4.04.03
I now offer a smattering of random photos taken in recent days with the embedded camera on my cell phone.
They get a tad bigger if clicked on, but not much. It's a phone, what do you want?
Mic-Master Atsushi, one of my absolute favorite teachers who has sadly been transferred to another school this year, singing her ass off. (Please note the funky hand-gun pose.)
Ben outside of Q's dance club, looking like he's ready to beam up to his ship waiting in orbit.
Mmmmmmm.....chai.
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The infamous Nakamura family. They often have me over for dinner (and when they're feeling ballsy will come to my place for dinner). They're cool.
This is a poster for a new karaoke system called "GIT-DX". Try saying it out loud. Go on.
No, Fletcher and I are not drunk in Tenjin and we are definitely not, in any way, confiscating these traffic cones and taking them back to the train station with us by taxi. So just get it out of your head!!
04.03.03
It’s April again, which means it’s time to round up all the qualified, experienced people in the office, at school and wherever and shuffle them off to somewhere where they have no idea what they’re doing. Hooray. :(
I’m especially depressed because at my school, we’re losing some really good teachers and almost all of them are faves of mine. In particular, we have to say good bye to Shimamura-sensei who has been the strongest English teacher I’ve worked with to date. I don’t mean he's had the strongest English ability (though it is pretty damn good), I mean that he’s been the most open to trying new things to get the kids to learn English, even if they may not want to. Ah well, this is the way things go here, I guess, so I’ll sack up and take it like a man.
It is a shame he’s leaving though, because there’s one thing I’m going to miss. We set up a system in the last semester for “bribing” the kids to speak English. Basically, certain impressive feats of English would be rewarded with fake money that Shimamura-sensei and I crafted. This fake money could then be used to enter a raffle held every Friday in which the winner could receive little souvenirs from home I had, like pencils, postcards and refrigerator magnets. This went over fantastically with the students, and they would often try and kill each other in the attempt to speak English and win some “money.” The best part was that most of them liked this fake money so much that they would just keep the bills and not even enter the raffles.
And this will probably be my most long-lasting memory of Shimamura-sensei and his legacy: The “One Shima” bill.
How can you not love this guy?
