I'm beginning to question my faith... such as it is.
For if there is a god - then how can Natto exist? How can such an inhumanely vile substance that offends my sight, my olfactory and (most importantly of all) my taste senses not be proof alone that there is no hope for humanity.
Even the wikipedia article doesnt know where it came from... for it has existed long before this Earth.
It's like half eaten ass that's been left out in the sun for too many years.
It looks CHEESY. I think I'm going to be sick. *dry retches*
Apparently the terrible, god forsaking smell is due to a chemical call pyrazine which reduces the likelihood of blood clotting. I'd rather the blood clot ... I'm sure it would taste better.
...
Otherwise all OTHER Japanese food is wonderful! :D
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Business Time
Let me document my day;
A smooth wake up at 6:30am and a shower and breakfast of tomato on toast gets me out the door right on time and into the car. The drive to Bato JHS takes about 35-40 minutes on the speed limit but I arrive much sooner than that and say the usual 'Good Morning' to a few students and 'Ohayo Gozaimasu' to the teachers and thus, at 8:00am begins my day.
I've got a pretty packed schedule and my first half of the day are third year classes. 3-1 were pleased to have English as lately they've been trialing out bizarre English phrases that are pretty funny. Today they were talking about a 'society window' which they gleaned from knowing words 'social studies' and 'window' ... can you guess what it means? I'll tell you at the end.
I teach three 3rd year classes before lunch begins and it get's a little tiring but I have about an hour free so I go and sit at my desk for a while.
For some reason about 5 kittens were found around the school which it would seem have been left as the owner couldn't take care of them and figured some students could. In any case some students are playing with them. This one student seems to think he's going to take one home which is a shame as this kid is obnoxious and would probably kill and eat it sooner than love it. I'm pretty sure kittens don't 'meow' like that around people they feel safe with ...
This week I am eating lunch with class 1-3 which have been a lot of fun to eat with lately. Their only first years so they have really only just learned the alphabet and are now onto saying things like 'This is a pen' and 'I like dog' but they've picked up some English from movies and games so it's always fun to see what they come up with next.
Lunch today is some kind of yellow soup, a bread roll (that comes with a jam/margerine spread), some fried hot chips and sausages (cold), milk, chocolate syrup to put IN the milk and a half of a frozen apple. It was a really unusual lunch mostly due to the chips/sausage component and the presence of the frozen apple - It was good though!
After lunch was 2-3 and as I like that class too it also went down pretty well. Howeverrrrrrr, then I had class 1-1 which have lately been a pain! It's all due to one student - Kawanishi-san. What a bastard. He's the type of kid that is remarkably clever at being disruptive and getting away with things but is stupid when it comes to doing anything else. His brother is in the third year and he's cool as (he's tiny!) so it's generally a bit of a chore to teach this class. I think to stop the English teacher from getting the students to say 'I like your Mother' but it's really uncomfortably hot and humid at this point so I don't really bother. I smile to myself.
Cleaning goes down without a hitch. I clean with 1-3 but this time they have out dictionaries so they've got some more English words to say. We say our 'Gokurosama deshita's' and that's it for teaching for the day!
The students have what's called a 'Suri-suta' day today which is a combination of the the English words for 'three' and study' (three = suri [soo ree]/ study = sutadi [soo tah dee]) which is a little bit of a loose link for what it is but it just involves the students studying for tests. I waste some time, drink some tea, make some conversation with the teachers until it's about 5pm and time for me to leave.
That concludes my day. I wanted this to be short and snappy.
A smooth wake up at 6:30am and a shower and breakfast of tomato on toast gets me out the door right on time and into the car. The drive to Bato JHS takes about 35-40 minutes on the speed limit but I arrive much sooner than that and say the usual 'Good Morning' to a few students and 'Ohayo Gozaimasu' to the teachers and thus, at 8:00am begins my day.
I've got a pretty packed schedule and my first half of the day are third year classes. 3-1 were pleased to have English as lately they've been trialing out bizarre English phrases that are pretty funny. Today they were talking about a 'society window' which they gleaned from knowing words 'social studies' and 'window' ... can you guess what it means? I'll tell you at the end.
I teach three 3rd year classes before lunch begins and it get's a little tiring but I have about an hour free so I go and sit at my desk for a while.
For some reason about 5 kittens were found around the school which it would seem have been left as the owner couldn't take care of them and figured some students could. In any case some students are playing with them. This one student seems to think he's going to take one home which is a shame as this kid is obnoxious and would probably kill and eat it sooner than love it. I'm pretty sure kittens don't 'meow' like that around people they feel safe with ...
This week I am eating lunch with class 1-3 which have been a lot of fun to eat with lately. Their only first years so they have really only just learned the alphabet and are now onto saying things like 'This is a pen' and 'I like dog' but they've picked up some English from movies and games so it's always fun to see what they come up with next.
Lunch today is some kind of yellow soup, a bread roll (that comes with a jam/margerine spread), some fried hot chips and sausages (cold), milk, chocolate syrup to put IN the milk and a half of a frozen apple. It was a really unusual lunch mostly due to the chips/sausage component and the presence of the frozen apple - It was good though!
After lunch was 2-3 and as I like that class too it also went down pretty well. Howeverrrrrrr, then I had class 1-1 which have lately been a pain! It's all due to one student - Kawanishi-san. What a bastard. He's the type of kid that is remarkably clever at being disruptive and getting away with things but is stupid when it comes to doing anything else. His brother is in the third year and he's cool as (he's tiny!) so it's generally a bit of a chore to teach this class. I think to stop the English teacher from getting the students to say 'I like your Mother' but it's really uncomfortably hot and humid at this point so I don't really bother. I smile to myself.
Cleaning goes down without a hitch. I clean with 1-3 but this time they have out dictionaries so they've got some more English words to say. We say our 'Gokurosama deshita's' and that's it for teaching for the day!
The students have what's called a 'Suri-suta' day today which is a combination of the the English words for 'three' and study' (three = suri [soo ree]/ study = sutadi [soo tah dee]) which is a little bit of a loose link for what it is but it just involves the students studying for tests. I waste some time, drink some tea, make some conversation with the teachers until it's about 5pm and time for me to leave.
That concludes my day. I wanted this to be short and snappy.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Audience
Open day is a day for parents to come and observe classes at any time throughout the day should they wish to. Bato had their open day a while ago and it was pretty standard really as not many parents are all that keen on seeing the classes because let's face it - if the classes are shit what are they going to do about it?
I wasn't scheduled to be at Ogawa for their open day but they wanted me there so they organised a swapping of days and so this morning I walked into the staff room to a slightly busier than normal crawl. So while teachers were doing important things I whipped up some flashcards of places so the third year students could learn the uses of once, twice etc. (eg. I have been to Kyoto 3 times). I introduced it to the students who have already learnt how to use 'have' with a past tensed verb so it was essentially tacking on something at the end. I didn't really think it would be overly hard and it wasn't. I was right. Yey.
I could go into the adventures of the first graders but it pretty much consisted of me saying
'I have a ball in my bag.
This is the ball.
I like football very much.
I often play it.'
Over and over again with the students repeating over and over again. I had to pronounce 'often' as 'offen' which isn't my natural tendency but it wasn't too tricky. Unlike saying 'learned' instead of 'learnt' which involves me changing my accent a little to get that r sound in. I hope I don't sound like a dick when I return.
I had to do a lot of correcting for the aforementioned exercises and it was refreshing to see the third years writing something new and interesting. The first years are really just learning nouns other than sports so they were still pretty boron. I tend to over-circle answers when the students do well which renders the paper unreadable for future revision but I think they appreciate it. They don't care what I write but they like the colours and watching me as I join my letters together.
I kind of do too... only a little.
I wasn't scheduled to be at Ogawa for their open day but they wanted me there so they organised a swapping of days and so this morning I walked into the staff room to a slightly busier than normal crawl. So while teachers were doing important things I whipped up some flashcards of places so the third year students could learn the uses of once, twice etc. (eg. I have been to Kyoto 3 times). I introduced it to the students who have already learnt how to use 'have' with a past tensed verb so it was essentially tacking on something at the end. I didn't really think it would be overly hard and it wasn't. I was right. Yey.
I could go into the adventures of the first graders but it pretty much consisted of me saying
'I have a ball in my bag.
This is the ball.
I like football very much.
I often play it.'
Over and over again with the students repeating over and over again. I had to pronounce 'often' as 'offen' which isn't my natural tendency but it wasn't too tricky. Unlike saying 'learned' instead of 'learnt' which involves me changing my accent a little to get that r sound in. I hope I don't sound like a dick when I return.
I had to do a lot of correcting for the aforementioned exercises and it was refreshing to see the third years writing something new and interesting. The first years are really just learning nouns other than sports so they were still pretty boron. I tend to over-circle answers when the students do well which renders the paper unreadable for future revision but I think they appreciate it. They don't care what I write but they like the colours and watching me as I join my letters together.
I kind of do too... only a little.
Monday, June 15, 2009
New Day
Today my favourite English teacher had her last day at school before going off and having a baby. Her name was Shimuzu (I never did get her first name) and she is being replaced by Ogane whose name in kanji reads 'big' and 'money'. Shimizu means 'Origin/Source' and 'Water' which is much nicer right? She is an enormous fan of waterfalls but insists that it's not related. I beg to differ.
Whats interesting is that the kanji for 'Mizu' is the same character for 'Wednesday' - and 'Gane' uses the same character as 'Friday'.
None of this is relevant as today is Monday.
This is the beginning of my more frequent and much shorter blog posts. Pay Attention.
Whats interesting is that the kanji for 'Mizu' is the same character for 'Wednesday' - and 'Gane' uses the same character as 'Friday'.
None of this is relevant as today is Monday.
This is the beginning of my more frequent and much shorter blog posts. Pay Attention.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)