Friday, July 29th: Doubutsu Bisuketto

Last nights cockroach took a while to hunt down....check out how the room was rearranged:  

It was intense.  Thankfully, he's dead now.
Suitcases, dresser, water cooler,
dirty laundry, and chair all moved.

Today was fine...Madelyn and I changed classes so it was something to get used to and it was nice to have the change of kids.  These ones are much more affectionate because we see them every day.  It has been confirmed that Madelyn and I have the same name according to the kids.  We are called "Emely-Sensei-To-Lin-Sensei".  The "to" (toe) means "and".  It's what we are always introduced as by the teachers, so the kids just repeat it :) Makes me laugh!  Some of them have been able to separate us in their minds, but to most, we are the same.

Look, my name (E-Mi-Ri) in jam!

It made me laugh because I spell is Emily, everybody here spells it Emely because that's how it's pronounced.  But Mai chan (May) wrote the "E" and "Ly" part in katakana (characters for non-Japanese words) but the "Mi" part is written in hiragana (characters for Japanese words).  It made me laugh and was such a cute gesture, I had to take a picture :)  Not to mention, I've never seen my name in jam before!

Nana chan...one of the blobs
is supposed to be a heart :)

Several times throughout the day, I was left alone in the classroom with 25+ Japanese children.  Not exactly my ideal choice.  I guess I like finally having responsibility, but when one kids is crying and smacks another kid and all I can say is "quit it"...well I just feel like it's not the safest choice for the kids to have me in charge.  Thankfully, not much happened besides that....I think they're left alone a lot.  The people seem to be very trusting here.

Gachi kun was jealous that the
girls got pictures, so wanted
one :) of course I didn't mind!

Yeah, so when I first read his name weeks ago, I read "Ga" and "Chi" so I knew his name was Gachi.  I had been told you add the suffix "chan" to kids names from multiple sources.  However, there's apparently some rule where if the child is male and of a certain level that he deserves more respect or whatever, then you use "kun" (coon) instead of "chan".  So these past 5 weeks, I've been calling all the boys with "chan"....Gachi chan, Kouki chan, Nono chan, Kotoro chan, etc.  The boys always made a face when I said it, but I figured they just didn't like me.  But Gachi always corrected me saying "Gachi KUN!" I had no clue where he got the "kun" from so I just ignored it.  Finally, I asked Minako about it.  Apparently, the boys at the school are referred to with "kun" and the girls with "chan".  Yeah.  Learn something knew every day!  Sorry, boys!

Kanade chan (Cana-day)
also needed a photo taken :)

Kento kun and Gachi kun during snack
with all the mischevious girls behind them

Takehiro kun and his osembe
(Tah-"K"-He-Roh)

I could never get just his face
...but he's super cute...
you just have to trust me!

Yeah, today was pretty uneventful and similar to the past few days.  But good :)  Ending the day with a super bubbly ramune (a Japanese soda thing).  Two weeks from today, I'll be ending the day with American food and MI city water.