Natalie-senseiiiiiii!

I was woken up this morning by the sound of elementary school students screaming my name in the street. It was kind of surreal. But, I did tell them where I lived, so I guess it's only natural. They've been getting a lot more genki lately, last week they kept poking me in the chest. o_O Weird.

This past week was kind of busy. Tuesday we had the English recitation. Neither of my students won, even though I think both of them should have at least placed - but my school brought home first place trophies in every category last year, so I think the judges might have wanted to spread it out a bit. Me and the other English teachers were cordial and mature about it in the contest, but as soon as we got back in the car all three of us got angry and were loudly proclaiming that it wasn't fair. :) The students weren't with us, obviously. Our third grade girl was heartbroken and sobbing, and our second grade girl was quietly disappointed. They both worked really, really hard.

But I had to wear a mask because it was the high school's turn to have Swine Flu, and that's where the recitation was held. XD So here's me in a mask. The Japanese really like wearing surgical masks for pretty much every reason conceivable, and Swine Flu is no exception. They also wear masks when they have colds, when other people have colds, when they travel, when they're around other people who traveled, if there's a sandstorm, if pretty much anything happens, if Godzilla is rampaging in the streets and kicking up dust, anything.


Additionally, one of the people we met at the Aberysthwyst (sp. whatevs) karaoke night....passed away. Her name was Kumiko Oda, and she was not much older than I am. She was a gamer, and we were really looking forward to getting together to play video games. It turns out she died of a heart attack in her sleep. Her mother didn't try to wake her up for a while, because she'd gone out the night previous and her mother thought she needed the sleep. It was really shocking.

Also, on that note, I just want to say something -- we had a friend back home pass away as well recently, Isaac Loughrige. He was a great kid and we would play together when we were young and living in Marshall. He was part of my brother's little cadre of neighborhood boys and is just unforgettable. He passed away of complications from Swine Flu a few weeks ago. So, if any of our friends from Crossroads read this, please pass on our condolences to the Loughrige family.

The teachers are all worrying because we're getting a new student at our school starting Monday. She's from the Philippines and doesn't speak any Japanese. She speaks some English and one of the Philippine indigenous languages, but no Japanese. They've hired an assistant for her who speaks Japanese (but notably not English or the Philippine language...brilliant) but mostly the other teachers are going to be relying on me and the other English teachers. This includes one of the English teachers who is really not confident in his own ability, and essentially begged me, if I don't have any other classes when she's in his class, to come and help him.

So I'm going to be a lot busier from here on out....

Jesus gave me buffalo wings while I was PMSing last week.

That was pretty much the best sentence I could ever have hoped to type in this blog.