Oodochi 2nd Years

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

I had the pleasure of teaching the second years at Odochi high school. Remember when I was commenting about how those students seemed a bit gay when I first came here in August? Well, apparently I'm not the only one. One of my JTEs mentioned that when she first came, the students were so...well gay (the original meaning of the word) that she thought for sure that they were. Even though we both know all those boys are not in fact gay (well, we speculate anyway) they certainly do appear that way.

It took some thinking about, but I've come to the conclusion that the majority of the second year boys are like cute, happy, curious, little monkeys! There are three in particular that will come into the teachers room and just...run amok!

Picture this if you will. The student came in and sang "Senseeeeeei! You forgot Mr. attendance book in the classroom!" and hands the book over. He then walks over to my JTE, a cute little woman, and says, "Weeee"as he starts spinning her around in her chair. In her timid sort of way, she has a bit of difficulty getting out what she wants to say "Waaa! Bu...wai...hol...ahhhhh...stop it! Stop it!" but she's laughing all the while so it's hard to not smile too. He then takes the slipper that has fallen off of her foot and starts waddling around the room with it. She asks him to bring it back which he does like an obedient mon-chan (cute monkey boy). "Ooo what's this?!" he trills excitedly as he pulls a box of chocolates off of her desk. She takes it from him to discuss it's contents and as soon as it's out of his hands "oooh and what's this?!" he goes on. The bell rings and "Welp, see ya in class, byeeeeeee" and walks out of the room. And that my friends is the most amusing thing I've ever seen take place in a matter of 2 minutes or less. And this happens on a daily basis! It's fantastic!

It's only too bad that I don't get to teach those students more often. I don't care how much English they don't know, they'd be so much fun to play games with!

And I did too! In class, for one day only, I was able to pull off all of my crazy game ideas that would just never work without the right class. I had my students dancing, writing, talking, and touching. Yes touching. (mind out of the gutter please!) I decided to play a game where all the students stand in a circle and put their arms into the middle. They then grab the hand of two different people (a different person for each hand) and then they have to untangle themselves by working as a team. It really is a wonderful game though the only English in it is when I'm giving them the directions. But eh, it was fun anyway! I could never do that in any of my other classes. Their either too big, too unmotivated, or too polite to want to get that close to one another. The stars aligned in my favor that day and I pulled it off. It was fantastic!

Also, they said I look like Agnela Aki. She is a girl who was born in Japan to a Japanese father and an American mother (100% Italian) and went to high school and college in America. She is now a very famous singer here in Japan. She didn't exactly make it in America. She sings in both English and Japanese.

It's not uncommon for me to meet someone for the first time who has heard of me and hear them say under their breath 「やっっぱりアンジェラあきですね」 which is the equivalent to "I know it, she's Angela Aki" or "She really is like Angela Aki".

Do you see the resemblance? Lie to me (^_~)v

I'm flattered. She's very pretty and talented. Maybe I should learn her songs and sing them in Karaoke. That'd get a great response!