Teaching and What Have You

Today is Saturday, but I was at work today, anyway, specifically in the other half of town at the children's center because they invited me to come over and make makizushi, which is the rolled kind of sushi, with kids from three of the schools I work at and a bunch of kindergarteners and whatnot. It was loads of fun and there was delicious sushi. We also learned about Girls' Day, which is coming up soon, I think, and played some games. We played Simon Says because one of the girls really liked playing it before, and we played Duck, Duck, Goose because it is easy to teach and little kids generally like running around in circles. So, all in all, a good day.

Another thing that happened a couple weeks ago, actually, was that I had a class with first and second graders because the second grade teacher was out sick. The first grade teacher hadn't gotten there yet, I think because she was carrying stuff and kids kept trying to hang off her, so I was the only "adult" there, which is actually not supposed to happen, but sometimes it does. Anyway, I got the kids to line up and start class, which always involves a little announcement type thing from a couple of the kids who are in charge that day (Japan is weird). So, anyway, we started and then the teacher arrived and she was amazed that I'd gotten the class started. I guess it is quite a feat, but not really when the kids want to play whatever game they think is in store.

That day we played a couple games, including twister, and I had to stay a bit after class was over with a few of the kids who wanted to keep playing. So, I got to my next class a couple minutes late, I guess, but that teacher also wasn't there yet, and I was carrying the twister games still, so all the kids kept telling me they wanted to play twister (this was a class of sixth graders). We had already had something else planned, but when the teacher got there and learned what they wanted to do, he just decided we should play twister instead, so we did that. Awesome.

At another school, I learned that talking about politics is not that easy in Japanese, but I also learned that even sixth graders think it is funny when you play and sing the Doraemon theme song. They're graduating to junior high soon, so sometimes the classes aren't so hard at this point.

I've also recently translated the three little pigs into Japanese, which worked out alright, if I can judge by how much they were paying attention. One school had a farewell assembly for their sixth graders, which was awesome, and I took part in a practice for another school's. Now some unrelated pictures.


New zero carb beer from Kirin!


This is a pudding thing I made from a mix and some milk which was pretty good, but had about the same consistency and texture as what Japanese people call purin, which is short for pudding, but really means custard thing that westerners hate because it is just barely solid. Like I said, it was alright.


That's 1000 ml of Asahi Super "Dry" next to 110 ml of Kirin Tanrei, just for comparison. These are both just normal cans, not resealable or anything, which seem to imply that either one is an acceptable serving size.


The green wrapper contains yomogi anpan, while the pink one contains sakura anpan, mugwort and cherry flavored sweet bean paste-filled bread, respectively. Incidentally, the colors associated with Girls' Day are white, for snow; green, for mugwort; and pink, for cherry blossoms. Neat.