10.11.02
10.11.02 | ||
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There's a brief, yet decent article at Salon.com about Spirited Away, which, if I haven't mentioned it yet, you should almost definitely see. It's not for everyone to be sure, but truly good films usually aren't. Speaking of comments on Spirited Away, I'm going to be popping in the DVD and watching it with Fletcher sometime in the next few days and then share what he thought about it here, so you can hear an unbiased opinion, rather than just the ravings of a card-carrying Miyazaki addict such as myself. Anyway, look for that sometime next week. I also need to pass on some sad news. Yesterday I went into the bathroom to....you know... well, moving on, I didn't see my little spider. I looked around the books, nothing. Made sure he wasn't on the rug and had got accidentally squashed, nothing. Then I peered around the side of the toilet near the toilet brush and there he was curled up in a little ball, dead as the career outlook of the poor bastard who directed The Replacements. <sigh> The moral of the story: never.......love...... anything.
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10.10.02 | ||||||
A couple of thoughts for you today. First, I am not a good teacher. I don't mean in the sense that I can't teach a subject in class. It's more that I just don't have that scary, authoritative gravity to my personality that teachers are supposed to have. For example, I was watching a Third year class practicing their play for the Culture Festival in the gym today, and while most of the cast was on stage doing their thing, there were two kids who weren't in the scene, playing around on the gym floor. One was dragging his friend along the floor and whenever the dragee would try and resist, the dragger would immediately start tickling the poor kid in his exposed armpit. They were, of course, both laughing hysterically (though quietly enough not to disrupt the rehearsal on stage 30 ft away) and I found it amusing and was having a good laugh as well. Then Imamura-sensei turned around in her chair and told them to shut up and settle down. It kind of felt like she had yelled at me as well, even though I was nowhere near. I suddenly wondered if I should have done that a while ago instead of just laughing along with them. Then again, they weren't loud enough to be bothering anyone, so what's the problem in letting them have fun? It's kind of a weird feeling to be on the "side" of the teachers, yet to empathize more with the students. I guess I'm just not a good adult..... and I'm cool with that.
Second, don't send your kids go to this school unless you fancy the notion of them being burned alive. Today the fire alarm went off for about 30 seconds. Teachers were immediately checking the display to see which alarm went off and running down the halls, shouting important sounding things to each other, et al. The students on the other hand were doing fuck all. I have a clear view from my desk, across the courtyard into most of the First and Second year classrooms and the kids where all just looking around, peeking into the halls and scratching their heads (they had been in the midst of Culture Festival preparations). I stepped out into the halls after the alarm had stopped. It appears that it was a malfunction when something hit one of the sprinklers. A couple of first year students walked by and asked, "Scott-sensei, what was that noise right now?" "What was that noise"??? You're telling me these kids don't even know what the fire alarm sounds like, much less what to do when it goes off? And now that I think of it, in the year and two months I've been here, I have yet to see a fire drill of any kind. Man, if there's ever a fire in this joint, this place is goin' down and goin' down with everyone in it (save me, of course).
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10.08.02 | ||||||
Yeah, that's right! Tony Hawk uses a Mac, BITCH!!
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Hey, look who still updates his web site every now and then. Sorry for the lack of writing lately. It's crap like the following story that keep me busy and stressed out enough to neglect things here at the Flap. This is an actual telephone conversation and the Elementary class that resulted from it. Wednesday Sensei: So what do you want to do in class this week? Me: Well, I was going to ask if there was anything in particular you or the students wanted to do. Sensei: Oh okay. Well, could we ask to you to do some alphabet review? Me: Review, yeah okay. Sensei: There's also some fun songs that we could sing. Me: Right so some songs and an alphabet review. Sensei: And, do you have shiritori in English? (Shiritori is a game where a student comes and writes a word on the board, and then the next student must come up and write another word that starts with the last letter of the previous word). Me: You bet. I also know some variations on that, so that should be fun. Kind of like a shiritori tournament. Sensei: Great! See you Friday then.
Friday in Class Me: Okay, so I thought we'd start off with the songs you were talking about. Sensei: Okay. Go ahead. Me: ...... what? Sensei: Oh, so did you bring some songs? Me: Nope sure didn't, that was your bag. Okay, let's move along. (to students) So, you guys have been studying the alphabet, eh? (keep in mind I'm saying this while pulling out of my bag, a stack of phun-alphabet-worksheets™ I had just made that morning.) Students: NOPE!! Me: ........what? You know some of the alphabet, right? Students: (in unison, no less) NOT A BIT!!! Random Student in the Back: We haven't studied it yet. Me: ............... <stewing in a nearly-uncontrollable rage> (At this point, my entire lesson plan is shot. There is 45 minutes of nothing ahead for these poor bastards.) Sensei: Well, what about shiritori? Me: How are they going to play shiritori if they don't know any words, much less the alphabet? Sensei: Hmmmmmm, good point, huh?
This is the kind of shit I have to deal with when going to Elementary Schools.
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