decided to join them. As usual, they were pleased to have me. It took me a while to figure it out, but they were playing house! They had set up a “fire” and were serving imaginary roasted sweet potatoes. I gladly ate the invisible potatoes and happy to be included in their game. Eventually, that group had to go home but there were still three more students inside to play with them. They showed me their classrooms and in one of them, there were songs on the walls. I asked them to sing one for me and they did! AND IT WAS SO PRECIOUS, I ALMOST DIED FROM THE CUTE. I’ll have to record them singing one time.
After that, we went to the big room to play. The boys decided they were going to bowl with empty water bottles and bouncy balls. The little girl was putting together a bead necklace. I sat next to her and helped her out. The pattern was a round bead and a flower bead after each other, she told me. My duty was to find the flower beads amongst the many round beads and get them ready for her to take so she could string them. She happily exclaimed to the other adult (who is a mother to a few kids at the school) in the room that I was helping her. We did this for about 10 minutes before the girl handed the necklace to the woman. The woman was going to try to put it on the girl’s neck but then, the unthinkable happened! She lost her grip and ALL the beads fell off. In my head I was thinking, “Really? Are you serious? Did you actually just do that?” I was worried that the girl would be upset but even though she was shocked, she moved on very quickly and helped pick up the beads. The girl and I moved on to playing jump rope. And somehow, in the midst of that, I was captured in a hula hoop. One of the boys used one to ensnare me. It soon turned into a game of, “Cover Talia in hula hoops!” I think I had about 15 of them on me before one of the boys tied a rope to a hula hoop, lifted it over me and started dragging me across the room. After my dramatic cries for help, the little girl came to my rescue! After a few more captures, it was suddenly snack time. A few older kids from the main building came over too were surprised to see me. I wasn’t quite aware of what was going on but it was nice to be included. And it just so happened that the usual teacher that came was not in, so I was taking her place. With a bowl of snacks and a cup of milk tea, I sat with the kids and the other lady.
When snack time was over, it was clearly play time again. One of the 3rd grade girls insisted I be a zombie again. You see, at my elementary schools, I’ve adopted the role of resident monster. My monster of choice is a zombie. It started when one day, I was pretending to be a dinosaur but got winded (sad, I know). I’m not of a runner, so a zombie gait is just perfect for me. With my arms stretched out, my body contorted, and raspy growls and moans to complete the role, I chase my students and try to catch them. They scream, run around, and often try to attack me with whatever they have (usually balls but now hula hoops served as a suitable weapon). Every now and then, I collapse on the floor to feign defeat/catch my breath for a moment. After a few seconds, I slowly “come back to life” with jerking motions and we start all over again. The little girl still wanted to be my friend even though I was a zombie: she held out her hand in front of me and said, “zonbii esa!” which means “zombie food.” I did not inform her that zombie food is people and kindly received her offering.
Last week at Takeno Minami, I did this with three of the 1st grade boys. What was funny about them was that they pulled out all of the things they learned from watching shows like Power Rangers and Ultraman. They boldly announced their attack before dramatically running at me with a punch or a kick or a fake laser blaster. They sometimes “fed” me spicy food and I would convulse because monsters don’t like spicy food. They told me that next time we play, I should also have laser beams shoot out of my eyes.
Anyway, back to Naka Takeno, I did this for a while until students started leaving to go home. By that time, it was time for me go home too. We said our goodbyes and I went home. In the evening, I went to my friend Whitney’s place with Chi and her sister for sukiyaki and Wii! And that was awesome! Sukiyaki is a hotpot of meat, vegetables, tofu, konyaku (not sure what this is in English) cooked in a broth. We played Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the new Super Mario Brothers and the taiko game. I don’t know what the taiko game’s actual name is, but they always have it at the arcade. The taiko game is a drumming game in the same vein as Dance Dance Revolution: you beat the special drum shaped controller to the beat of the song. Unfortunately, this did not last long. I got really into the song I was doing (the opening theme for Lucky Star) and just before I finished, there was a knock on door. Whitney checked on who it was and when she came back, she said it was her neighbor downstairs. If you hadn’t guessed, he complained about the noise – which I don’t blame him. But we were still a bit disappointed! We moved on to a quieter game (the Mario one) until it got late. That’s when we went home.
No comments:
Post a Comment