Deskwarming Diaries #22

Welcome to another edition of the Deskwarming Diaries, where an ALT frantically assembles Halloween clipart for bingo with some kindergarteners (in case you’re wondering, they had a blast). Today’s post includes macarons, the Olympic torch, the ocean, and plenty of stories of my dopey kids. Let’s jump in!

You know ’em… You love ’em… It’s time for the highlights!

• Last week, Jessica and I were leaving school and heading up to the parking lot when we saw a GIANT grasshopper. Huge. Biggest I’ve ever seen. And with a horn sticking out of his head (copy and paste バッタ into Google images to see what this thing looks like)! Jessica tried to kinda nudge it with her foot to get it to hop into the grass and off the path, but instead, it jumped onto her pant leg and tumbled down. She jumped back in surprise and instantly we were swarmed by elementary students, also leaving, who needed to know what we were looking at. “WHAT WHAT WHAT IS IT??!! Oh it’s just a grasshopper…” One boy pushed his way through the throngs of kids, bent down, and expertly snatched the insect from the ground. Then he pushed his way over to the grass and tossed it down. After watching this, a girl turned to look up at me and said, “Boys can do some pretty amazing things, huh?” I’m still laughing about this.
• I’ve got a hype boy in one of my elementary classes and I love him to death. So when we’re starting class, I always ask them if they have a pencil. I’ve said this so many times I made a little jingle that goes along with it: “Pencil, pencil, pencil! Aru ka na pencil!” and I do a little dance. I’ve now done this jingle so many times that when I sing the first part, my little hype boy in the back of the class sings the last part with the biggest smile on his face. I always thank him for singing along with me which makes him smile even bigger. It’s dumb, but it’s one of my favorite things in that class.
• In another elementary class, we turned on some background music while the kids cut out alphabet cards in the back of their textbooks. BTS’ Dynamite was the first song on the playlist. I swear, the song juuuuust barely started and like 10 heads shot up, eyes wide, before everyone started dancing along with the song! I guess they’re learning a dance to it in PE class, so instead of cutting everyone was practicing their moves haha. It was really cute and hilarious and we made sure to play BTS sparingly after that.
• One of the elementary kids’ favorite games is four corners. We put a flashcard in each corner of the room, then close our eyes and count to ten. The kids have to move to stand at one of the flashcards while we’re counting. When we stop, we then call out one of the flashcards and the kids standing there are out. We tell the kids to try and be as quiet as possible, otherwise we’ll hear them and call that card! So there we are… playing this game. I’m standing in a corner right next to Jessica. In that corner also is a little boy who’s sitting on the floor watching her count. She gets to ten, puts her hand to her ear, and says, “Corner A, hello? Is anybody there?” to try and get someone to laugh or giggle or something. This little boy, looking straight at her, does this weird exhale laugh thing, trying so hard to be quiet but being so loud in the process. I was shaking with silent laughter and of course, Jessica called that corner haha.
• At kindergarten, we were going over the Halloween vocabulary and the kids were having a hard time pronouncing “werewolf.” We gently coached them through it, giving lots of praise, when one of the kids suddenly looked at their neighbor with the cutest, most surprised look, and said, “I just spoke English!!” It was absurdly adorable.

Birthday Macarons

Hunter and I celebrated our birthdays last month! As a surprise, Jessica and her husband got us a variety box of macarons from a friend in Yamaguchi Prefecture (click on the link to see her Instagram). Not only were those macarons the cutest things I’ve ever seen, they tasted FANTASTIC!!! One was Fruity Pebbles flavored and another was Honey Bunches of Oats. Once they were gone, Hunter immediately went online to see how much it would cost to get a box shipped. Spoiler: too much.

Olympic Torch Pandemonium

There was a commotion at school a few weeks ago when one of my students, who ran in the Olympic torch relay, brought one of the torches to school! The principal came on the lunch announcements and said, “Anyone who wants to touch or hold an Olympic torch can come to the principal’s office after lunch to check it out.” I don’t think they thought this through… because at 1:15, there were kids clogging the hallway outside the principal’s office trying to get inside. After lunch we only have 15 minutes before cleaning starts, which only added to the chaos!

I swear the entire school came down to get a peek. The other teachers and I were wondering why they didn’t just do this in the gym or something. We came to the conclusion that maybe the higher ups didn’t think that many kids would come because it was in the principal’s office. Which is scary. But when you take into account that the principal has Legos in his office for kids to play with in between classes, and kids come down everyday to play with them and ask the principal a million questions, that office becomes a whole lot less terrifying. Oh well! Everyone survived!

Recharging at the Ocean

Traveling to the ocean is such a treat, and I’m really happy I visited a few weeks ago! The closest ocean to me is actually a sea, the Sea of Japan off the coast of Niigata. It’s a beautiful area with roads that follow the coastline for some great views and wonderful ocean breezes. There’s also a lot of history, as well as a huge geopark that I haven’t explored near enough! On this trip, I visited some old favorites and drank… crab-flavored soda… You can read more about that here!

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Deskwarming Diaries #20.5

So I’m a dork and apparently I had an edition of the Deskwarming Diaries all ready to go minus pictures, then forgot about it and moved on… That post will go up tomorrow, #20.5, and I’ll backlog it so it comes up at the right spot in the list of diary entries. Check it out if you’re interested!

Until next time!