I'm Bigger Than Jesus

Oh my. I have been a teacher for a whole week now. I have nine (NINE!) schools I teach at. Often, two a day. Six elementary schools and three middle schools--I cannot begin to tell you how adorable they are. They also think I am very beautiful and very, um, tall. Yeah. In fact, everyone thinks I am tall--I was asked to join the adult basketball team. Yeah...it is all kinds of sweet revenge here. I taught classes this week on introductions, animals and fruits but mostly on a subject I am an expert on: me. There were a couple of tough days--for example, the day I was teaching about fruits and the teacher handed me a large set of cards and a small set and said 'what is your game?'.... I made up a game and then in the same school I had to (as gently as possibly) correct the teacher in asking the question "What do you like oranges?" Though, upon consultation, I could have perhaps changed the lesson to emotions and made the question "What? Do you like oranges?!" and then had a student slap another with a white glove. I felt like a real jerk correcting the teacher but I guess that is what I am hired to do. It is very hard to learn a language (I know!) and the sentiments are often understood but I think these small differences are the reason I am here. That, and, to teach the students 'mmm, kind of,' 'what's up?' and 'awesome' as well as many other passive-aggressive terms. I am going to try really, really hard to teach sarcasm. Sarcasm is non-existent in Japan. People take me literally all the time. If I say I am late because I fought a dragon, they look confused but nod and say 'oh, ok.' Though, maybe dragons are more of a problem here then I know. Anyway, for my other classes, I talk about me, my town and my family. I show a lot of pictures. Sometimes pics like this: 

but then, sometimes, the pictures look like this:

Please remember, I have an hour to kill and I only have the pictures I have on me. Sometimes, I end up showing them my passport and driver's license. Which is actually fairly interesting:  

Because in one I am blonde, and in one I weigh about 90 lbs. Guess. Also, I had more enkais. I LOVE ENKAIS. I get trashed usually but so does everyone else. I am usually the least drunk at the end of these. My friend in Fukuoka was telling me about one he had last night where his coworkers sang YMCA over and over again. At mine on Friday, my coworkers did end up singing some of the Sound of Music and I think I agreed to be Maria in the school production but that is as far as it went. Had the BeeGees happened, I probs would have been out of there. On the way back, I drove with a woman who is the school nurse and is my age and we observed a man out walking his goat. She said something which translates to 'Oh, there is the guy out walking his goat' and I asked (this is all translated as she doesn't speak English) if many people had pet goats. She paused and said, 'No. It is really only this dude. He is pretty weird,' and we laughed home the rest of the way. On Saturday I slept ALL DAY and had strange dreams involving goats and this blog. But today--Sunday--I went to Noh theatre. That was very interesting. I have seen many plays in other languages; some I have been familiar with (Shakespeare in German), others have been pretty alien (Beijing Opera, I am looking at you) but Noh was some weird approximation between the two. There were familar moves (Shakespeare-esque fool characters) and I could understand the language a lot more than other places I have been, but there were also jarring moments of total alienation. I think mostly of the dance in the second act before the spirit-like woman can ascend to heaven--that was almost uncomfortable in how much I didn't appreciate it. Granted, I had to pee and I was reminded of the time I saw the third Lord of the Rings movie in the theatre--there were so many fake out endings, I had to pee, I didn't want to leave and this combo made me mad at the director. Overall, though, I loved it. I was impressed with the quality of the costumes, stage and the precision of movement in the play. It was something I could truly appreciate. Afterwards, I got to eat hella Indian food (mmm pakoras) as India (or, Indo, as it is called here) is a country who has a large population here and curry is a big fave among Japanese people. Ok, mata ne! PS. I forgot-- I got a bank account with a debit card. What is my debit card? Why it is thusly my readership: 

I guess if you go West enough, you end up in the far East. Good God, I love Japan. I will give you pics of my home (and it's frightening, frightening cleanliness) as soon as I figure out how to upload pictures to my Mac...