My Life is Complete!!
Today I can finally cross off the last item on my checklist of things I need to do in order to officially declare my list full and complete. That's right... as of Tuesday, June 24th 2008, I have done everything that one single person can accomplish. The final piece to the puzzle:
I taught 3 Japanese collegegirls the meaning of the word... "poop."
Yes yes, it was a fine moment. Many were around to witness it. The crowd erupted into thunderous applause as one of their fellow beings crowned his life as he reached the 100% mark. Only problem now is that I don't know where to go from here. I mean, at this point, there is nothing left to do in this existance that would surpass this moment.
All dramatics aside, today was an eventful meeting with the girls. Naoko actually forgot about our weekly lessons, probably because last week's was cancelled due to project deadlines. Asuka and Saki were on time, but after chatting for 20 minutes, we decided to go searching for our missing groupmate. And yes, she was exactly where we thought she would be... in the cafeteria eating with some other students... and some other geeky lanky white-boy... someone's usurping my territory, haha. As we walked by to put down out stuff at another table, Naoko cried out "sorry sorry" and said she'd be over in a minute. When I walked past her again to go get my food, I stuck my tongue out at her. :P heeheehee
Tonight was sticky-rice and some kind of spicy-steak. Good chance to practice my chopsticks skillz. Apparently I hold my chopsticks too close to the grabbing end. Bah, and just when I thought I had it figured out. Ah well, I guess all that matters is that the food goes in my mouth.
We discussed this coming weekend's beachtrip. Looks like it will only be Amanda and me in the water.... Naoko hates cold water, Asuka hates salt water, Saki hates water period. Oh well, we'll bring a beach ball and play in the sand all day.
What else... Saki wants to go bowling now, too. We can probably fit that in after the museum trip we have planned in July. We discussed school and school clubs... and class sizes. Asuka had one class that had 50 students in it.... holy SHIT (there's that word again). Ah well, I picked up some useful vocabulary myself:
elementary school = shougakkou ("small school")
junior high school = chugakkou ("middle school")
high school = koutougakkou ("high school")
college = daigoku ("big/great school")
Asuka wrote out the kanji for me, too, so that will be very useful once I start working.
We spent some time discussing the difference between formal speech and casual speech... mainly how do you ask someone to repeat something. "I'm sorry, please say that again" "Pardon me" "Excuse me" "Could you please repeat that" versus "what?" "huh?" "say again?" "what was that?". They were confused mainly because the shop clerks in Boston don't speak as formally as they do in Japan (pause to allow all the Americans reading this to be shocked... oh wait, like any time is needed for that to sink in).
We're gonna meet up with Vu-chan (hahahaha) next week to go to Applebee's. I told the girls how tonight was the last night of class and they all got panicked thinking I wasn't coming anymore. :O
And yes, since tonight was the final class meeting, I'll comment on that, as well. Of the 8 or 9 of us who originally signed up for this session, only 4 made to the end. 5 people are needed to enroll in order for a class to continue, so hopefully a few others will still plan on continuing or maybe some new intermediary students will join in. My student tutor-partner, Rie, spent most of our time asking me about my new job and when I am coming to Japan. She lives in Yokohama, so we made a promise to meet up next Spring and go to Tokyo Disneyland together. I gave her my email address and she says she will email me tomorrow.
I taught 3 Japanese collegegirls the meaning of the word... "poop."
Yes yes, it was a fine moment. Many were around to witness it. The crowd erupted into thunderous applause as one of their fellow beings crowned his life as he reached the 100% mark. Only problem now is that I don't know where to go from here. I mean, at this point, there is nothing left to do in this existance that would surpass this moment.
All dramatics aside, today was an eventful meeting with the girls. Naoko actually forgot about our weekly lessons, probably because last week's was cancelled due to project deadlines. Asuka and Saki were on time, but after chatting for 20 minutes, we decided to go searching for our missing groupmate. And yes, she was exactly where we thought she would be... in the cafeteria eating with some other students... and some other geeky lanky white-boy... someone's usurping my territory, haha. As we walked by to put down out stuff at another table, Naoko cried out "sorry sorry" and said she'd be over in a minute. When I walked past her again to go get my food, I stuck my tongue out at her. :P heeheehee
Tonight was sticky-rice and some kind of spicy-steak. Good chance to practice my chopsticks skillz. Apparently I hold my chopsticks too close to the grabbing end. Bah, and just when I thought I had it figured out. Ah well, I guess all that matters is that the food goes in my mouth.
We discussed this coming weekend's beachtrip. Looks like it will only be Amanda and me in the water.... Naoko hates cold water, Asuka hates salt water, Saki hates water period. Oh well, we'll bring a beach ball and play in the sand all day.
What else... Saki wants to go bowling now, too. We can probably fit that in after the museum trip we have planned in July. We discussed school and school clubs... and class sizes. Asuka had one class that had 50 students in it.... holy SHIT (there's that word again). Ah well, I picked up some useful vocabulary myself:
elementary school = shougakkou ("small school")
junior high school = chugakkou ("middle school")
high school = koutougakkou ("high school")
college = daigoku ("big/great school")
Asuka wrote out the kanji for me, too, so that will be very useful once I start working.
We spent some time discussing the difference between formal speech and casual speech... mainly how do you ask someone to repeat something. "I'm sorry, please say that again" "Pardon me" "Excuse me" "Could you please repeat that" versus "what?" "huh?" "say again?" "what was that?". They were confused mainly because the shop clerks in Boston don't speak as formally as they do in Japan (pause to allow all the Americans reading this to be shocked... oh wait, like any time is needed for that to sink in).
We're gonna meet up with Vu-chan (hahahaha) next week to go to Applebee's. I told the girls how tonight was the last night of class and they all got panicked thinking I wasn't coming anymore. :O
And yes, since tonight was the final class meeting, I'll comment on that, as well. Of the 8 or 9 of us who originally signed up for this session, only 4 made to the end. 5 people are needed to enroll in order for a class to continue, so hopefully a few others will still plan on continuing or maybe some new intermediary students will join in. My student tutor-partner, Rie, spent most of our time asking me about my new job and when I am coming to Japan. She lives in Yokohama, so we made a promise to meet up next Spring and go to Tokyo Disneyland together. I gave her my email address and she says she will email me tomorrow.