Again with this?

STUDENT: "Koreans are very resentful of the Japanese."
GTA: "Oh, because of the occupation?"
STUDENT: "No! No occupation...Japan and Korea were ONE."
GTA: .......
STUDENT: "Korea did not have any schools or any roads before Japan helped them! I don't understand why they aren't more grateful."


Welp...I have a clue....

Fashion! Turrrrrrrrrrrrn to the reft!

A brief trip to the Omotesando Softbank yesterday inspired the following.

AN OPEN LETTER TO JAPANESE PEOPLE:

Congratulations! You are known worldwide for your fashion sense. The
innovative nature of Japanese sartorialism is globally lauded, often
copied by Western designers (only to ring particularly hollow), lusted
after by legions of fashionistas everywhere, and may have caused Gwen
Stefani to completely lose her fucking mind. This really is something
that you should be proud of, and, in my opinion, it is something you
rightly deserve.

For example, I went into a boutique in Shinjuku station a couple of
months ago and there was a woman with a tree on her head. Just an
ordinary saleswoman, walking around casually adjusting things and
yelling "IRASSHAIMASEEEEEEE" at inanimate objects, but she had a tree
on her head. A fairly large one. And I think it was made of Tinker
Toys. My point being, she actually looked GOOD. If I put a tree on my
head, I would look like a fluffypagan at Burning Man. (That would be
"not so good.")

Despite this, I think you need a few pointers. Bear with me, and think
about heeding the following advice:

1. If it it 95 degrees out (close to 40, that is), then you should not
be wearing a sweatshirt and Doc Martens.

2. Pockets hanging out from the legs of your hotpants do not look
good. Also- and I'm not sure- but I think it must make it really hard
to put shit in your pockets.

3. Those snap-closure elbow-to-wrist gauntlets do nothing for your
arms. Moreover, if you MUST, pick a fabric that does not look like
upholstery. Unless you are a superhero with couch powers or your name
is Ottoman Chesterfield, upholstery gauntlets are strange.

4. If you cannot lift your bag without your boyfriend lending you a
hand, you need a smaller bag. Possibly with fewer keychains on it.

5. You have a choice: either you can wear foot-tall spike heels, or
you can walk like a geisha. Doing both will result in a symptom I like
to call Velociraptor Legs, in which your knees lock and your thighs
eventually grow a horrible frontal curve. I am not kidding about this.

6. YOU ARE NOT FOUR YEARS OLD STOP DRESSING LIKE IT.

7. Attention J-trannies! If you weigh 300 pounds and cannot remove
your 5 o'clock shadow, please do not dress Gothic Lolita! You make
Sailor Bubba look demure and feminine.

8. Actually, if you weigh 300 pounds, don't dress gothloli regardless of gender.

9. WEAR SHOES THAT FUCKING FIT, YOU IDIOTS.

10. If you wear false eyelashes (and I would, if I didn't wear
glasses), please try not to glue them several millimeters above your
actual eyelashes. It is creepy.

11. You may not be a yamamba. Ever.
11a. No, I'm not kidding. For the love of christ, stop.

12. Another issue with hotpants: please don't wear them if your
individual thighs are three times wider that your torso. I am not
kidding. You look like that kangaroo chick from Titan A.E.


I seriously just made a Titan A.E. reference? I quit.

Hell no, we WILL go.

Company policy dictates that if we leave a school during our shift in order to get something to eat, we should ask the staff first.

It's never been a problem before today, but when we asked if we could make our habitual run to the konbini, we were shot down with the typical buck-toothed, two-faced "Ohhhh, so sorry..."

No.

FUCK no.

We're at the school with no lessons; I'm sure my coworkers who read this blog know the school in question.

DO NOT ACCEPT THIS. Fight the system.

Indeed.

As a synaesthete, I'm extremely sensitive to a lot of stimuli, particularly color. I was pretty excited when I learned that synaesthesia isn't just me being crazy, but a legitimate meical issue. Sadly, it's become as trendy as bisexuality and Asperger's, but fuck those people.

Today, one of my favourite kids curled up in the corner of our room with the saddest face I've ever seen. I was worried.

GTA: "Hey, 'Kengo', are you okay?"
KENGO: .......
GTA: "Kengo...how are you?"
KENGO: (looking up at me with a very miserable expression) Today, I no colors.

I get you, kid. I get you.

Some people just don't get it

STUDENT: "We had an exchange student once. He wasn't a normal American....he was kind of darker!"

Prepositions

I taught prepositions to SmartEvil Class last Saturday. They were far too easy- in, on, under- whereas my kids rolled their eyes and screamed, "IT'S TO LEFT OF WINDOW!" which I did my bets to correct. That's difficult, considering how advanced the little weirdos are.

I tried to play it up by placing our cushions in weird places. I plopped one on my head and asked, "Where's the cushion?"

My quietest student piped up with, "It's on the Anna-teacher!"

I gave her ten points for that. She responded by hopping around in a delighted circle.

My next rundown of prepositions involved the students, and shoving the cushion in their arms or under their butts. At one point, I shoved it onto Little H's head and asked him, "Hey, H----, where's the cushion?"

He proudly answered, "It's on the H----!"

Even though the grammar wasn't perfect, I went to give him extra points, but he stopped me by tugging on my skirt.

Screwing up his eyes in determination, he said, "Chigao...it's on the ME!"

He got extra stickers.

Noun + Color

My smartest kids- who are, for the record, so wild that fellow teachers I've never met know who I am because my kids are a cautionary tale- had to learn color adjectives in conjunction with classroom nouns. I actually taught this lesson a week early because they are too fucking smart for the material I have to teach them, so last class I snuck in an extra review of previous material. Naturally, they blazed through it in a matter of seconds and then, as usual, demanded we play hangman. I allowed this because my company- and this is just my opinion- does not bother emphasizing spelling to the extent that I believe is necessary. And I am a fucking hardass. Especially with smart kids.

So, here we were:

"Blue crayon!"
"Green paper!"
"Yellow pencil!"

My kids being smarter than me, they came up with the following:

"Light orange and black eraser!"
"Chartreuse basket!"
"Black and white soccer ball!"
(after being shown a picture of a school building) "American school?" *raspberry*

The best, however, was yet to come.

One of my students in SmartEvil Class is not Japanese. I'm fairly certain that he has a Cambodian name, but I'm not positive. The kid and his parents speak fluent Japanese, so I never really thought about the issue. Sometimes the other kids give him minor amounts of shit- for example, screaming "KURO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" at him, or scrubbing his hands for him during cleanup time while everyone laugh hysterically as "H"'s hands don't get any less brown.

I love this kid because he is brilliant and because he is a spastic little weirdo. He likes to teach me karate moves and scream "NINJA TEACHAAAAAH!" He also likes it when I clock him in the head with my shoe.

Anyways, during the color + noun lesson, he skipped ahead of the others and identified me.

Pointing, Little H said, "WHITE TEACHER!"

I was laughing so hard, Little H's mother got worried.

Dear god.

White teacher.

I gave him five extra points for that.

Hell, he got the structure, didn't he?