Magic and Miracles

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17

I was dreading today. It made me unmotivated. I saw the Gaijain guy on the train again this morning. I'm currently listening to Wuthering Heights on my iPod. It's a bit confusing, but I'm following along well enough.

At school, Tamora and I went into the classes and, I must say, I am never more aware of the influence of a JTE in the classroom than between Tamora and Seth. I did the same lesson as last week, with the same level students. The only variable was the JTE. Last week, I felt like a failure and this week I am flying high from a wonderful, amazing, positive experience.

The students were interested and they enjoyed it. Some, of course, liked it more than others, but everyone paid attention. I had no one sleeping in class. And I had students who were enthusiastic about the material. Some classes were fast enough that we got to the paper on asking about someone's relationship status and I even got some of the better students to answer for me, using various celebrities as their ex-wives, fiancees, etc.

Tamora, at one point, said she was surprised that the students were interested. I think she honestly though they wouldn't be. But, I'm not surprised at all – this is the entire reason I designed this lesson. This is their favorite topic of conversation – they're high school girls training for lives as housewives – what do you think they'd care about?

The highlight of the day was seeing some boys with a deck of cards between classes. I wandered over, asked for the deck and proceeded to lay out a magic trick. They watched, enthralled. The bell rang half way through and we had to start class. I was frustrated – and briefly considered delaying class to finish it, but one look at Tamora snuffed those plans – and gathered up the cards to preserve their order, and tied my hair tie around them, telling the boy who owned them to keep them like this and I'd finish after class.

I'd forgotten by the time class ended, but he hadn't. We laid them all back out, wrapped up the trick (with me praying this all worked out) and finally getting to the fun part where students select sets of cards and I pull them away until there's just one card left. When I flipped it over and revealed their original card, the entire group of boys (about eight or so) gasped loudly and drew back. A few started calling out “wizard!” which I appreciated. I smiled at their stunned looks, and told them to have a good day and walked off with Tamora, reeling with delight.

So, needless to say, I didn't really need the girls' night with Elizabeth, but it was not at all unappreciated. We were both curled up under the kotatsu, taking advantage of Elizabeth's new DVD player. Her boyfriend popped in, and asked if we wanted miso soup and offered to make us some. As I've never had miso soup, we accepted his offer. He popped in again later to check on whether we wanted rice, too.

So, some time later, he comes in, carrying huge bowls of freshly made soup (from scratch) and steaming bowls of rice. I asked where I could get one of those. Elizabeth says his younger brother's coming next week. It was delicious rice. They have a rice cooker and it makes a huge difference in taste and texture. Also, I think I may undercook my rice from sheer impatience. But, my god, I gobbled down that bowl.

The miso soup was good, too. It had mushrooms in it, which I don't fancy, but the broth and tofu were delicious. It was a huge bowl, so I took it home with me to finish later.