Creative Writing

As much as I, as an ALT, would like to think I should be encouraging more oral communication from students, most of the time it is writing exercises that really bright up my day. Or more specifically, reading the students' creative writing exercises.

This week the students were taught the grammar point "I'm going to (verb)", and they were made to write what their aspirations or expectations for themselves in 15 years time.

I managed to sneakily take pictures of 2 students' masterpieces without getting weird looks from the teachers around me. Take note: both of these are written by 13 or 14 year old boys. And while they are very materialistic, they're also quite creative in some ways.


Exhibit Number 1:

I am going to have two kids. I am going to marry a cute girl. I am going be an office worker. I am going to be happy. I am going to make 300,000 yen. I am going to have tropical fish. I am going to have a big house. I am going to pick up 1,000,000 yen.





Exhibit Number 2:

I am going to have three kids.
I am going to marry Yusuke (a boy's name).
I am going to take care of Yusuke.
I am going to kiss Yusuke everyday.
I am going to love Yusuke.
Yusuke is going to love me.
I am going to cook tororo imo (type of potato).
I am going to live in a pink house.

This was not the only uhh 'boy wants to marry boy' piece we got.

This is another 'culture shock' issue I faced in Japanese schools - that how boys have very um close and loving relationships with each other, which is kinda cute in some way, but then it can also get a bit erm 'ero' sometimes and they get really huggy and touchy feely with each other.......yeah.

(But then apparently its normal here......)

I never went to school with boys...can anyone shed any light on what 12-15 year old boys are like in other cultures..?

Itch

its been a while - thought I'd update on what's been happening with my freckles...

Last weekend (Saturday - Monday) I had the greatest privilege of going to the JET Christian Fellowship weekend away, in a beautiful place in Tokyo Prefecture called Okutama, surrounded by beautiful scenery, blessed with beautiful weather, and graced with the presence of beautiful people who have a beautiful heart and passion for a beautiful God in this beautiful country. (Yes I have also noticed the limitations of my vocabulary.....must be being in this country too long!!)

We had some great fellowship, some great worship times, and best of all, being able to pray and sing with a bunch of English-speakers, in English!! It was so refreshing, and so encouraging. At Passion Tokyo, it felt like I jumped back into Jesus' big arms; but this weekend felt like I was now actually walking with Him, hanging out with Him., catching up...just like long lost friends. And seeing some of the fellow JCFer's heart for Japan was greatly inspiring and encouraging.

Tuesday - Wednesday -- the JET ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) Mid-year Conference in Fukushima City, about 2 hours from me. It was a bit of a doss 2 days, although I did take away a couple of good ideas from other JETs. The most interesting thing though, was that the keynote speaker, an old Japanese Waseda Uni professor, turned out to be a Christian, and was quite outspoken about it in his speech...!

Friday -- Onahama 2nd Junior High School's 地域交流 (Local area exchange?) Festival & Bazaar - I had to 'make' a Chocolate Brownie the night before (does it count as make if I sought the assistance of Betty Crocker's Brownie Mix??) to bring to the 'Ethnic foods demonstration'..

THEN, YeeChiang (fellow ALT) and I, sang and guitared, respectively, 2 Japanese songs for the closing ceremony of the festival (this is Japan - everything has an opening and closing ceremony). We only started practicing one of the songs the night before, after being told there'd be a request for encore after the ONLY ONE we prepared for. Nontheless, we pulled it off. The kids went wild. We were heroes.

And thus concluded one of the most exhausting weeks of my Japan adventures so far.

But I still haven't had a chance to play badminton since I got here.....where am I gonna satisfy that itch!?!!?!