07/13/2008: "I need to eat BEEF"

While the life of an English teacher is not the most exciting, it certainly not without its interesting moments. Some good (I got candy and other such things from no less than 4 students this week. Not the norm; I think I just lucked out), some bad (having weird people call me at odd hours and tell me they're 'angry' is not my idea of fun), and some simply disturbing (I had a five your old grope my chest on Friday and shout 'BOOB' in Japanese.. for no apparent reason. That was.. alarming).

Every day, at least once a day, there's a moment where you stop and stare and think "... what?". Sometimes the end result of your mental inquisition is good.. sometimes bad.. and sometimes, totally unresolved and just leaves you even more confused. But, there's rarely a dull moment.

Except, of course, when I'm working. Some of my classes are great. Absolutely amazing, look forward to them. Others.. they're a bit of a drag. It's not so much that the classes are bad, or the students don't care. It's due to a variety of reasons. One class, for instance, has 2 junior high school girls who do NOT talk. No matter what activity you do, what question you ask, you're lucky to get more than 3 words. It's not that I don't understand.. they're 13 year old girls just starting to learn a language that they don't really feel confident in, and I'm a 22 year old man who speaks English natively. But that doesn't really make standing and jumping around while everything you say fails to illicit any response more enjoyable. I just wish there was more I could do is all. The rest of the classes I dislike tend to be for similar reasons.

Other than that, life's been going all right. Really, really tired.. not sure why. The funny thing is that I've only drank coffee a few times in my life, and that was generally when compelled to (someone bought be coffee, made me coffee.. basically, when it'd be too rude to simply say that I do not drink coffee). While I still don't like it in the least, I have been drinking coffee much more often lately. On Tuesdays one of the students makes coffee, and then throughout the week, depending on how many more classes I have to teach and how hectic they are, I go out and buy cans of coffee. Can't stand the taste, so I just knock the can back and drink it as fast as possible.

Isn't my life exciting?

In other news, I learned that I've lost 15 pounds since coming here. This is related likely to my not eating a whole lot in general (I never did eat much in America, though now that I live on my own I don't keep a whole lot of 'snack' food in the house, and Japanese food--on the whole--tends to be healthier). I'm trying to change that, but it's hard to convince yourself to increase the amount of calories you're taking in, especially considering that for the past X years of my life, all I've heard is "cut the calories!". Tsk, society. You're making a population of anorexic people in your desire to stop people from eating too much.

Speaking of healthy eating, they've released the "Mega Mac" here, which is like a big mac, but with 3 overly large and markedly unhealthy-looking beef patties. Yeeeeeah.

Having my cell phone's proving to be nice, especially between classes as I can still keep in touch with my Japanese friends on the go, and I can install games to it or something to keep my busy while waiting. It also has a really good JPN <-> ENG dictionary, and the camera's decent.

Anyway, I should get going.. got work tomorrow and all that.

By the way, watched "Lucky Number Slevin" last night. Really good movie!


Jason

On Monday, July 14th, kat said:

the mega mac sounds nasty--
i'm sorry some of your classes are discouraging-but i'd say it's normal sometimes to have students that won't talk-i was one of those for a long time.
i'm glad things are interesting though and that you're getting connected.

On Tuesday, July 15th, Dad said:

Glad you liked the Movie dude...always a fascinating read out here...Am in Flagstaff today (Tues)...I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Love,
Dad