d that last sentence with a preposition. That's just bad. Wait, one more time, I gotta back up. In that sense, "to" is a particle... the original sentence stands. Are we clear? No? Good. Moving on.The point is that I get all wrapped up in trying to be poetic and artsy that I end up forgetting to write about some of the weekly or monthly routine that I have going on. Or else I remember near the end of the post and think I should save it for another time because the post is already insanely long and I should spare you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, now is that "another time."
Every other month, I write an article for the town magazine. The two ALTs employed by the town office (Tim and I) switch off every month writing a "Cultural perspectives" type article Actually, that's the name of Tim's column... mine is "Nebraskan News." Gotta play up the sister cities relationship, yo. I wanted to name it "High Times" because I'm tall, but I hear that one is already taken... *rimshot* ANYway, we're asked to write a short piece on whatever we feel like that kind of gives our perspective on life in Japan. So far, I've written about how hard working the teachers are, how I love all the little things about Japan, and the differences between Hastings and Ozu ("Golly! We're not so different after all! ^_^ " *cue music, close curtain, applause applause applause*). Since neither Tim or I have good enough Japanese for print, we write it up in English and send it two months in advance to be translated by our tantousha. This makes for interesting conversation when the article finally comes to print.
It's great because in the first week or so of my month, I get people asking me about it. Even people I don't know. Members of OIEO, the checkout girl at the grocery store, my students even asked me about it today. I said "interesting conversation" because... two months later, I've forgotten what I've written. And since I can't read the kanji, it makes it difficult to reference it. So when English speakers say, "Oh, hey, Colin! We read your article! That must have been fun!" I either have to pretend I remember, or look confused and say, "Wait, what did I say?" (Yeah, real sincere writing, obviously.) And the people I don't know (The convenience store clerk I see once a week when I buy a candy bar while waiting for the train) all of a sudden know who I am. "Etooouu... Colin desu ka?" "Hmm? Oh... umm, yes! Er... hai... *puzzled look*" "OH! Ano... anooo... Ozu *japanesejapanese* zasshi *japanesejapanese* gatsu!" (I'm still working on listening comprehension... gimme a break. :( (Oh, and that means "Ozu," "magazine," and "month," btw))
Actually, the scary part about it is that a picture goes with it... I have a standard picture that goes with it every month (Think of those Dear Helen, or Ask Judy articles and imagine my beaming face at the top), and also a bigger picture that I submit to help illustrate the article. The first month I had one out, some of my sannensei boys cut out my face and pasted them inside their pencil cases, proudly showing me and yelling, "O-KAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!" Today, I had a girl re-enacting my enthusiastic thumbs-up, leaning pose from the February article. I try not to get a big head about it, but it's hard when you're so awesome. ;) ;) ;)
Another routine I keep wanting to mention is singing... every single sannensei class starts off with singing an English song. The teacher picks them out every month and we belt away everything from Don't Wanna Miss a Thing, to Bad Day by Daniel Powter, to All I Want For Christmas Is You. Needless to say, I know most of these songs by heart now, like it or not. The best part about this is that the first day a song is introduced, we take the whole lesson teaching it. First, they listen and fill in the missing lyrics on a whited-out copy. Then there's the part where they repeat after me. If you thought bad 80's rock tunes had dumb sounding lyrics before (Mr. Big's "Be With You" comes to mind as a particular favorite), imagine having to stand in front of a class of 9th graders and recite each line sans music (this even includes all the "oh yeah"s and "baby"s, too...). Then for the last bit, all the students stand up and take a stab at singing it while we wander around like prison guards listening to them. Hey, I'll admit it. Usually the songs are kinda fun. :D (But if you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny everything.)
Yet another routine that I'm sure I've talked about, but not in depth is my Wednesday Japanese lesson. Now that I'm writing this, I remember it being featured in my "Wednesday" video. Anyway, they offer free lessons at the international center downtown, so I head over to hang out and converse in Japanese. This past week, I was able to get through about 70% of my lesson entirely in Japanese!! Of course, I was talking about basic stuff with a teacher who knows exactly what I've learned and thus fed my questions that would illicit responses I understood, BUT HEY PROGRE
SS IS PROGRESS!! Anyway, the real fun of the class is afterward. Class ends about 8:00 and then a group of us head out to dinner. It's cool because way back in September when I started, it was just Tim and I going out to dinner, but slowly, after inviting other people, there's now a pretty large group that heads out every week. Like it's a nice routine now. It's helped to be able to meet other students and teachers in the club. In fact, one Saturday last month, a lot of the members of the group were invited to a teacher's house for a sukiyaki party. Since it was good timing, Anna got to come to that, too. :D (Though she didn't have the guts to try the raw egg portion of it... something about egg allergies... whatever, wimp.)A new routine that I've picked up kind of came about because of the dinner group. I figured now is a good time to admit this publically. Let me first apologize to those I'm going to offend by saying this. I'm sorry. It was peer pressure and I couldn't say no. Mom, Dad, I hope you still love me. Friends, please don't think less of me. But I have to tell you this. I... Colin Sandall...
...have taken up Ballroom Dancing.
I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.
...
I don't know. I've been interested for a while (Maybe after watching Adam Carolla and Shannon Elizabeth... curse my family for making me watch...) and one of the teachers said they were looking for more guys about the time I was looking for more activities to get involved in, so it clicked. Of course, the average age of the class is around 42, but it jumps to about 50 when you take me out of the equation. I'm the youngest person in the class by about 10 years. BUT STILL! It's a great way to meet some people! GIMME A BREAK!! :(
Right, well, I should excuse myself now before this post turns into an intervention. Hey, I can quit anytime I want! I don't NEED ballroom dancing!! :(
Later, folks.
