Tuesday, May 20, 2008

"If I hesitate, I'll want to forget."

There's a student teacher visiting our school for her practical experience. She'll observe for a few weeks, and then teach for a few more.

Today all the second-years had to do some sort of phone-calling test, where they read a prepared dialogue in very formal language out of a binder and became very frazzled when the party on the other end didn't stick to their side of the convo. The entire year stretched down the hall, and they used all three phones in the office to get through them. I hope no one tried to call us about anything urgent.

The third-years have a little text about a volunteer Braille club, so we taught them fingers. Japanese for hand is "te" and fingers are "te no yuubi". Toes are "ashi no yuubi" so when we asked what the equivalent appendages on your feet would be, one student logically yelled out, "Foot-fingers!"

All the students were getting some sort of shot today, so a few classes were cut short or started late. It surprised me that the boys are the ones most wimpy about the experience, moaning "kowai!" (scary!) when other classes walk down the hall holding gauze to their arms, dragging their feet when it was their turn, and generally swooning about the rest of class even when the needle-mark had long since faded.

Yesterday and today it poured and poured like Noah and the Ark all over again. This morning I had the difficult decision as to whether biking sans umbrella or walking with would be wiser - I picked the latter and got to school soaked. Not just from the knees down, which I could understand, but somehow all the way up my thighs, despite a long jacket and said umbrella. And I should have thought to bring a change of socks.

But it cleared up mid-afternoon, thank goodness, for the walk home. I was on the third-floor at the exact moment it did, and it was a bit awe-inspiring. Solid sheets of water just slid apart, and the clouds rolled away to reveal the full height of Takahara-san, Yaita's pride-and-joy mountain. And the sun came out so bright the lake that had formed on the playground dried up by going-home-time. My shoes, however, in their dark little cubby, were still damp.

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