Accidents Can Happen...with Allison....

Where to begin.....?
Today wasn't the best. There was a lot of blood, tears, and apologies. Don't be concerned. Well, maybe be a little concerned. I did send one kid to the hospital. It wasn't my fault, I swear. Here's what went down:

I had a baby class this morning. These babies are almost 2 years old. They can walk, sort of talk, but as I found out today, they cannot walk and play instruments. We were singing the ABC song and playing little kid instruments and one little girl some how fell and cut her chin open on the little toy drum. Not just a scratch....like a giant gash. I don't even know what part of the drum did that, but it wasn't good. Blood everywhere....except on the carpet (thank goodness). They went to the hospital. I just hope she's ok. I asked my manager if I can send her a card or something. She's told me not to say sorry, otherwise they will think that we are taking responsibility for what happened and we don't need to. It wasn't anyone's fault. I still want to send like a "get well soon" card. I should. I feel awful. My manager told me to continue class as if nothing had happened for the sake of the other kids in the class. As she closed the door to my classroom she points to her mouth and says, "HAPPY!" Happy? A kid just took a chunk out of her face in my class. I'm a little frightened. There's not much I can do now except hope she comes back to class with a whole chin.

Then...before lunch, my manager pulls me and the other foreign teacher aside and informs us of some complaints that have been made recently. There's not enough teachers and it's really putting a damper on our customer service. She said again, it's not our fault, but she just wanted to let us know. I could tell that she was getting worked up about something. Either not being able to find the right words in English or the stress of her job was finally getting to her enough that she showed it. Perhaps both. I could see tears welling up in her eyes...and before I knew it..I had tears in mine. I was trying not to cry. I really had no reason to, but I did. We hugged it out, but I just felt so silly crying at work in front of my manager because she was crying. Oh, girls.

Today was just a strange day and I'm very glad it's over. One good thing did come out of it. Actually two. I ate some sushi for dinner (it was from the supermarket and it was on sale because I bought it like a half hour before the store closed, but it was still delicious). My manager told me that she talked to one of my student's moms and said that before I came, this student didn't like coming to our school and that even mom didn't care much about her son's progress in English. The mom told the manager that she really likes the new teacher (ME!) and so does her son and he's excited to come to school and do his homework and learn English!! My manager said that hearing that made her day! Mine too! ☺One more day of work and then off to Numazu and then.....TOKYO DISNEYLAND! I am so excited! AND Minna is coming! Until next time! またね!

**p.s. Happy Birthday, Tina!
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New Vocabulary:
~血   chee   blood
~病院  byo-een   hospital
~御免なさい  go-men-nah-sigh    Sorry!

A Few Funny Foreign moments....

So I get to work about a half hour early...first day back from the weekend. My manager approaches me with a serious look and says, "I need to ask you something."
I'm thinking, am I in trouble? No..wait...is this the boyfriend talk? No, I don't have a boyfriend. No, I don't want to date a Japanese guy. Does he wear a suit? This could work. Suits mean a job. Usually. This was the conversation I had with myself while she searched for the correct English words.
Then she says, "So, when you say 'holy shit'...do you say it when something happens or does it actually mean holy like g-d pooped?"
This was unexpected. I don't think I've ever had to explain this to anyone before. Although, I did have to explain what "a wedgie" was to a German earlier this summer. He wasn't getting it and I was really tempted to just give him one to demonstrate the meaning, but we were at a public festival.
Anyway, later in the day, she ran into the fax machine, sending a piece of the paper catcher flying across the room. After she let out a little scream, she whispers to me, "holy shit!". Wrong intonation, but good effort.

I was warned before I came here that I have to wear suits everyday, but to be careful about wearing skirt suits because you will be on the floor a lot (this still doesn't make sense to me). All the other female teachers wear skirts practically everyday. I have a zillion floor classes, so pants make way more sense. Plus, knee highs over pantyhose any day. Anyway, last week I wore pants on Tuesday and one of my students...she's the cutest little thing, about 5 years old. So smart (I hate kids like that...why wasn't I that smart-ass kid?).  She looks at me in my pants and my manager in her skirt and says, "Teacher. Why pants? Girls wear skirts. Are you a girl? I don't like pants." I wore a skirt today and she didn't notice.

What else happened today...a kid tried to kick me in the boob. Another kid almost crapped himself in someone else's class. That's all. I'm sure more funny stories will come soon. Until next time! またね!
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New Vocabulary:
~おっぱい  oh-pie   boobies
~くそ   ku-so    shit
~わからない   wah-kah-rah-nai   I don't know

POP music on CRACK.

So, I've lived in Japan for 11 weeks now and I'm still not sure what they consider music here. My taste in music is less than exciting by any means. My dad thinks it's shit. Dad, it's not shit. It's called rap. Japanese rap is...I can't even explain it. It's exactly what you think it is. It's like white people trying to rap, but with a lisp. It is quite entertaining, but not vulgar enough for my taste. Japanese songs in general are funny. Most of them have some English words or phrases randomly place throughout the lyrics, but they're also mispronounced, so it's that much funnier. Words like "yeah" and "baby" are often found in the lyrics, but I've made a small list of some of my favorites thus far:

• "fighting for my dreams"
• "we are the gifted one"
• "hit it off like this, oh baby"
• "it's just your biggest fan"
• "I'm genie for you boy. I'm genie for your wish. I'm genie for your dream. I'm genie for your world."
• "I got my girls and sunshine."

TV channels are limited, but there are a lot of music variety specials where they feature certain pop bands and I've taken note of a few bands and their lyrics that I find interesting. So, turn up the volume on your speakers and thank the world for YouTube, so I can share these songs with you...

There is a boy band called Funky Monkey Babys. They sing or rap (I'm not 100% sure) about 桜 (sah-ku-rah), or cherry blossoms. Other boy bands have names like EXILE or BEAST or SMAP. 

Funky Monkey Babys

EXILE is a 14 member band. Check out these sweet moves...and the great English phrases...

Girl groups are what I like to call POP MUSIC ON CRACK (hence the title of this post). These girls have voices as high pitched as their skirts and they're all the cutest little girls you've ever seen.  

A very popular girl group is AKB48. Apparently this group has like 48 members divided into three different groups, A, K, and B. I don't understand it, this is just the information I was given. Let's take a look at this video that resembles child's porn. 

I first heard this next song when I went karaoke-ing with my coworker and his girlfriend. It's catchy, I'll give it that, but when it's over you'll either be scratching your head in confusion or your balls. 

Well, that's all I have for today. I'm going to continue practicing my dance moves to this song....Until next time! またね!

I prefer the parody to this :

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New Vocabulary:

~音楽  oh-n-gah-ku   music

~面白い  oh-mo-she-ro-ee  interesting/funny

It's a hard-knock life....for me.

I've been finding it very difficult to come home from work at 10pm and not immediately rip my suit off, change halfway into my pajamas, grab the jar of peanut butter and sit in front of my computer and wait for someone other than my mother to appear on skype (no offense mom, but why are you up so early?). I know I should go to bed. If not go to bed, then at least hang up my suit. I'm not used to this whole "big girl" job thing. Wearing suits and high heels. Hanging clothes up. I just learned how to iron a month ago via skype with my mom. I rarely feel like cooking dinner because the McDonald's across the street always seems like a better choice than the bread, eggs, and rice in my fridge. But wait. The mall closed at 10pm. Peanut butter and jelly it is. There is something wrong with me...
How am I supposed to get home from work, eat dinner, finish planning for everything I didn't finish at work because I went home so I don't die of exhaustion or hunger, do my dishes, clean my apartment, and go to bed at reasonable hour so I can wake up and do it all over again?  I just feel like there's not enough time in the day to work and do things I want to do. I understand that's what weekends are for, but I spend my weekends cleaning and running errands, since things open and close at odd hours.
Work was weird this week. I feel like each week is getting harder and harder to survive and they keep telling me that I've already passed the hardest part of this job (summertime), but I don't feel that way. That was easy. I was new and wasn't held accountable for shit. Now I've been there 2 months and they're expecting more out of me. I feel like I barely have time to think about anything because I am always so rushed. This job is hard. 
This is just me venting. I know not everyday is going to be great. I expect things will get better, but I really have to believe in that for it to happen. I'm going to go have a fun and relaxing weekend and look forward to more exciting events this month..like a trip to Tokyo Disneyland and a visit from MINNA!! I can't wait! 


Now, for a look back at last weekend....
Mary, Valerie, and Jaclyn came out to Shizuoka. We spent the day as we usually do, walking around downtown after our weekly Subway run. Here's a look at what we found on our travels...

Whaat! Dr. Pepper?! Life is complete.

That is not how to spell cookies...

Everybody poops...everybody has books about poop.

Sunday night, Jaclyn and I met up with RB from the other Shizuoka school and we had dinner at an okonomiyaki place (pancake-cabbage thing). Then we went to Zero R, a dart bar. I am not very good at darts, but we played a fun version where your characters box each other when you throw the darts. Good times...

I'm the black one. Not the one that looks like Mr. T..

The next day, after I made a delicious waffle breakfast, Jaclyn and I went back to Fuji, where I attempted, yet again in my life to ride a bike. Since Jaclyn is a giant and I am a troll, to say the bike was a little tall for me is a bit of an understatement.  Here's how it went...

I did it! I rode that bike to the kaiten sushi (rotating sushi bar) place and to the movie store and to the grocery store and back to Jaclyn's house. Go me. 
Until next time! またね!
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New Vocabulary:
~この仕事は難しい   ko-no she-go-toe wa mu-zoo-kah-she    This job is hard.
~掃除する    so-oo-ji soo-roo    to clean

Hello October.

You know what I realized today? That pantyhose are worse than high heels and thong underwear combined.
But, besides that, I realized that there are not 31 days in September. That means, today is the start of October. That means, we're 83.3% done with 2011. That's right. I did math. And I used a calculator. Don't hate.  Back to my original point...that means, it's getting cooler!! And I love it.

It was also brought to my attention how soon I will be losing my co-NET (the other American teacher at my school). He's leaving in December and I'm freaking out. He's been here for two years and knows everything! I don't know what I'm going to do without him. I'm not ready to take responsibility for things that go wrong. I like being the new girl. In fact, I like being the only American girl. Things are about to change. I'm sure the new girl will be perfectly nice, but I was really hoping that when we opened the packet today, there was going to be a picture of a hottie American man. And there wasn't, so I am a little disappointed. Maybe we can be friends....

Last weekend I took a walk downtown with Mary, Valerie, and my coworker. We met up with the other teacher from the Shizuoka school and we went to an arcade. After losing twice in a row at Mario Kart, I concluded that either 1) I'm forgetting how to drive or 2) I was never a good driver. Then we took super cute photo stickers.

Aren't we precious?

The mailman has been very generous this week! I got a very sweet letter from a dear friend as well as a heavy package full of delicious goodies, of which almost all of them are gone, except anything containing a black licorice flavor. Why does this flavor exist? Nobody likes it except my mom. Black licorice is like the band Nickelback. It's awful, but it's still sold in stores. And just like Nickelback, black licorice is unheard of  in Japan. I wish I would have filmed the Japanese teacher's reaction to eating the candy. You would have thought I poisoned them. I think one guy is still trying to get rid of the taste it left. 

Funny Teaching Moments:

As native English teachers from America, it is our responsibility to teach English the "American" way. Meaning, we steal words from other languages and make them our own. Since we're all pretentious douches, we teach these children that "karate" is now an American-English word pronounced as "kah-rah-tee", when in actuality it is a Japanese word pronounced as "kah-rah-teh". You say toe-mah-toe, I say you're wrong. 

Today in one of my lessons, we started a new unit that teaches the language pattern, "What's the matter?" "My ____ hurts." While I was drilling the response, saying, "My stomach hurts", one of my students says to me in Japanese, "If your stomach hurts, then you should really try going to the bathroom. You probably have to poop." Thank you Japanese Immersion Program. I would miss so many funny comments from my students if you didn't teach me elementary Japanese. Until next time! またね!

If anyone has any suggestions for new music to check out, that would be greatly appreciated. I've been listening to the same 48 songs on my ipod for two months. For those of you who don't know my taste in music, I'm a Glee meets Ludacris kind of girl. Thanks!
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New Vocabulary:
~十月  jew-gah-tsu   October
~まずい  mah-zoo-ee   tastes bad
~バカな  bah-kah-nah   stupid