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akujunkanYesterday I went on a two-hour purikura marathon with one of my former students. This kid is so nice, and so cute, and her English is pretty darn good compared to the typical 3-nensei standard. She starts high school today. Throughout the purikura experience, she kept telling me how nervous she was, and how she knew the other kids were going to bully & pick on her.
And the sad thing is, both she and I & everyone else knows that that's exactly what will happen. She's sweet and quiet and completely unsophisticated - a perfect target for the popular crowd in any country. It's sad.
Opening ceremonies for the incoming 1-nensei today. I was told to wear a suit, but not a black one. The problem is, my only other suit is a grey sleeveless, which I wore anyway.
The Japanese have a huge phobia of bare arms. Every teacher, and a majority of my students buzzed around me for the entirety of the ceremony, asking if I wasn't freezing, and not believing me when I said no (hey look guys, no goosebumps!).
This is, once again, quite ironic, coming from the people who send their daughters to school in -15 degrees Celcius weather, in the sleet, through four feet of snow, wearing knee-length skirts and no tights. And yes, those girls spend every day in unheated classrooms & hallways in that getup as well. And yes, it is a school uniform, and they aren't allowed to wear anything else.
Read Toni Morrison's Beloved yesterday. I was actually quite suprised by the fact that I liked it; I have read Sula and The Bluest Eye, and didn't particularly care for either. But I thought Morrison brought the atmosphere of creepiness surrounding a haunting to life quite well, even though I'd had the revelations and surprises in the book spoiled for me years before by some idiot Newsweek reviewer.
Will be giving a 10 minute Japanese speech in ten days. The woman who asked me to give it emailed me last night at ten and asked, What are you going to talk about?
Erm, that's your job; you're organising it, you tell me!
Oh,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bloody_american, would it offend you if your birthday story was not lollipops and chocholate candy-themed?
That will be all.
And the sad thing is, both she and I & everyone else knows that that's exactly what will happen. She's sweet and quiet and completely unsophisticated - a perfect target for the popular crowd in any country. It's sad.
Opening ceremonies for the incoming 1-nensei today. I was told to wear a suit, but not a black one. The problem is, my only other suit is a grey sleeveless, which I wore anyway.
The Japanese have a huge phobia of bare arms. Every teacher, and a majority of my students buzzed around me for the entirety of the ceremony, asking if I wasn't freezing, and not believing me when I said no (hey look guys, no goosebumps!).
This is, once again, quite ironic, coming from the people who send their daughters to school in -15 degrees Celcius weather, in the sleet, through four feet of snow, wearing knee-length skirts and no tights. And yes, those girls spend every day in unheated classrooms & hallways in that getup as well. And yes, it is a school uniform, and they aren't allowed to wear anything else.
Read Toni Morrison's Beloved yesterday. I was actually quite suprised by the fact that I liked it; I have read Sula and The Bluest Eye, and didn't particularly care for either. But I thought Morrison brought the atmosphere of creepiness surrounding a haunting to life quite well, even though I'd had the revelations and surprises in the book spoiled for me years before by some idiot Newsweek reviewer.
Will be giving a 10 minute Japanese speech in ten days. The woman who asked me to give it emailed me last night at ten and asked, What are you going to talk about?
Erm, that's your job; you're organising it, you tell me!
Oh,
bloody_american, would it offend you if your birthday story was not lollipops and chocholate candy-themed?That will be all.