Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
Thursday, March 6, 2003
What I did today
Today, I...
Got an invitation to the kan'okai in the Naval Base (it seems odd to get an invitation to cherry blossom viewing when it's just like winter);
Went to Koyo Elementary School to record some of the children's songs for their CD;
Had the world's smallest school lunch with the fourths at Koyo (the children had obviously given me what was left once they'd all taken their own- huge- shares!);
Taught the eighth lesson in the Koyo Elementary English course;
Got chocolate cake from one of the ladies at the English lesson, and a bag of strange fruits (they might be oranges, but they again they might well not be...) from the head of the Community Centre;
Went to Romantei for dinner with Miyuki-san.
Great. Snow the other day, sleet today. Presumably it'll be either frogs or locusts tomorrow...
Went to Koyo Elementary School today for two lessons, to record the children's English songs for their CD. The first lesson was with the fifth years, who managed 'This old man' and the Japanese version of 'Old MacDonald' well, but ran into troubles with 'Hokey Cokey' and the English version of 'Old MacDonald'. The animal noises seemed to be the sticking point with 'Old MacDonald', and, while 'Hokey Cokey' was basically fine, the children weren't very enthusiastic, and their pronunciation wasn't quite up to scratch. I had them practice some more, but in the end there wasn't enough time, so we decided to record the rest tomorrow. The second of the lessons was with the sixths, who were good enough to record all their songs in one go. We even had time at the end for the children to add 'Hotaru no hikari' (the Japanese version of 'Auld Lang Syne'), which the teacher hadn't practiced with the children. This CD should turn out well- I hope the sixth-years regard it as a good souvenir of their graduation, and a reminder of their lessons with me. My lessons were the two periods before lunchtime, and so, although I'd intended to come straight back to the office, I ended up eating lunch in the fourth-years' classroom. Today was the 'nakayoshi lunch', where children from different years eat lunch together. Shimo-kun from the fifths was in the same classroom as me; he mentioned that the skin on his finger was peeling. Amusingly, though, the word for 'peel' ('hageru') is the same as the word for 'go bald' (I suppose there's a certain similarity in meaning), and so I had great fun teasing him about his going bald, and asking him about his wig. Shimo-kun is always fun because he'll join in the joke- he even threatened to throw a carton of milk at me, which led to more hilarity because the word for 'throw' ('nageru') is close enough to 'hageru' to merit a comment. Ah, the fun you can have with Japanese verbs!
