Tuesday, January 31, 2012

m/other : ALT Edition

Last week I had my classes at Kanaashi, my agricultural school. For those of you who have been paying attention, you will remember that I adore this school. The kids are exceptionally friendly, and something(s) hilarious happens every time I have class.

Here's what happened in 2B.

Last month when I was there, we did a Jeopardy-style game in a bunch of the classes. So this time, wee had trivia questions in five categories, but instead of the worth of the questions being pre-decided, the kid who answered rolled a die and got fake money for whatever amount s/he rolled (a cartoon picture of me was on the $100 bill).

The category: People.

The question: Who is the prime minister of Russia?

The first guess: Jackie Chan.

Now, this albeit creative answer really confused me for a minute until my JTE wrote out the word "Russia" on the board, and then "Rush Hour" underneath it. Apparently, the class was a little confused about the difference between these two similar-sounding things (the Japanese pronunciation is nearly identical). I give them props for even knowing about the movie, seeing as it came out in 1998 when most of them were only three or four years old.

And this mistaken identity - which we cleared up, don't worry - was followed by one of the answers to the question, "What is Jessica-Sensei's favorite color?," (Yes, I was also one of the five categories) being "You're beautiful," and me giving out a stack of fake money for flattery. This is something I have done before and will shamelessly do again. At least they are flattering me in English. I think half the boys in that class are also on the baseball team, and I have yet to meet a baseball player here whom I don't like (unlike in the States, where most of them are asses). My JTE is the baseball coach, and I know he runs a pretty tight ship with those boys. He has had me start class by myself once or twice because he was busy scolding some of them in the hallway. But they are good kids, and they have a lot of respect for him. So it's all good.

In other news, it has been snowing loads here the last few days. A couple weeks ago we had a heat wave, where it got above 40 degrees for a couple days! That, however, made everything a slushy mess, which has since turned into a frozen, slippery mess. It has also screwed my bus-to-station schedule - buses basically show up whenever they feel like it now, and the time-table has gone to hell. This has in turn made catching trains a bit of a nightmare. One morning last week, I just gave up on the buses and grabbed a taxi that was going by instead because I refuse to be late for school ever again.

Hope everyone is well! Seattle, I have zero sympathy for your weather conditions. I'm looking out the window and thinking, if it was snowing like this in America, I would not have left the house. And yet I do. It's a whiteout right now, and we continue to press on. I am perpetually cold here.

All my love!

No comments: