Halloween Candy

My mom told me she was mailing a package with some Halloween candy in it. I was not expecting the 12 pound crate that arrived at my door on Tuesday. So today, I trucked it to school to the rejoicing of many kids. Free candy is unsurprisingly a big hit, but I found it amusing that the majority of the kids told me they liked the candy, even though they thought it was too sweet.

What kind of kid finds something too sweet? A kid that isn't addicted to sugar.

***

I'm kind of a lazy teacher in the sense that I don't like doing activities that involve lots of prep work. I also don't want to spend money on the class. So I make do with what's available in the schools and that suits my needs just fine. When Halloween comes around, lots of elementary teachers do lots of crazy activities. My predecessor, for example, held a Halloween festival each year where the kids bobbed for apples and did various arts and crafts. That's awesome, and I might even consider doing something like that if I was at one school. But if I do it at one, I have to do it at the other three, and can I really be blamed for not wanting to do that?

However, last year, one of the vice-principals went on base and bought two pumpkins, in which I showed the 5th and 6th graders how to carve. It was a lot of fun, but this year, we have a different vice-principal who did not go on base and buy pumpkins. In fact, I had completely forgotten about the last one doing it. When the now-5th grade came into class, however, they asked me if we were going to carve pumpkins, and got sad when I told them we weren't.

I felt a little bad, but then I shrugged, belted out a "しょうがない！", and kancho-ed the kid who complained.

***

I wish either English was an elective in elementary, or even better, I had the power to pick who was in my class. Most of my class are awesome and run very smoothly. However, there is one kid, at one school, in one class, who seems to be able to throw the entire class in chaos. Basically, he doesn't stop talking, and when we play games, he cheats. The teacher yells at him, the kids yell at him, I glare, and none of that has any effect on him.

He has an older brother, who is also a brat, but he's in the 6th grade class with the nazi teacher. At first I hated this nazi teacher, but now I have a profound respect for her. She runs a class ruled by fear, and while I theoretically disagree with what she does, I have to admit, it is the most well-behaved class out of all my schools.

Plane Crash

Who says nothing interesting happens in Yanbaru?

Friday night, I was coming home from karate, and as I was leaving the north end of Nago, traffic started seriously slowing down, and then eventually came to a halt. The bridge I needed to cross was blocked and they were redirecting traffic to a serious of smaller streets. In northern Okinawa, there is practically one main road, the 58, and the fact that this was blocked was a huge inconvenience. Police had barricade about a kilometer of the highway, and it took about 30 minutes just to make it through that bit.

When I got to the end of the detour, there was a field on my left fenced off, and a police officer between every post blocking entrance. Inside the field there were huge spot lights lighting up the area like a football field. There were cops everywhere! I've never seen what a bomb threat response would look like, but this is what I imagined it to be. There was an electronic sign that said, "road closed, traffic accident".

The next morning, I headed back into Nago. This time, the road was open, but the field was still blocked. There were military people walking around and lots of news vans on the side of the road. Turns out a plane with military on board crashed. Everybody on board lived, with only one having some serious injuries. Across the street, there is a Family Mart, and apparently after the crash, one of the uninjured ran inside to call for help.

It may just be me, but I find it a little humorous imaging that foreigner using gestures to try to explain that he just crashed his plane across the street to the Family Mart employee.

US airman injured in Japan plane accident

Baseball

Based on TV coverage, I would say baseball is the biggest sport in Japan, followed by sumo. They don't show MLB games (at least not on my 5-channel TV), but Japan has it's own baseball league that people seem to enjoy. Although MLB games aren't shown, everyone seems to know the MLB 'exchange students', the Japanese players who play on professional American teams.

Honestly, I think Japanese textbooks should be revised and include the following self-introduction dialogue:

Japanese: Hello.
Foreigner: Hello.
J: My name is Daisuke, are you from America?
F: Yes.
J: What state?
F: *insert home state*
J: Oh! Do you know *insert Japanese player that plays on a baseball team in mentioned home state*?!

The thing is, I'm hardly exaggerating. At least when it comes to meeting older guys. They know their geography of America, based on the locations of Japanese baseball players. It's kind of the equivalent of explaining to someone back home where you live in Japan. The standard answer is "I'm X hours away from Tokyo."

So today, following Tamba Bay's win over the Red Sox, I have been congratulated by many teachers since they know I'm from Florida. I could really care less (now if the Jaguars went to the Super Bowl...), but following the congratulations, I would be asked "Do you know Iwamura?" (Hint: He's the Japanese player for the Devil Rays.)

***

English book donation update:

The pile came close to 200 books. These books have been distributed to the 4 elementary schools in my village, so about 50 per school. At each of these schools, every librarian has asked me to go through them and ask me if I want any. As much as I crave an I Spy book or a Barney Storybook with sounds every now and then, I politely declined.

Class Canceled

September and October are busy months for elementary schools and lazy months for English teachers. Between kids practicing for Sport's Days and all the 3-weekend holidays, I find a lot of my classes canceled. Some of these cancellations are on my schedule, so I come to school knowing I won't be doing anything. But then there are times, like today, where I am told there is no class for the day as I'm walking to the room to set up.

I don't mind sudden cancellations. In fact, I like them. Who wouldn't want to be told, "Oh, you don't have to work today." But then you have teachers coming up to me saying things like, "Aw, that's too bad." and I nod my head in agreement and appear upset.

***

Got my voting ballot last week! I was briefly surprised this year as I was the first time I voted at how many candidates are actually listed for president. You expect to see only 2 choices, but there were at least 10. I felt a little bad about not knowing anything about them, but I didn't mind too much, as there is someone I actually want to vote for this time. Last election, I actually walked into the voting booth undecided. I think I ended up drawing a picture on the ballot of who I wanted to be president.