Week 10

May 31, Day 63:
My students and I helped shear a sheep today. That’s not something you hear everyday. Especially from a kindergarten teacher. Remember pony-ride day? Well, also in that barn is a mother sheep and baby sheep. Today the mother sheep got a haircut. We all met in the auditorium (since it was raining) and the professional sheep-shearer lady walked in with the sheep where she began gracefully shaving off the thick layer of winter fur on a tarp. I was surprised at how calm not only the sheep remained, but also the composure of the 4-year olds. They watched excitedly, but quietly, with eyes filled with curiosity. I’ll admit, I was staring with my mouth open for a bit too. One student from each kindergarten class got to hold the electric shearing tool and, with guidance from the professional, buzz off some of the sheep’s wool. Then, they called up the teachers to try. My students cheered me on as I took hold of the tool and took off some wool. What a thrill. After touching the wool, our hands were suprisingly oily. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t wash your hair for 7 months. The other exciting part of today was getting not one, not two, but three pieces of mail! A package arrived from home, my grandparents sent me a card, and I got a letter from my friend Jade 🙂 It was the perfect boost to get me through the rest of the week!

June 1, Day 64:
Sometimes I forget that my students absorb EVERY word that comes out of my mouth. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of “wow!”, “oh my goodness”, “oopsie”, and “uh-oh”s at completely random times. It makes me laugh. We rode on a horse-pulled wagon today as a class. To be honest, I’m not really sure why we did it, but it was fun. The ride lasted about 4 minutes total because we just went in circles around the dirt field, but my students were squealing the entire time. I guess you could say it was TOO much fun because one of my students refused to get off the wagon and told me to shut up (in Japanese) when I asked him to get off. There’s another Japanese phrase I’ve learned through my kids lol. After physically removing the last boy from the wagon, we headed back to class. I was thinking about the strength of the horse to pull sixteen children and two adults in a big, heavy wooden wagon. Pretty cool.

June 2, Day 65: The day I tried to enforce the “no talking” rule at lunch during a thunder, lightning, and hail storm. Have you ever heard of hail in June? Neither had my supervisor. All my children were screaming and I had a hard time distinguishing between actual fear and just being silly. We survived the storm and the hail turned into a steady drizzle for the rest of the day.

June 3, Day 66:
I had to test my materials for Unit 2 after work today. It’s pretty hard to focus on anything after 5 whole days with kindergartners, but it’s REALLY hard to produce memorized songs, chants, poems, and stories from my mushy brain. We start a new unit on Monday which means I have a lot to prepare… at least my job keeps me busy.

June 4, Day 67:
My Saturday itinerary:
– go on a run and take a shower
– make a breakfast sandwich on an english muffin
– find a pleasant-colored yoga mat from the SportsDepo
– buy stationery for a father’s day card and a birthday card
– browse the pretty desserts in the Japanese bakery
– keep head down when walking past MUJI
– take the long path through the park
– hop on the train to Sendai Station (downtown)
– meet up with friends for dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant
– try baklava!
– take a glance at night life in Sendai, but don’t stay long
– walk home and crawl into bed
I haven’t had Mediterranean food often, but it was a nice change from the Japanese cuisine I’ve been eating every day. Finally some cheese!! I ordered lamb kebabs and Turkish pizza. We also shared some hummus and pita triangles as an appetizer and I’d say it was the best hummus I’ve ever tasted. Our friendly waiter’s name was Roy and he spoke English. I can’t believe I haven’t experienced the wonders of baklava until now. I’ve only ever seen it on the Great British Baking show. Speaking of, I really miss that show.

June 5, Day 68: the day I bought sashimi for the first time
I didn’t realize how easy it was to make a poke bowl until I actually tried. All you do is cut the fish into cubes, mix it in a bowl with some saucy things, put it on rice, and top it with green onions. I also added avocado and seaweed seasoning to make it pretty. The only thing missing was Sriracha. I went to the import store a couple weeks ago and instead of buying Sriracha and sweet chili sauce, I accidentally bought two sweet chili sauces. Too scared to try and make a return in a Japanese market, I decided you can never have too much sweet chili sauce… Long story short, I still don’t have Sriracha.

June 6, Day 69: First day of Unit 2 – blue and two!
It rained all day today. Kids get grumpy when they don’t get to go outside to play. Running around with a hula hoop in a gym just isn’t the same. I was getting very used to my students singing along with me since they were so familiar with the songs by the end of Unit 1, so it felt a bit awkward to sing alone as I introduced new songs to them today. They were totally enraptured by the new stories which was nice because every eye was on me and every body was still. A couple weeks ago I mentioned something about rainbow writing, so if you’ve been keeping up, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, just hang in there. Today we did rainbow L and it was the first time I didn’t have to personally select each color of the rainbow in order for the small groups. Not only did they remember to look at the chart (or just remember from memory), they were saying color names in English! Well, purple sounded more like “burple” and they kept calling orange “orenji”, but hey, progress is progress.