Mickey-fying

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5

Mornings are always hard, but mornings when you have to crawl out of your warm futon at the crack of dawn to get ready in a cold apartment are always worse. This was one of those mornings.

I got distracted and ended up having to hurry to school. I attempted now to plow down my students, although there was one close miss. Even though it was Tuesday, and it hadn't been a three-day weekend, there was a staff meeting. I do not understand.

I was parking my bike when the bell rang to signal the beginning of the staff meeting, so I kicked off my shoes and slipped in to my seat, going afterward to switch my shoes for slippers. The staff room was more empty than usual because the second year teachers had the day off to make up for the extra hours they'd be working chaperoning the school trip to Malaysia. I wish I could have the day off because I was going to Malaysia, too.

It wasn't until less than five minutes before my first class that I realized that I didn't have photocopies made yet for this class. I rushed to the copy room and started frantically getting to work. I attempted to use the fast copier (which uses recycled paper for the students) but there's a catch to it, so I blew it off and used the good copier. Ottawa-sensei found me and he showed me how to use the mass copier. See, you must hit a clear button every time you switch the original source, otherwise it keeps the previous item copied in the memory. The machines at Kogyo are smart enough to realise that when the cover is opened, to clear the memory, but apparently Koko's copiers (and Nishi's) aren't that smart.

I now know what button to press – it's actually on the touchscreen, not a physical button. Which explains why I didn't solve the problem by randomly pressing all the buttons and trying again.

That strategy actually works more than you'd think.

Anyway, we were a smidge late to class, but the class went well. We used the chopsticks and it was much better than the lesson Brian observed. I'll have to have a talk with Brian about the lesson without feeling I also have to be diplomatic. Ottawa-sensei had taught for three months before coming to Koko. I hadn't taught. I assume he had some sort of teacher's training, but otherwise, we're not that different and we're learning from each other.

I taught two classes with Ottawa-senesi and one with Mustache-sensei. In between classes, I frantically worked on the next lesson plan for Koko (which will begin on Friday.) I finally printed it out and handed it out.

The dialogue in the book for this chapter is rather stupid, which I stated honestly to both Ottawa-sensei and Mustache-sensei when they asked. I did adjust it slightly to make it less random, but there was little I could do, short of having a brilliant brainstorm and composing an entirely new dialogue. I switched the genders of the characters and changed the baseball outfit to a Halloween costume, in honor of the upcoming holiday, which my students seem to adore. I also changed the characters to Mickey and Minnie Mouse, having found a lovely picture of Minnie in a witch's costume that fit the dialogue perfectly. Not as awesome as the Digimon, of course, but still pretty wonderful.

I love handing out the current Digimon dialogue sheet. First, it makes me think of Alyssum. But most of all (no offense, Alyssum), I love the first student (always male) who says, “Digimon?!” I then go sliding over and show up right next to him saying, “What did you say?!” The boy usually cowers stunned while his friends grin at his misfortune. Eventually, he stutters out “Digimon?” and I grin, say, “That's right! It's Digimon!” then pull out my stamp and give him a Hanko Point. The transformation on his face from nervousness to stunned and his friends' from amusement to jealousy is quite pronounced. I get the idea Mustache-sensei also enjoys watching it.

After school, Mustache-sensei pulled me aside saying he had five minutes and wanted to go over the lesson. I quickly printed the rough-draft of my last sheet and we sat down to go over it. Overall, I think it was well-received, although I probably wouldn't hear any criticism until later anyway. Although there really isn't much time later.

The best part was probably the end. I'm having the students use a dialogue with blanks. They can fill in the blanks with any words from the wordbanks on the sheet, so it's pretty straight forward. It's taken from the book, but I changed the characters again to Mickey asking Minnie out on a date. As I explained to Mustache-sensei, Minnie's “yes” answers are much easier than her “no” answers (because she also has to say WHY”) so no student would chose to say “no.” So, half the students will be given a laminated card. Half of the cards say yes, and half say no. A student with the card is Minnie and must give either a YES or NO answer based on their card. Afterward, they give their partner their card (and thus switch roles) and go find new partners. Mustache-sensei said it was very, very good and wanted to know where I'd found this technique. We stumbled over the English a bit until I realised he thought I'd found it n a book, and he realized I made it up, when I got praised as a good ALT. I was happy.

The reason that Mustache-sensei only had five minutes (a very, very long five minutes...) is because a student was robbed today and there was an all-teacher (except ALT) meeting to discuss the situation. It's little things like this that remind me that I'm not in my high school anymore. Had I been robbed, I would have told a student (or perhaps a principal) and they maybe would have made note of it, should something turn up, but in general, nothing really would be done. In fact, I'd probably be told it was my own fault for bringing valuables to school. But not in Japan! All of the teachers had a ONE HOUR meeting about the situation. They take it much more seriously, clearly.

I graded papers. I still probably have at least 60 sitting on my desk, but it is going down. I am going to take a break from assigning homework. It'll make the students happy and it'll give me more time. As I told Ottawa-sensei, though, I'm not telling the students this. I need to figure out how I plan to make it happen, but I'll either use it as a “If you're good, there'll be no homework!” or “If you all get this sheet done before the end of class, no homework!” I need to use this to my advantage. I could even follow the example of Aaron, my high school Computer Science teacher and flip a coin. If the students win the coin-toss, no homework. Of course, it would be jinxed so that they always won. I still have a bunch of self-introduction sheets leftover from both me and Ottawa-sensei both printing them, so I could even come in with that big intimidating stack to drive home the point (and fear.)

I talked a bit with Ottawa-sensei, and chatted a bit with Mama. I wanted her advice on how to thank my classmate for giving me the yukata. She was excited for me and suggested that me speaking English with my classmate is probably gift enough, but I should give a nice thank you note and a gift at Christmas. On my way home from school, I picked up notepaper.

As I was leaving, I donned again the warm layers that I'd worn that morning. I put on my green zip, my green sweatshirt, and my green Ireland hat. Even my shoes, I realised later, are green (and I love them to pieces, so no dissin' the shoes!) Ottawa-sensei was by the door as I slipped out. He gave me an odd look – I realised this is probably the first time he's seen me in casual wear, rather than my fancy work blouses – and said, “You sure do like green.” Astute observation.

It's amazing how easy it is to find things you absolutely NEED at the hyaku-en store.

Back at home, I decided it was a stir-fry night before my new new veggies go bad. Stir fry always takes forever, but it's usually pretty tasty. Today was the first time I added barley (which I couldn't taste and didn't really notice, but it's supposedly healthy. I'll have to confirm that.) I also tried out my new Korean hot pepper paste, which I'll have to be more generous with next time; I was a bit nervous about ruining lots of food this time around.

I then called Mommy and we had a skype chat until the wee hours. The picture on her end was rather bad (“terminator-esque”) but when it was somewhat good, I showed her stuff, like pictures from my trip to Osaka (and especially the photobooth photos of me, Mia, Kiki, and Walker.) I also showed her and described the various parts of my kimono. She was, like I was once, incredibly impressed with all of the layers, pads, straps, clips, and other such bulk that goes into this elaborate outfit. I still need to get a picture of me in it. We also discussed a good way to thank my classmate – Mom agrees with Mama.