My favourite student

April's crept up, and I've been here in Japan for two weeks. When I think of stuff back home, two weeks would have flown by so much faster than it has here. The time seems to crawl here in Japan for some reason. It could be that its the first time I'm working full-on full-time, and I don't have the luxury of lazing around at home, watching TV/movies/anime or playing games. Even on my days off here I feel busy, because I know I'm not here forever, so I want to explore and see as much of Japan as possible. Inevitably, there will be times when I just kick back and don't do anything. Most of the working nights have been like that, much like tonight. Tonight's a frickin Sunday! But Sundays just don't feel like Sundays anymore because of the whacked out schedule I and most other Nova teachers have.

If I haven't already told you, my days off are Thursday and Friday. I finished work today at 5:00 and went grocery shopping, although because I can't really cook, its not really grocery shopping...more like snack stuff buying, hehehe. Pringles are cheap here, yay!!! And if any of you guys do watch anime, you'll notice that P&G (Proctor & Gamble, maker of Pringles) are quite often a sponsor of some anime shows. Anyway, grocery shopping was a terrible idea; it was pouring like I haven't experienced many times. Luckily I had my 99Y umbrella which covered basically the top of my head. My pants felt like a wetsuit, clinging to me like there was no tomorrow. I was practically drenched, and with the added trouble of lugging groceries home for 15-20 minutes, its a lesson learned. I'm never gonna buy food stuffs after work when its raining.

On a cheerier note, one of the students at work today displayed some sincerely funny ingenuity. The lesson I was teaching was about asking for help from strangers. We had just done an activity which required matching the start and end of sentences.

One of the activity sentences ran like this:
Excuse me, I was wondering...

They had to match it to:
if you have change for a twenty?

I asked one of my students (S1) to ask the other student (S2) this question, to which he (S2) would have to think of an answer to say. Now generally, students think and use language that is familiar and phrases that we've practiced earlier in the lesson, for example:
I'm sorry but I only have a ten

S2 came out with this brilliant answer:
I'm sorry, I am a coin collector

Absolute classic. I literally burst out laughing with the students when he said that. Sometimes the things they say are so bizarre that you just can't help but laugh. I'm sure I 'll encounter many more funny stories and I'll try to remember and share them with you. One great thing about Tsunashima is that because it's a relatively small branch, you get to know some of the regular students quite well. They come fairly often, moreso the women because some of them are housewives, so you can develop good rapport. I find that to be one of the more enjoyable aspects of the job, interacting OUTSIDE the job, even though that technically isn't allowed. :D

Tomorrow's an easy day, 1:20-5:00, and I still need to buy a desk.