In Preparation Mode

As I write this, I’ve got rice cooking so that I can make rice balls for today’s elementary school sports festival, there’s an overnight bag on my bed that I’ll be using this evening so that I can celebrate The Japanese Best Friend’s birthday, and I’m also listening to The Daily Show (continuing this week’s theme of Checking in With America). I feel as though I’m trying to cover three major areas of my life at once: My Work, My Friends, My Eventual Return to The Homeland. And it’s only 4:48 in the morning!

So, Friday! Because it’s still Friday in most areas of the world where this blog is perused.

Friday was the one day of the week where I actually had to work, and since that only entailed one class with my Baby Buddha Fifth Graders, it wasn’t overly stressful. I was particularly pleased with the lesson, though, because I gave them their first “let’s read and write actual honest-to-goodness English” worksheet and they all did extremely well. Also, because the reading section used sentences and expressions that The Enlightened Ones already know how to say (in the context of conversation), I think that their reading and pronunciation skill was at least as good as my middle school students’ (*cough*ifnotbetter*cough*).

The actual memory that I want to take from the day happened after lunch, when I joined the teachers and the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders to set up for Saturday’s sports festival. Quite simply, it was extremely entertaining. I was able to help with erecting tents, and then I also carried an ungodly number of tables and chairs from the second floor of the gym to the field. (Unfortunately, my ability to carry a table all by myself only served to provoke the fifth year boys, who promptly decided that THEY TOO could carry a table all by themselves. Sometimes, I wonder if I will ever fully grasp how impressionable children are.)

Still, the kids were all in a really good mood and I was feeling playful, so we had about an hour and a half of goofy good times. My fourth graders were obsessed with climbing on to my back (what is it with these Monkey Children????), my fifth years kept tracking me down to recite tongue twisters (when they weren’t carrying those tables, that is), and I was cajoled into arm wrestling most of the sixth grade boys.

There is one particular student (currenly a sixth grader) who has been attached to me since the day that I arrived, and he has recently discovered that I am very ticklish. This means that in addition to the aforementioned goofy good times, I spent the afternoon looking over my shoulder and anticipating his attacks (which came about once every ten minutes). Unfortunately, as soon as he began to lose interest in the “Let’s Harass Julie” activity, some of his classmates started to help him corner me, and so then it became a communal “Let’s Harass Julie” extravaganza, which was even better. I called upon the 4th years to defend me, which they did by climbing on to my back…

Teacher? I’m a teacher? Zoo keeper, my friends.

And so, Saturday will be my last sports festival. It will definitely be the last one for this year, and I’m fairly certain that it will be my last one for quite some time. In some respects, I’m happy that it’s going to be with this school, because I am extremely fond off the students and I know that they will help me to do this day the right way. Unfortunately, there is a Very, Very, Very Good Chance that I am going to have not one, but two events that will shatter and remove all traces of my pride and dignity.

I seriously mean that. I won’t go into it now – it will be more worthwhile to include it in Sunday’s Sports Festival Reflections post.

For now, let’s just say that if I have to make a prediction as to how this will go down, I predict: Badly. Based on my experiences last year, the year before, and the year before that, in addition to this year’s theme of Let’s Embarrass Julie So Much That Her Very Soul Quivers, I do believe that the odds are stacked against me.

I’ll see you guys on the other side. -_-;;

“Heaven can wait, dance ’til you die.”