Awkward Lunch

In Japan there is no school cafeteria all the students eat in their classrooms and serve each other lunch. I get the great privilege of eating lunch with a different class everyday. A few days ago I was eating with a 3rd grade class (9th grade in the US) and I just so happened to be seated in a lunch group of mostly all boys.

We start eating lunch and the 2 boys that are sitting across from me start whispering to each other, which I know by now this is never good because they are normally trying to figure out how to say something in English.

The boy on the left finally looks up at me and points to the boy next to him and says,

"He likes you!"

Me: "I'm married, sorry!" *pointing to my ring*

The boy who likes me puts his head down and looks really sad for awhile....until he asks

"How old are you?"

Me: "I'm 22."

He puts his head down again, obviously in deep thought. Finally he looks back up and says,

"Do you like your husband?"

Me: "Yes, I like him a lot! Thanks for asking"

Awkward Silence....

My favorite is sitting with my 3rd grade girls because they just call me "cute" and "beautiful" and admire my ring the whole lunch which is a great self esteem booster.

Perry Sensei

Bad Teacher

Wow, has the time flown by just a few weeks ago we were getting on a plane with about 300 pounds of luggage and a dream!! We have been here almost 2 months now and life is getting pretty routine. I only teach about 3-4 classes a day, which is good and bad because I have a TON of free time. I have learned the skill of looking busy. Which apparently, according to my students, I have mastered! Check out this worksheet one of my students did a few days ago. We asked the students to draw a picture of their friend, tell their name, what they are, where they are from, and something about them.

Pretty accurate looking I especially like the P on my shirt for Perry! I'm not sure who the other person is. (Notice line #4)

I love being in the classroom with the students and especially love having junior high school kids because we can have more conversations and the kids are so funny!!

The other day at lunch I was sitting in class with some students and they were trying to insult each other in English. They had their english dictionaries out and were saying "You're a....*flipping to random page in dictionary and coming to the first word they see, which the very first one just happens to be*....Roman!" Now most teachers would have stopped them right there and made them quit, but I am not most teachers, my response was "You can do better than that!" And the game kept on for awhile. Hey, as long as they are speaking English I will not make them quit.

My fellow teacher's are amazing. Even though, we often can't communicate, they are the nicest most kind hearted people I have ever met. They try so hard to include me in everything and ask me questions in English. My Kocho sensei (principal) is so funny, even though I can't understand him most of the time he always has the students rolling on the floor in laughter. He's also has a green thumb and loves plants. We have plants all over our school and he wants to make a green curtain of plants over the teachers windows to keep out the sun and make our room cooler. So, on my first day of school he gave me 2 plants to take care of along the green curtain.

They have about tripled in size now.

My Kocho Sensei made this poster the other day of all the teachers.

Notice anything funny? He was full on belly laughing when he showed this to me because he put me right in the middle of the poster. Can you say "one of these things is not like the other"? At least I had a suit on in that picture, unlike our group pictures where I have on a bright green cardigan.

# of students who have cried in my class=2

# of students who have hyperventilated in my class=1

# of times I have encouraged my students to insult each other=countless

Perry Sensei