This morning Kuniko and I got to sleep in a bit instead of getting up early and making lunches. We had some leftover enchiladas from last night, so we brought those to school instead of the traditional bento. They really hit the spot at lunch – my teachers and students were really curious about them and came over to check them out. I offered some of them a bite but there was nobody brave enough to try.
I had three classes today – two classes with third year students, and one class with two deaf first year students. The third year students did fine, but the first years were in a really weird mood. One student was trying to see how much dandruff he could harvest from his scalp by shaking and scratching his head. The teacher tried to get him to stop, but he kept giggling and kept scratching. The other guy started to join in, and that was enough to make me wash my hands extra well after class. The class itself was slow going, but it was interesting. I am surprised how much information these guys can pick up – they just have trouble with English pronunciation. But, to be fair, they have trouble with Japanese pronunciation as well.
In the afternoon our students did an interesting rehearsal for a sports event that will be held at Koshien stadium next week. They wear their school uniforms and sit in a grid on the floor. The tops of the uniform are white, and they have a dark jacket that they can pull up around their neck to change their color to black. So, in a grid they are given instructions so that they can spell out gigantic Japanese kanji or symbols – just like a computer screen. Today they did about an hour of practice, and it was fun to watch. I took a few pictures, too, but they didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped. The designs are made to be seen from a distance, and inside the gym we were just too close.
After school I came home and cooked up a veggie dinner – koniyaku steaks with mushrooms and onions, and miso soup on the side. It turned out pretty good, actually. We watched a little bit of Tokyo Friend Park on TV and then shared the Nintendo DS for kanji study and Tetris. Guess which one of us was studying kanji and which one was playing Tetris…
