A selection from one of my students’ homework assignments, in which he used pretty much every English sentence pattern he could remember to express his desire for cake:
“I want a big cake. I like cakes.
Cakes are delicious. Who doesn’t want cake?
When I grow up, I want to eat cake.
Do you have a cake? I don’t have cake. Can I borrow your cake?
…
Where is your cake? It’s in my stomach.”
A one-yen coin for my thoughts…
I’m always amused by how popular President Obama is here in Japan. Even in this little country town, I get homework handed into me with doodles of his face in the margins. I was teaching the word ‘can’ (as in ”anything you can do I can do better”) to my first-year junior high students today when they suddenly and without warning began chanting, “Yes we can! Yes we can!” in the middle of class, just as I had so often heard at Obama rallies last year. When I tell my students that I met him and shook his hand, they ask me timidly, “are you famous?”
In Kindergarten, however, the kids are pretty much the exact opposite of timid. They have this wonderful little prank here called a “kancho” (“kancho” actually means “enema” in Japanese, if that gives you an indication of what kind of prank this is) in which they put their hands together and stick their index fingers out like they’re making a pretend gun with their hands, and then they stick those outstretched index fingers right into the center of your butt as hard as they can. The boys think it’s hilarious. The girls also have a bizarre obsession with my butt, but they usually just try to pull my pants down instead of kancho-ing me. Most of the day when I work at Kindergarten, I have to walk around with one or both hands behind me blocking my butt.
In front of Kinkakuji
Kinkakuji: Temple of the Golden Pavilion
At Fushimi-Inari Shrine
Climbing Fushimi-Inari
The vending machine kinda kills the mood
MONKEY MOUNTAIN
Feeding a baby monkey
At Kiyomizu Temple
Kiyomizu Temple
Kyoto Tower
The internet’s (finally) back in my apartment, ladies and gents, and you know what that means? I’m back! Yes, you better believe it. Now, we’ve got some catching up to do, and first up is…
KYOTO!!!!!
Last weekend was a 3-day weekend and I went with a group of 16 other JETs to Kyoto for some sightseeing and all-around good times. We left Friday after work, arrived in Kyoto a little before midnight, and stayed until Monday afternoon. It was my first time back in there since studying abroad in 2006, and I had forgotten what a beautiful and awesome city it is. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I visit while living here. I took tons of pictures and sifted through to find the best ones, so enjoy!
Things that have been occupying my mind lately, in brief
The Cardinals going into the NLDS this Wednesday!
This week, my junior high school students are doing a work-experience study where they go to various jobs for the whole week instead of coming to school. Which means no classes for me at Junior High this week.
Wednesday, however, I will be working my butt off because it’s open house at my elementary school, so I will have back to back classes for the entire day, while being observed by my students’ parents.
This weekend I will be going with a group of about 18 JETs to Kyoto for 3 nights (we have a 3-day weekend)! I haven’t been back since I studied abroad there 3 years ago, so I’m really looking forward to it.
I participated in a pub quiz this weekend and my team did surprisingly poor. We finished solidly in second-to-last place. That is, we thought we did, but then a few minutes later the host announced that he miscalculated and we were, in fact, in dead last. Sigh…
I have felt increasingly happy over the past few weeks. Like, really happy. This is a good trend.
The end.
Technical difficulties
I would like to post more about school and whatnot, but the internet is currently not working at my home, so I can only post brief things from my cell phone at the moment, but everything is going well, school is AWESOME and I love being a teacher. I’ll fill in the details when I get my internet back.
Hey everybody! Remember that summer camp that I went to a couple weeks back? It made it into the newspaper! With a picture and everything. I’m in the background of the picture (with the big arrow pointing at my head), and my colleague Jack is in the foreground talking about something very exciting. Click the picture for a hi-res version.
In other news, school starts today! I’m nervous and I feel underprepared, but I’ll probably be fine. I’ll let you know how it goes :)
My kids at the BBQ
My co-group-leader Toshi (a JTE)
Our team flag!
Sports time! Bat-spin relay race!
I got a little scraped up at sports time
Akari, Miyu, and Saya
Making the bread dough for the campfire
Cooking bread over the campfire
You could see all the way to the ocean!
Yesterday I got home from our 3-day English Summer Camp (ESC) at a center called Akoyano, which is at the foot of one of the mountains around here. Akoyano was a very nice, beautiful place, and because it was elevated we had an amazing view of the whole town of Kurobe! Oh, and the food was fantastic!
This was the third year that they’ve done the ESC here, and from what everyone said it was by far the most successful. Apparently in the past years it was far less organized and this year everything was well-prepared and went very smoothly. Activities included sports, BBQ, ice cream making, campfire games, singing songs, and several activities in English.
We had 40 students (10-11 years old) at ESC this year and divided them into 4 teams of 10, and each team was led by one ALT (Assistant Language Teacher—my official title) and one JTE (Japanese Teacher of English). The overall theme we used this year was the 4 seasons, so each team was given a season to represent. My team was Summer, and the kids came up with the team name: “Katsu Curry Summer Smile.” Katsu Curry is a very common curry dish here. ’Katsu’ is the Japanese word for ‘cutlet,’ but it’s also the verb ‘to win’ so it’s often used as a pun.
I loved my team! They were such a rowdy and fun group of kids. They were all a little shy on the first day (and so was I), but by day 2 we had all warmed up to each other and they wanted to do everything with me. They taught me Japanese songs, we had staring contests, we raced, and they had a particular fascination with my beard (could not keep their hands off of it). And at the end of camp, yesterday, my kids put on a skit IN ENGLISH and I was so proud! They worked so hard on it and they really had a lot of fun learning some English. I got lots of hugs at the end of camp and even though I was exhausted, I really wished it wasn’t ending so soon.
I’m so looking forward to school starting in September.
About Me
My name is Lawrence Denes.After spending 5 years studying Japanese language, culture, literature, and history in St. Louis and Kyoto, I now live in Japan, in a town that most Japanese people have never even heard of, lost amid the rice fields and vending machines.
Please feel free to ask me anything, or send me an email.
