Oh my gosh, I have so much to write about.
But I'm tired and just got back from English conversation class, so I'll write about it tomorrow or something.
For now I'll just say:
Andrew's post + the book I've been reading add up to a lot of thoughts on how people and government construct race, nationalism, and their own history. Uh-oh, this sounds like my thesis again and pretty much everything I studied for the last two years of college. Oh History, we were meant for each other :*)
Taiikusai reminds me so much of video games.
I'm getting a lot more used to living here and think I'm going to start enjoying this experience much more from here on out.
I ate goya for dinner the past three nights in a row and it was awesome.
I'm excited to learn more languages.
I'm excited to start learning koto if I could finally find a teacher around here!
I'm excited to get an electric guitar here.
I'm excited to try cooking with another main ingredient now that I ate all my goya. Hm, I didn't even realize that up to now tofu has been my main ingredient. In these past meals, it's taken a backseat to the goyammmmm.
Oh yeah, today I surprisingly got a sudden insight (I think?) into the mysterious cases of Japanese people telling me I look Japanese, or actually mistaking me for Japanese and asking me for directions, which train is the fastest, etc.
I didn't realize it, but before I didn't have any of the stereotypical encounters with Japanese school children such as them reaching for my crotch, giving me kancho (look that one up yourselves), etc., but today I was greeting by a 6th grade class in which the boys seemed to enjoy saying, "big penis" repeatedly. That ended pretty soon though, so that was good.
OH! Today, we were doing "How many..." sentences, so I was reading a bunch of model sentences I had writtenHow many books do you have? I have seven books.and the like, then the students had to make their own sentences. Still just a normal class, blah blah blah, How many bats do you have? Okay, hai, Shimizu kun go ahead, How many cats do you see? Okay, hai, hai nantoka kun go ahead, How many...gh...ghosts do you see?
What? "Ohhh," the teacher said in humoring surprise. I was so excited though.
GHOSTS?! How many ghosts do you see??! Freaking genious!! Awesome!! So cool! I just kept smiling and nodding, "Yes, that's very good. That's a good one! Good job!" Then he started smiling really widely and laughing a bit, probably more at the fact that I was so thrilled about his ghosts than his own sense of pride. That made my day.
I tell you, it puts me in such a better mood to go to an elementary school in the morning and then teach middle school in the afternoon. I just come back with such a good feeling (is that weird English? I don't know anymore...) and excitement to interact with the students and teach.
Well, THAT turned into an actually fairly long post. I guess I'll go to bed pretty soon. See you all in radio dream land.
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3 comments:
do they actually pronounce penis right? My kids can't. They say pen (as in pen.....penzu?) ees. PENees. BIGU PENees.
So... maybe I should tell them to stop saying that, but it's funny when they do so I just smile and nod and laugh at them on the inside.
I got my PENees grabbed. No kancho though.
Oh yeah, and the Ainu community especially got really mad when Aso said the whole "one race, one culture..." thing. And also, when he was econ minister, he said he wanted to make Japan into the kind of country where "rich Jews" would want to live.
What???
Or he also said (I think this was in like 1989) that women's suffrage was a bad idea because he claimed that he had lost some election just because women had been voting for his rival's good looks.
WHAT????
I think this guy has serious issues, and I hope that, like Abe and Fukuda before him, he resigns early....
I wish MY kids commented on the size of my reproductive organs....
so HOW MANY ghosts did that kid see? what if YOU WERE ONE OF THEM
WHAT A TWIST
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