On Keeping Things in Perspective
I went to a party on Saturday with several ALTs, a few students, and some other Japanese folks, most of whom are affiliated with education in Shimokita in some capacity (except for the curry guy, who is in a class by himself, and his eleven-year-old son, Taimu, whose name is written 大武 but who was named for the companion herb of parsley, sage, and rosemary). After some grazing at the potluck table and serveral rounds of Mario Kart, one of the ALTs brought up how a much more Japanese-proficient JET had decided to screw with him a bit by telling him that "verb stem + nasai" is the best way to phrase a polite request. He wanted to know why his co-workers sounded amused when he asked them to do things.
After we'd sketched out a simplified politeness scale for him ("taberou" < "tabenasai" < "tabete kudasai" < the madness of keigo), I mentioned that he might have heard the "nasai" form used in class by a JTE, most likely as "yamenasi" ("cut that out"). He replied that his JTEs had never needed to call upon the power of verbal castigation. I once again lamented that I had the bad kids.
Thereupon one of the Japanese guests (an English teacher who was promoted against his will to an administrative position but has managed to keep a sense of humor about it) shared the harrowing tales of the time he spent teaching at Ohata High School about a decade ago. He wins.
Ohata is kind of like a bigger Oma (it's a fishing-based town that boasts of having "Honshuu's Northernmost Train Station"), and you get some of the same problems you do in Oma with kids who have no interest whatsoever in education. The teacher had several stories about his not-so-eager young minds (such as the time he went to class and found that every single male student had decided to leave for the day), but this one takes multiple cakes and is best presented in his own words:
"I was outside when I heard fireworks go off. I looked up, and I saw that the students were shooting fireworks out of the window. First, I saw the fireworks come out. Then I saw chairs. Then desks. Then students."
There's really nothing I can add to that except that the guy has some of the most animated delivery ever.
We also got the amusent of Taimu picking up one of the host's Rubik's Cubes and trying to work it out. Now, Taimu is a very brainy kid, and he's a quick study at pretty much anything he turns his hand to. He's also the kid who, at a previous get-together, played LoZ: The Four Swords with three ALTs and, whenever they got stuck, would pick up and carry their characters to where they needed to be in order to solve the puzzles. Anyway, he started getting frustrated with the Cube, at which point his father leaned over and said, "Are you telling me there's a kid out there somewhere who can do something you can't?"
Taimu's subsequent look of determination was priceless. He didn't solve the Cube, but did he ever try.
In other Japan-related news, my school's graduation is tomorrow. The departing third-years are currently the best students at the school, and, according to part of the graduation book, several of them aren't even going to high school next year (their post-graduations plans are listed as "helping the family"). This depresses me like whoa. I have a bit of a perverse desire to see what the prospects of some of my particularly heinous second-and-first-years look like, but I won't be around then.
In not-so-related news, Metal Slug 3 was an hour well-spent, my Kingdom of Loathing character whiffs less and has built a car out of meat, I have planned out almost every detail of the travel arrangements for next week (SQUEE), I found treasure under the sofa, I had no classes today because of graduation prep, my hammer is still AWOL, I just fixed an earring backing with my teeth, and most of my house is rather tidy as long as the closets remain closed. Also, I have used way too many parentheses in this post (and I like it that way).
I babble, but I am a Metal Babble, and my EXP and I are fleeing right after you cast BeDragon, suckas.
After we'd sketched out a simplified politeness scale for him ("taberou" < "tabenasai" < "tabete kudasai" < the madness of keigo), I mentioned that he might have heard the "nasai" form used in class by a JTE, most likely as "yamenasi" ("cut that out"). He replied that his JTEs had never needed to call upon the power of verbal castigation. I once again lamented that I had the bad kids.
Thereupon one of the Japanese guests (an English teacher who was promoted against his will to an administrative position but has managed to keep a sense of humor about it) shared the harrowing tales of the time he spent teaching at Ohata High School about a decade ago. He wins.
Ohata is kind of like a bigger Oma (it's a fishing-based town that boasts of having "Honshuu's Northernmost Train Station"), and you get some of the same problems you do in Oma with kids who have no interest whatsoever in education. The teacher had several stories about his not-so-eager young minds (such as the time he went to class and found that every single male student had decided to leave for the day), but this one takes multiple cakes and is best presented in his own words:
"I was outside when I heard fireworks go off. I looked up, and I saw that the students were shooting fireworks out of the window. First, I saw the fireworks come out. Then I saw chairs. Then desks. Then students."
There's really nothing I can add to that except that the guy has some of the most animated delivery ever.
We also got the amusent of Taimu picking up one of the host's Rubik's Cubes and trying to work it out. Now, Taimu is a very brainy kid, and he's a quick study at pretty much anything he turns his hand to. He's also the kid who, at a previous get-together, played LoZ: The Four Swords with three ALTs and, whenever they got stuck, would pick up and carry their characters to where they needed to be in order to solve the puzzles. Anyway, he started getting frustrated with the Cube, at which point his father leaned over and said, "Are you telling me there's a kid out there somewhere who can do something you can't?"
Taimu's subsequent look of determination was priceless. He didn't solve the Cube, but did he ever try.
In other Japan-related news, my school's graduation is tomorrow. The departing third-years are currently the best students at the school, and, according to part of the graduation book, several of them aren't even going to high school next year (their post-graduations plans are listed as "helping the family"). This depresses me like whoa. I have a bit of a perverse desire to see what the prospects of some of my particularly heinous second-and-first-years look like, but I won't be around then.
In not-so-related news, Metal Slug 3 was an hour well-spent, my Kingdom of Loathing character whiffs less and has built a car out of meat, I have planned out almost every detail of the travel arrangements for next week (SQUEE), I found treasure under the sofa, I had no classes today because of graduation prep, my hammer is still AWOL, I just fixed an earring backing with my teeth, and most of my house is rather tidy as long as the closets remain closed. Also, I have used way too many parentheses in this post (and I like it that way).
I babble, but I am a Metal Babble, and my EXP and I are fleeing right after you cast BeDragon, suckas.