Where I Intended to Be

This is the captain speaking… October 18, 2010

I just want to let you know that we will be experiencing some slight turbulence this week.

Dude to a number of tricky and demanding threads that have all decided to run through my life at the same moment, each with its own emotional, temporal, financial, and occasionally verbal demands, I cannot promise that a) there will be the customary updates for this week or b) that these updates won’t be worse than no updates at all.

On my smörgåsbord of Stuff I Have to Do, we have: purchase new car because my old one is beyond repair (this story will definitely get its own post once the process is complete), assist in gigantic and fantastically demanding school-wide seminar on Wednesday, prepare significant presentation about Halloween, assist in gigantic and fantastically demanding school-wise Halloween activity next Friday, continue daily devotions and sacrifices to a multitude of spiritual entities in the hopes that Mario Gomez will keep scoring goals for Bayern and that Ribery and Klose will actually be back in action next week. Also: continue to apply to graduate school in the hopes that I will have a new Place to Go when I depart Japan in a mere 162 days.

So now, very quickly: memories.

~ Last Thursday = Survived a class with The First Years. Their home room teacher is, for some reason, on leave for an indeterminate amount of time and I missed her dearly. Although the love that these students and I have for each other is real and unshakable, they are the LOUDEST CHILDREN IN THE WORLD and trying to go and record music for The Band after a day with them is kind of like trying to milk a chicken. You could try, but there is no reason in the world that you should.

~ Last Friday = Field Trip with Friday’s Elementary School. This entire day was entertaining and enjoyable. Perhaps my favorite part was when one of my students came up to me and asked me about the difference between telling somebody to “go to heaven” or telling somebody to “go to hell”. This is not a question that I normally field at an elementary level and the answering process was both delicate and ultimately futile. This student is a very smart boy, and despite my best efforts he quickly understood that he had discovered, as it were, one of the much sought-after diamonds of English insults. So guess what I got to listen to for the rest of the day? Kids say the darnedest things.

~ Saturday and Sunday = There was The Gym. Also some progress on the car issue. Also I may or may not have forgotten that cheese nan is a dangerous thing. I have since remembered.

~ Monday = My third year students had a singing test for We Are the World and, in order to make the process less embarrassing (singing by oneself in front of a class can be kind of intimidating), I sang with them. This means that I sang the song about 20 times in a row (the kids came up and did it in pairs). Definitely not the kinds of activities I’d envisioned for myself when I decided to sign up for the JET Program back in 2005/2006.

And that’s about it for now. I hope that I can stay organized and productive so that I can keep up with the posts this week. I think we’re in for some really interesting experiences.

Then I saw his face
Now I’m a believer