Thursday, July 28th: Dumb Cockroach

At present, I am quite full from one of the yummiest steaks ever eaten.  And some ghiradelli chocolate Madelyn and I broke into...I brought it to be a gift but it got "too smashed" so we needed to eat it instead :)
Today began similarly to the past 2 days: playing with kids, new student assembly, play with kids, lunch, nap time, and watching water games.

This material hangs near the
teachers desk, covering up the
clutter.  But read the story.
Start in the top right pragraph,
read the 2 following it to the left
It's a great example of Enlgish :)

Nap time was special today :)  At first I was frustrated because my 17 kids did NOT want to sleep.  Plus there was only 1 Japanese teacher in the room with me and she kept leaving to run errands to the office etc.  Leaving me alone with 17 Japanese speaking energetic kids who are supposed to be napping.  I used to think babysitting was tough when you try to put 3 American kids to bed...but WOW this gave challenging a new name.  After splitting some chatty children up, things calmed down, although the kids were not too thrilled with me.  However, after about 15 minutes, most of them had at least found a place on the tatami mat to lay down and even lowered their voices to a whisper.  So I sat down with the noisier ones and rubbed their backs and sweaty heads to attempt to calm them down.  Success!  I got 2 to fall asleep that way...out of 5.  But still, I was proud of myself.  Then came the cutest part.  There's a little boy who always looks sad and always stands on the side of any activity and never lays down to take a nap.  So of course, today he was sitting there on the edge of the tatami mat, watching the other kids "nap", but all of a sudden I looked at him and he was nodding off sitting up.  I got up from the bratty girls I was sitting by and tried to lay him down.  He fought it, so I just scooped him up and held him in my lap.  Within 30 seconds, his body relaxed and got heavy and his breathing became slow and steady.  YAY!  There's nothing like the feeling of a child falling asleep in your arms :)  He even started snoring!  But then he started sweating.  A LOT.  Through his clothes, my apron, and my shirt.  It was pretty gross, but then I'd try to move or fan him a little and he'd begin to stir.  So instead I sat there for 40+ minutes with precious, sweaty boy fast asleep in my arms :)  I loved it!  Wish I had a picture, but that would have kinda ruined my already failing attempt at nap time.
Sigh.  I'll miss some of those kids.
After nap time was watching water games and After School English Club.  The ASEC is 6 girls, grades 1st-3rd that come every Thursday and "learn English".  The textbooks they use are pretty terrible in my opinion, but at least they spend time with Majelyn Sensei who speaks decent English.  It was their last class for the summer and the last time they'd see Madelyn and me, so of course we had to have a party!

Juice and salty snacks.
They gave us cute notes (written in
Hiragana, but Majelyn translated for us)
We gave them pencils, suckers, and sticker books

  After work, Madelyn and I got cleaned up...or attempted to look as good as possible after a day of work in pure humidity.  We went to dinner with most of the full time teachers (there are probably 30 teachers total, only about half are full time), hosted by the Nishimura family in honor of Takano Sensei who's quitting the kindergarten to get married and also to say goodbye to Madelyn and me since we only have 1 week left with the summer staff.

BACK ROW: teachers of Yohanne and Hosanna classes of
the younger kids, didn't really spend much time with those
teachers, except 4th from the left, she taught Shion B and
I ate lunch their with those kids often.
MIDDLE ROW: Left is Shion C, lady and guy that teach
younger kids, Shion A teacher is in glasses, then 2 office
secretary ladies, and Minako
FRONT ROW:Lin Sensei, Emely Sensei, Takano Sensei,
and then Dr. Shin & Keiko Nishimura

Madelyn and I sat among teachers, so at first it was awkward since it's hard to communicate with the ever-present language barrier.  However, after a few awkwardly worded questions were asked, it helped break the ice.  I feel like my English has gotten worse because I'm used to speaking in more broken speech and using simple words with lots of synonyms so I can be understood.  Anyways, the food was good and the company was good :)
But this company is not so good:

 Apparently cockroaches can fly.  I didn't know that before.  And he won't come down to a spot where Madelyn can reach to kill him.  I really hate cockroaches.  Sigh.  Goodnight to Thursday...hopefully I'll make it to tomorrow!!