Starfish
Something else has made me disproportionately happy. But in order to describe said thing I first must describe some things that had been making me sad.
So, at the end of the week before last I put up stuff on one of the bulletin boards in the student genkan at Icchu. There was a little envelope where students could leave messages for me, and another envelope with random, very simple English word puzzles. Let's play, guess how many messages I got and how many of the word game sheets had been taken. Is the total sum of your guesses a positive integer? If so, it is higher than what I believed when I went to check on Monday morning, and found no messages, and a nice thick pile of word puzzles remaining. This made me feel like I was not a worthwile person.
Later that day, however, I decided to take the risk of actually counting the remaining word puzzles, knowing there had been twenty. If I counted twenty, it would of course plunge my spirits even lower, because I would know for sure no one took one. But, I've noticed about myself that I always have to do things like this, make sure, know for certain. So I counted.
Fifteen.
Yay! There's an infinite difference between five and zero, in this case. If five students actually took the puzzles, they'd been worth making. I was happy.
Second thing that had been making me sad: There's a kid in 3-1 (third year students, class 1), Yamamoto-kun (山本君), who always gives me the sweetest smiles, and occasionally asks me questions (in English!) about Japanese luxury cars and how popular they are in America. Sadly this is not a topic I'm much of an expert on. Anyway, this makes him the only student so far who has attempted to have conversation with me about anything other than whether I have a boyfriend, when I'm going to get married, and whether I think Jarryd is hot. And the only student who talks to me in English without immediately bursting into giggles after each word. (No offense to the very friendly and energetic group of girls who follow me around asking about my love life and giggling...I like them too! ^_^) But...when I gave my self introduction to 3-1, all of what, four weeks ago now, and they wrote me messages, I didn't receive one from him. I asked him the next time I was there -- two weeks ago -- and he said he'd given it to the main teacher and not to me, so I asked the teacher, and he just sort of shrugged. So I figured he'd lost it. Which wasn't a huge tragedy, but frustrated me, since Yamamoto-kun was the only student who had particularly asked content-full questions, and I couldn't write him a reply. Well, I could have just written him a note, but I didn't know if that was too singling-out somehow. Anyway. Perhaps for no very good reason, it frustrated me.
But,
When I got to school this week, there was a paper taped on my desk. Actually, it had somehow been flipped over, so that it was upside down and mostly on the desk next to mine. And so I didn't notice it or realize it had anything to do with me for quite a while. Finally at some point when I was bored and tired and scanning the desk for lack of anything better to do, I amused myself by trying to read the lettering at the top of the page -- which I realized was in English -- upside down and backwards. It was harder than it should have been -- I was really, really tired yesterday! -- but I finally made out the words "listen" and "answer". Wait, I finally thought to think, why is this paper in English anyway? And then, wait, that sounds like the heading of those sheets they wrote messages on. So I flipped the paper over. Naturally, it was one of those very sheets. Identified at the top as belonging to 3-1-14, Akinobu Yamamoto. Yay! I guess the teacher randomly found it somewhere. (Yes...the students do all have individual numbers...)
From this paper I learned that he likes cars (which I knew), the movie Bad Boys II, and the rapper T.I. Ha ha. I love the random American culture that reaches the middle schools of rural Japan...There were lots of kids who were fans of eminem and Linkin Park too. And one girl watches Kim Possible.
Meanwhile, I wrote a reply, which included some sales figures for Lexus and a discussion of the cars my own family owns. When I got to school this morning I discovered that I was not to have class with 3-1 or 3-4 as scheduled, only 3-3, which was disappointing because the third year day is always the most fun. 3-3 was first period -- we played bingo -- and after class I was in the process of handing my reply to the teacher to give to Yamamoto-kun, when I noticed him standing idly in the hallway. So I just gave it to him. He looked slightly intimidated by the length of the English paragraph, heh. But smiled at me as always.
Then he pulled out a folded piece of paper, and said "Ah, sono, English Board...kore..." I looked at the paper. My word puzzles! He'd done all of them. He pointed to the translation puzzle and grinned. When you filled in all the words in the little boxes, my name appeared vertically. I laughed and said "wow, very good!" I wasn't sure if he was like, handing it in to me sort of, or what, so I asked if I should take it or if he wanted it, and he said yes he wanted it, and folded it back up.
So really what made me disproportionately happy was knowing there was at least one student who bothered to take the puzzles, complete them, and wanted to show me, and seemed pleased that he'd noticed my name tucked in there sneakily. That makes it worth it for sure, right?
^_^
In other news, I bought airplane tickets yesterday! I'm officially scheduled to be home this winter now, from 12/23 through 1/9. So if anyone who's reading this (who isn't a sketchy stalker...) is going to be around the northeast during that time, we should hang out! :-)
And now I should be making myself some food and finishing vocab before Adam wakes up and yells at me for being so lazy, heh. (But AIM informs me he's only been idle for like three hours lol...so I kind of feel like I have a while...) In any case, have some lyrics (in English! Gasp!):
So as you push off from the shore,
won't you turn your head once more
and make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay,
will live just one more day
to do the things they should have done.
And as you cross the wilderness,
spinning in your emptiness:
you feel you have to pray.
Looking for a sign that the Universal Mind has written you into the Passion Play...
So, at the end of the week before last I put up stuff on one of the bulletin boards in the student genkan at Icchu. There was a little envelope where students could leave messages for me, and another envelope with random, very simple English word puzzles. Let's play, guess how many messages I got and how many of the word game sheets had been taken. Is the total sum of your guesses a positive integer? If so, it is higher than what I believed when I went to check on Monday morning, and found no messages, and a nice thick pile of word puzzles remaining. This made me feel like I was not a worthwile person.
Later that day, however, I decided to take the risk of actually counting the remaining word puzzles, knowing there had been twenty. If I counted twenty, it would of course plunge my spirits even lower, because I would know for sure no one took one. But, I've noticed about myself that I always have to do things like this, make sure, know for certain. So I counted.
Fifteen.
Yay! There's an infinite difference between five and zero, in this case. If five students actually took the puzzles, they'd been worth making. I was happy.
Second thing that had been making me sad: There's a kid in 3-1 (third year students, class 1), Yamamoto-kun (山本君), who always gives me the sweetest smiles, and occasionally asks me questions (in English!) about Japanese luxury cars and how popular they are in America. Sadly this is not a topic I'm much of an expert on. Anyway, this makes him the only student so far who has attempted to have conversation with me about anything other than whether I have a boyfriend, when I'm going to get married, and whether I think Jarryd is hot. And the only student who talks to me in English without immediately bursting into giggles after each word. (No offense to the very friendly and energetic group of girls who follow me around asking about my love life and giggling...I like them too! ^_^) But...when I gave my self introduction to 3-1, all of what, four weeks ago now, and they wrote me messages, I didn't receive one from him. I asked him the next time I was there -- two weeks ago -- and he said he'd given it to the main teacher and not to me, so I asked the teacher, and he just sort of shrugged. So I figured he'd lost it. Which wasn't a huge tragedy, but frustrated me, since Yamamoto-kun was the only student who had particularly asked content-full questions, and I couldn't write him a reply. Well, I could have just written him a note, but I didn't know if that was too singling-out somehow. Anyway. Perhaps for no very good reason, it frustrated me.
But,
When I got to school this week, there was a paper taped on my desk. Actually, it had somehow been flipped over, so that it was upside down and mostly on the desk next to mine. And so I didn't notice it or realize it had anything to do with me for quite a while. Finally at some point when I was bored and tired and scanning the desk for lack of anything better to do, I amused myself by trying to read the lettering at the top of the page -- which I realized was in English -- upside down and backwards. It was harder than it should have been -- I was really, really tired yesterday! -- but I finally made out the words "listen" and "answer". Wait, I finally thought to think, why is this paper in English anyway? And then, wait, that sounds like the heading of those sheets they wrote messages on. So I flipped the paper over. Naturally, it was one of those very sheets. Identified at the top as belonging to 3-1-14, Akinobu Yamamoto. Yay! I guess the teacher randomly found it somewhere. (Yes...the students do all have individual numbers...)
From this paper I learned that he likes cars (which I knew), the movie Bad Boys II, and the rapper T.I. Ha ha. I love the random American culture that reaches the middle schools of rural Japan...There were lots of kids who were fans of eminem and Linkin Park too. And one girl watches Kim Possible.
Meanwhile, I wrote a reply, which included some sales figures for Lexus and a discussion of the cars my own family owns. When I got to school this morning I discovered that I was not to have class with 3-1 or 3-4 as scheduled, only 3-3, which was disappointing because the third year day is always the most fun. 3-3 was first period -- we played bingo -- and after class I was in the process of handing my reply to the teacher to give to Yamamoto-kun, when I noticed him standing idly in the hallway. So I just gave it to him. He looked slightly intimidated by the length of the English paragraph, heh. But smiled at me as always.
Then he pulled out a folded piece of paper, and said "Ah, sono, English Board...kore..." I looked at the paper. My word puzzles! He'd done all of them. He pointed to the translation puzzle and grinned. When you filled in all the words in the little boxes, my name appeared vertically. I laughed and said "wow, very good!" I wasn't sure if he was like, handing it in to me sort of, or what, so I asked if I should take it or if he wanted it, and he said yes he wanted it, and folded it back up.
So really what made me disproportionately happy was knowing there was at least one student who bothered to take the puzzles, complete them, and wanted to show me, and seemed pleased that he'd noticed my name tucked in there sneakily. That makes it worth it for sure, right?
^_^
In other news, I bought airplane tickets yesterday! I'm officially scheduled to be home this winter now, from 12/23 through 1/9. So if anyone who's reading this (who isn't a sketchy stalker...) is going to be around the northeast during that time, we should hang out! :-)
And now I should be making myself some food and finishing vocab before Adam wakes up and yells at me for being so lazy, heh. (But AIM informs me he's only been idle for like three hours lol...so I kind of feel like I have a while...) In any case, have some lyrics (in English! Gasp!):
won't you turn your head once more
and make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay,
will live just one more day
to do the things they should have done.
And as you cross the wilderness,
spinning in your emptiness:
you feel you have to pray.
Looking for a sign that the Universal Mind has written you into the Passion Play...
posted by Ashila at 7:52 AM
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