Ikeda and Sushi
...written on 2000-10-27, @ 23:31:59
Wed October 25, 2000
Last night I went back to the Ikeda branch and taught the third grade of junior high (our 9th grade equivalent I guess). These are the 14 and 15 year olds. The teachers told me yesterday that they were a quiet class, but that they would obey me.
I stood outside and waited while I was being introduced. When I thought I heard my cue, I went running in and tossed my head in a dramatic way and posed. Hit another pose and then hit another pose. The class laughed. Ah, a good sign.
I abandoned my big plans that I had yesterday for having them do a party. A japanese teacher had told me that they don't do parties very much, maybe only birthday parties when they are very young children.
So I gave them the easy intro questions which we repeated, and then played the quess the questions to Kim's answers games from that list of questions. Then I gave them the harder questions and we read and repeated those. I paired them up and they practiced for about 15 minutes. Some chose to use the easier questions, some used the harder ones. I was glad that they were asking me questions when they didn't understand something and that they were being creative in their answers.
After that was over, there was about 15 minutes left in the class. We went over present, past, and future forms of different verbs. That was good for me to see so I could get a grasp of their level.
The teachers thought it was a good class and complimented me on the give and take of energy between me and the students.
Shacho (president of the company) came to the Ikeda branch to get me. We were going to homebu (home office) to meet up with Ivan and Chad to go to dinner at Shacho's favorite sushi bar. We had a nice talk in the car. We talked mostly about haikus and I recited one a friend had helped me translate into Japanese almost 20 years ago. When we got to the office, one of the women there told him I didn't like sushi (true, but I didn't want him to know). He asked me to tell him truthfully if I liked sushi or not. **Busted**. I told him sushi wasn't my favorite, but it was ok and that I knew Ivan and Chad liked sushi and that I would be happy to go. So we piled into his nice car and went to the same sushi bar where he took me when I arrived. He told the cook to give me non-fish things and a coca-cola. Hmm, this truthfully thing may have worked out. So I ate little rice balls covered with ham and asparagus stalks, egg, and eel (the only fishy thing). Shacho told us that he wanted to invite us to Kyoto to see the turning of the leaves in the middle of November and that he knew of a secret magical place as well as a good hotel where he would take us. It was a very nice evening.
I left the office about 11:30pm and walked the 15 minutes home. When I got home I called my mommy in Dayton.