I Am Completely Serious

and my last day of work was today. I don’t think I can talk about this reasonably right now, but it involved an argument with the owner. I keep tearing up at odd moments, or noticing that my heart is racing for no reason. (I request that no one respond to this entry asking me what my plans are.)

Some things that made me feel better today - Mee and Conan and their parents. They were one of the three families I managed to warn before my last class with them that it was my last class with them, and only because Conan came in for an extra lesson a few days early. They both made me good-bye cards. Conan actually wrote her own message, which is a big deal for a five-year-old, though I think her Mom helped her with the content. (This was in Japanese, not English.)

Though it was quite sedate by Japanese-girl standards, Mee was embarrassed by her card’s contents, and ordered me not to read it until she’d left the building. I didn’t have time until just now, so I didn’t. She assures me that she will be studying English very hard so that she can shock me one day. I will not be shocked by any measure of progress Mee makes - she’s pretty hardcore.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

My 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM hour today was on my schedule as a demo class with three middle schoolers. I didn’t recognize their names, but because the school’s presently doing a marketing thing where the juku students can get three free English classes, I assumed they were juku kids.

Twenty minutes before my last period started, as I was carefully drawing a homemade Chutes and Ladders board, Madonna and one of her friends, Cheese, burst in. “Hello! Hello! Can we come!”

I do not, in fact, know Madonna’s real name. She and Peter Pan and Jack’o'Lantern have continued their policy of lying creatively when I ask them their names. I know Peter Pan’s now because I got the manager to tell me, but I haven’t had a chance to make him rat out the others.

So I had two middle school girls, so I assumed they were going to be the demo lesson, and had gotten bored and shown up early. I got them to help me finish the game board, and then we played Jenga and formed sentences involving fruit (because the fruit poster was right over the table, and Madonna is for some reason eternally fascinated by the fruit poster). Some sentences involving One Piece also got in there, because Madonna’s taste in manga apparently extends beyond Saiyuki.

Then at 8:00, the manager showed up with not one unknown kid but three. “So, wait. Five students?” I asked him, pointing to the Jenga-players. “Should I take all five?”

Apparently not; he told Madonna and Cheese that they couldn’t stay in the classroom because I had to teach a class (oh, come on, don’t make me the bad guy here). “No! No!” said Madonna in English. “It’s cool! Let us! It’s cool!” Then, in Japanese, “Suzushii!”

Suzushii means “cool” in the literal sense. The juku classroom’s AC is pretty crappy, and the owner won’t let them turn it up all the way. The English classroom’s AC, on the other hand, is under my control, and he will wrest that control from cold, dead hands.* Gosh, you guys, it’s so nice to be wanted for my classroom’s air conditioner.

But they bowed to the manager’s demands and left, and I taught the demo. (It was fine, if not as cheerful as a demo involving Madonna and Cheese would have been. The boy had clearly been forced into this by his parents, and wouldn’t talk above a mutter until I started calling him Ponyo and got the girls to go along with it. Then his outrage gave him strength.)

* Sniping About My Bosses Corner, Do Not Read If You’re Not In The Mood For Morons:

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They put Mr. Wow in with Zuzu, Cookie, and Princess. It’s been a month now, and things are finally settling down. It turns out Mr. Wow is very vain? I knew that, and was mentally prepared for the likelihood that he’d be somewhat less cute in a situation where he’s got to share attention with three other kids, two of whom are capable of giving him some competition. Still, I’m a little sad to be disillusioned.

He has kind of a crush on Cookie, which is good, because it means he mostly does what Cookie does, and Cookie mostly does what I say. Unfortunately, I’ve still had to spend a lot of time keeping Mr. Wow in line, which means Zuzu and Princess have felt left out. Princess lets me know this by poking my boobs. Zuzu lets me know by means of fabulously sulky poses - slouching in the tiny chairs with her arms crossed, her legs jutting out, and her lower lip extended. I know, Zuzu. I know.

Thanks to Mr. Wow’s behavior and one of their classes falling on a vacation day last month, they didn’t learn all the monthly curriculum, which bugs me. Before, Mr. Wow could usually learn all the curriculum in two weeks, and Cookie and Zuzu usually had everything down by the third week - we can do better than this. It really is true about small class sizes. I think it’ll be okay this month, though I can see I’m going to have to be a little harsher on silliness than I used to be.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

My habit of getting online before going to work in the morning is in general a destructive one, but today it probably proved beneficial. Because if I hadn’t known about Michael Jackson when I went in today, I might have accidentally spoken Japanese when Goody Proctor told me he was dead. (Japanese like, “What?! Lies!”) She and the Devil have startled me into speaking Japanese once before.

(Goody Proctor felt the need to update me on this because Michael Jackson is on my list of names to use to make sentences with. (”Can I help you?” “Yes, I’m looking for Michael Jackson.” “What’s your sister’s name?” “Her name is Michael Jackson.”) The list goes: the students’ names, my name, the manager’s name, Michael Jackson, Taro Aso, Son Goku, Palkia, and then I start ad-libbing. Please do not ask me to explain this. My methodology was not rational.)

Zip and Zoh were extra-adorable today. I gave them a worksheet instead of their usual coloring sheets, and they swarmed me demanding coloring. (I’m unsure how it is that two six-year-olds configure themselves into a swarm, but it is a skill they all seem to have. A few very dedicated ones can actually form one-child swarms.) Zip may have attempted to climb. Having prepared for this, I had colored pencils for them. They did the worksheet with those, and obviously made every letter a different color.

I did discover that I shouldn’t make worksheets for the smallest kids using Helvetica. The lowercase a’s have the curly overhang, which I’d never really registered before. When I realized Zip and Zoh were carefully drawing out this unfamiliar letter not knowing what it was, I took the sheets back and drew in “normal” a’s for them. I luckily had time to redesign Mr. K’s before his class. Century Gothic appears to be the way to go, unless I can find some font specifically designed for kids to copy.

(Don’t ask me why, though my company is supposed to provide workbooks to go along with the textbooks, I have to make my own worksheets. I’ve been here five months and I’m still too irritated to talk about.)

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I had Mr. Weepy by himself for a make-up lesson yesterday. It was actually a really good day for him! That means that he hit me in the eye with a plastic golf club - but only once. And he said he wouldn’t do it again. I guess when he’s by himself, he doesn’t feel the need to demonstrate to Mr. Clown and Miss Foo how much tougher he is than the teacher.

Goody Proctor also had a make-up. This is only the second time I’ve had her without the Devil, and it’s hard to get a handle on her this way, because she’s pretty self-contained. It’s not just with me; she’s like that around everyone. I was kind of surprised at first, because she’s a really flamboyant-looking person fashion-wise - kind of a compromise between a Fruits girl and the Japanese interpretation of hip-hop aesthetics. Now I think she’s kind of the shy type who tries to let her clothes speak for her. (Mr. K’s mom (who’s very young) is the same type.)

It’s hard to get her interested in just games when there’s only the two of us there. When the Devil’s there, they compete, but she doesn’t want to compete with me. I finally figured out towards the end of class that she gets more interested if I let her get really free-form in coming up with sentences, instead of giving her building blocks like I do most of the other kids. Like, to Ken’ichi, Jerkface, or Kitty, if I want them to come up with a sentence in the form, “Yuzu went to school yesterday,” I have to point to Yuzu and hold up the flashcard for “yesterday.” Any less and they stall and complain about how much work it is, and their turns take too long, and the games take forever. (Jerkface and Kitty are getting better about this, but I’m close to writing Ken’ichi off as doomed in this regard. He is not a child who enjoys having to take initiative.)

Goody Proctor gets much more interested when I give her one-word prompts, or no prompt. She started asking me for vocab she didn’t know. “What’s that?” “Garbage can.” “Okay. The Devil went into the garbage can today.” Aww, Goody Proctor. I’m going to tell her you said that.

(Mee is like this, too, but then she’s very dedicated to the craft of insults.)

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

They crawl under the table, assume certain poses, and declare themselves radishes or potatoes.

Mr. Bug won’t answer to his name, I have to call him “daikon.”

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On Saturday, no one came to pick Conan up after her class. This is the third time this has happened, so I was annoyed, but not really surprised. I asked Mee, “Where’s Mama? No Mama today?” Mee said distractedly, “No. No Mama.” Mee’s class is right after Conan’s, so as I did the first couple times, I brought her into the classroom with her sister.

Mee enjoys having Conan in there, partly because I have to include her in some of the games to keep her happy - which means I have to dial back the amount of actual studying that goes on - and partly because she secretly enjoys showing off her little sister’s cuteness.

As I was getting out a coloring sheet and crayons for Conan, Mee and I had a conversation.

MEE: Sarah, Sarah. Heart, heart.

ME: “Hot.”

MEE: Hot!

She opened the window, and stood there leaning out it for a second, peering contemplatively down at the side of the building. The classroom is on the the third floor.

MEE: <It’s good to go in and out the window… I didn’t come in the door! I came in the window.>

ME: Really? Well, please don’t jump out the window.

MEE: <It would be good if you climbed in the window - and then when you left, you went down a slide. That would be perfect! A slide would be perfect!>

ME: If you say so.

I didn’t think anything in particular of this conversation until class was over. Mee and Conan’s mom came stumbling in, out of breath and looking panicked. “I couldn’t come for Conan,” she wheezed. “The door was locked.”

“- the door?”

“The first floor door was locked!” She made a locking gesture for me, looking frantic. “Someone locked it! I couldn’t get inside!” Zuzu had come in with her, looking hot and sulky, very similar to an eight-year-old who’d had to stand out in the sun waiting for someone to let her in.

Mee and Conan were standing behind me. I would have expected Mee to ask a lot of questions about this, as it’s the sort of thing that would appeal to her imagination, or at least to make fun of her mom for panicking. Mee is the family’s sanguine temperament, and her mother is the melancholic. (Conan, who throws the foam ABCs at me and then cackles, is obviously choleric.) But she just walked calmly past us towards the manga shelf. Conan, taking her cue from her sister, followed her.

Mee-Mama, whose panic hadn’t worn itself out yet, noticed a sign on the wall about the mock-Eiken test and grabbed Mee’s shoulder. “Oh, Mee! I don’t think we’ve signed you up for your test yet -” I got the manager to help her with that, and applied myself to chasing Zuzu around the couch until she smiled. I guess Mee-Mama must not have had the school’s number in her phone, so she had to go look it up or something to call the office.

After they’d gotten themselves sorted out and Zuzu was safely into her juku class, I asked the manager, “How did the door get locked?”

“I don’t know. But it really was locked.”

I considered Mee’s claim of “No Mama.” I considered her abrupt fascination with the idea of entering and leaving buildings through their windows. And I considered her uncharacteristically quiet reaction to the news that her mother had been locked out.

“…Maybe it was Mee,” I said.

“Maybe,” he agreed.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

My lipstick broke. (I own one (1) thing of lipstick. Sometimes I remember to wear it.) My attempts to repair it failed badly, so I got a new one at the grocery store today. My selection method was “Which brand is cheapest? I will buy that brand. In red.” There was an older lady standing there scrutinizing the lipsticks - I reached over her shoulder, took the one I wanted, and went to get my groceries. Having acquired my fish and pastries and gone to check out I passed the cosmetics section again. The woman was still there, studying the lipsticks.

(Yeah, I know, I can’t criticize. I do this with books and batteries.)

I saw one of my students outside of class for the first time on my way back - it was Mr. Wow, walking home from school with some other six-year-olds. I was across the street, and he was wearing his little yellow safety helmet very low over his eyes, so it was hard to see his face. But I thought I recognized the way he walked, so I waved at him.

I was correct. He stopped the friend he was walking with and waved back. “Hello!” he said in English. He stopped the friend he was with, so as to demonstrate his great Speaking English To The Gaijin Powers. “Sarah, hello! Hello!” He waved a little more, then got out his Pokemon thermos and waved that at me. “Hello hello!”

I worry that Mr. Wow’s cuteness may be used as a weapon by evil men.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

Today was full of loud, obnoxious middle schoolers. But they were all loud and obnoxious in ways that managed to be cute, so I forgive them.

The windows were all open because it was hot. Naturally, Mee threatened to throw my stuff out them when she lost games. (She never actually did because she is sometimes kinda responsible.) We played a game that used the paper faces - I’ve never made one of Conan, but today I decided to use the Devil’s to represent her. Mee saw immediately that the face was not really her sister: “Conan’s cuter than that!” This is from a young lady who frequently repurposes her homework writing assignments to the important work of maligning her sibling.

Jerkface was finally back today. I was worried that I might have traumatized him, but apparently he was worried he might have ticked me off irreversibly - he was extra-good the whole class, all whispering Ken’ichi and Bonze words they couldn’t get and helping me clean up.

He was still loud and quickly-distracted, because he can’t help that, but he didn’t try any wrestling or shoving the whole class. Maybe I’ve finally gotten through to him on that?

He was asking me a bunch of questions - all in Japanese, of course. He wanted me to explain Alaska to him. This is difficult given his limited English vocabulary. (His problem with Alaska is that it is really big and is not attached to the rest of the United States on the classroom map.) He also asked what my “English name” is. It’s Sarah? You know my name, dude. “No, no, your long name.” It is, indeed, long. I repeated it for him, and added a “the third” to the end. “Whoa! That’s too long!”

After their class (which is my last for the day), the manager came in and asked me to come keep an eye on Leo, whose parents were late picking him up again, requiring that he bug the juku teachers and make a lot of noise.

I can now add Leo to my list of kids who cheat at cards. He lied pretty much constantly when we were playing Go Fish. When the stack was down to six cards and he hadn’t admitted to anything I needed for like seven turns, I said, “You know, if there’s only two players, you shouldn’t bluff at Go Fish.”

“I do not lie,” he informed me indignantly in English. He was, of course, lying. (He doesn’t have what I would identify as a Russian accent in English - he sounds pretty Japanese to me.)

Me having been defeated by his treachery, we switched to Old Maid. When we were down to two and three cards each, he had the Old Maid, and refused to let me draw any other card from his hand. He wouldn’t let go of them. You are subtle, my friend.

In non-middle-schooler-related news:

1) Conan taught Mr. Yodeler the Proper Way To Draw A Melon. There’s only one right way! You’re a bossy child, Miss Conan.

2) Zuzu accused me of being in my thirties, which, obviously, made it necessary that I stop class and write my actual age on the board. (I said, “No, no, no! Twenty-three! Now be quiet!” Cookie observed accurately, “You’re the one who’s being loud.”) Apparently I don’t care what she suggests about my gender, but I do care about the age thing? You’d think it’d be the other way around.

Anyway, youngest sibling - next time you see History Teacher, tell him I apologize for the thing where we thought he was like in his late thirties to early forties.

3) Mr. Sleepyhead is just as bad an ambulance driver as he is a doctor. He stopped to say hi to some dudes. I think he bought some juice, too.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

The universe decided to make up for a hideous Tuesday-through-Thursday with an extremely excellent Friday and Saturday.

Jerkface did not show up (which does worry me a little - the manager said his parents had called and said he had stuff to do, but I’m still going to fret about it), but Bonze and Ken’ichi did. And Bonze gave me a present that made my whole week.

As he was coming in the door for class, he said in Japanese, “Oh! I forgot. I have an egg.” He stopped and dug around in his bag, and pulled out a tiny tupperware box, which he opened. Inside was a tiny egg - a little bigger than a quail egg - carefully tucked into in some tissues. He said, “It’s for you,” and took the egg out of the box and handed it to me, then put the box away.

I said in English, “An egg! Thank you so much! …is it a chicken egg?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Yay! Thank you!” (”Yay” is my generic happy word.) Having no suitable container for a tiny egg, I went over and made a little tissue-nest for it on the shelf. We sat down to play a game which required splitting the ABC cards between us.

The “e” card has a picture of an egg on it. Ken’ichi ended up with that one. Picking the card up to admire it, Bonze said, “You have the egg! Can I trade you for it?” Eggs are clearly very important to Bonze.

As he was putting his shoes on at the end of class I asked him, “Is it from Bonze’s chicken?” There were little stains on the egg, which along with its size suggested to me it hadn’t come from a store.

“No, no.”

“Mama’s chicken? Papa’s chicken? Grandmother’s chicken?” He shook his head, very shy about the egg, and left.

I asked the manager why he thought Bonze had given me a tiny egg. He said, “Ohhh. Bonze’s family keeps chickens. It must be one of their eggs. Oh, no! He probably thought it would hatch and you’d have a baby chicken!”

I said, “It’s an intimidating present! It has Bonze’s heart in it!”

“Taihen da na!”

Though I’m sure he was underestimating Bonze’s intelligence, here. (It’s unfortunately easy to do, because he’s so quiet and tiny. Jerkface knows better!) A kid whose family raises chickens is probbbably going to know that an undersized egg he’s carried around in his bag is not going to hatch. I also assume he has the sense not to give an egg he thinks might hatch to someone who may not be prepared for parenthood.

Nonetheless, I’m not sure what to do with Bonze’s egg. Should I eat it? I googled around, and it looks like it’s safe to eat these kinds of eggs. But then, Bonze did have it in his bag for at least two hours, and it was another hour and a half before I could get it home. Is the egg safe to eat? I’d feel really bad about just tossing it…

I feel very flattered that Bonze gave me an egg from his beloved chickens, but it really does feel like an intimidating gift.

The rest of the last couple days:

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)