a student who has been absent from school for the past several months out of uniform with dyed hair and shaved off eyebrows is greeted with an enraged "how dare you come to school looking like that???" and an attempt to draw the eyebrows back on with permanent marker.

epic.

i was eating lunch with some of my 5th grade students today, when one of the boys turns around in his chair, points to a girl behind him and says "that kid is a boy ( Read more... )

i went to the doctor again today because i wasn't feeling better (rather, i was taken to the clinic halfway through work... details...)
apparently i have tonsilitis...

...and, as of this afternoon, 45 pills T_T

i got sick... again. i'm pretty sure that among 1st world countries, japan is one of the worst places to get sick. aside from the fact that even catching a cold means that people will treat you like a leper and insist you wear a mask all the time, there's the bureaucracy to deal with ( Read more... )

today was awesome because ( Read more... )

my students took a survey about the way english was taught in junior high schools today. (i wrote a long rant about it, but i took it down because it was a little too rantish... ask if you *actually* want to hear the gruesome details of my hatred for the BOE!) my favorite response was this ( Read more... )

the new school year just started, so there is a whole group of new fresh-out-of-kindergarten first graders in my elementary school... one of whom happens to be of russian descent (i'll call her "m." this conversation took place in the teachers' room ( Read more... )

i woke up today, and my wall started shaking a lot. i was thinking "i know there's construction going on downstairs... but what could they possibly be doing to cause this?" and then i thought "oh... maybe that rusting pipe that my landlord decided to ignore is finally detaching itself from the wall..." so i walked into the other room to check ( Read more... )

today the lesson plan for my 4th grade class included playing a game called "where is the banana?"
there is nothing wrong with the game...
unless you have a sick mind...

i thought it was hilarious.

my friend got the following instructions in a lesson plan for an elementary school he taught at:

"Teach the words. "Yahoo, shit, etc.""

yes, they wanted him to teach the kids the word "shit"...
because they wanted the students to be able to use common expressions in english...