Creative minds

So somehow I ended up with a bunch of papers to correct at 10 pm on Monday night (the fact that I didn't do any work this weekend probably had something to do with it). A lot of my classes are doing "how to" projects/presentations where they have to write about how to do something or make something and then (most of them) present it to the class.

This was supposed to be with a recipe unit, but we decided to open it up and let them choose whatever they wanted to (especially at the schools where students actually have electronic dictionaries, or even Japanese/English dictionaries). Personally, I think food is the easiest, which is what we suggested to most students, and why I've had to read through a bajillion different "how to make curry/omurice/hamburg" papers, since I swear, those are two of the simplest things to make in the Japanese student repertoire (and in general). We set a rule forbidding them anything that was already written in the book, which thankfully meant that we didn't have to tell them that "How to make instant noodles/ramen" or "how to make spaghetti" were off limits. We did have to clarify to them, however, that "Tamago kake gohan" or, as my brother calls it, "Egg gohan" or as my students call it, "TKG" was way way too easy. TKG, if you haven't seen it before, is a raw egg, soy sauce, and white rice mixed together. So were rice balls. Sorry kids, too easy.

Some of them have been pretty good. One group wrote how to do this Chinese dish that I don't remember the name for, and another did freaking pescatore pasta. That was pretty impressive. Then again, that kid is one of the ones whom I'm pretty sure has a secret love for English (or at least, really genuinely tries in class, which I really appreciate. He's such a sweet kid too. Kinda a brown-noser - like I'm pretty sure he's on the student council, but he's really polite. And really like.... embodies the country boy feeling lol. I'm not saying that to be mean either! But I mean, seriously, any kid who makes their group look up all the words for the seafood in pescatore... yeah. I'm going to miss having him in class next year.) Someone also did how to do a jump shot in basketball, which I thought was pretty clever.

Others have been more... interesting. Not necessarily in a bad way. Among the interesting ones, there's "how to please a person with a dog" and "how to be a bad kid." We also had a entry for "survivor curry" - which I'm pretty sure was the group (which has another pretty smart kid in it) just kind of dicking around. Their curry included ingredients such as parrot (wtf?), potatoes, pork, and alligator. I don't even know.

We also let them have free reign at drawing pictures to go along with their recipes. Once again, the Design students have exceeded my expectations. Their drawings... most of them are really good or really cute. The hamburg one had a gloomy bear with a (human?) hamburger steak. Another had this really... interesting... comic almost with this guy and a human-faced steak in it. I'll have to see if I can get a picture of that, because that was really really interesting haha.

The first years this year are really really interesting though. I'm definitely going to miss them when they move to second year. I think the boys in the electronics class were genuinely really really disappointed we weren't doing valentines day, because I'm pretty sure they all were like "CHOCOLATE FROM JESSICA?!?!?!?!!!!!???!??!" since in Japan, V-day is a girls giving guys chocolate day. Silly silly boys. I'm giving everyone chocolate next week, hahaha, since it's the last class and a kind of belated v-day. I really like this group of first years. :)

Oh, that kind of reminds me of something else I noticed in class. So there's this Brazilian kid whose English is actually really decent and even - dare I say it - good. Probably the best pronunciation in class. He started off the year as a kind of wild and loud kid who didn't always come to class, but recently I think he's changed. He's still loud, sure, but he actually gets the other kids to shut up, unlike the really loud kid in the back of the room who's just constantly shouting things about sex out (though I'm not entirely convinced he knows what he's saying). At least the Brazilian kid is polite when he talks to me, and actually does the work and stuff. So when my JTE - who is amazing - noted that the Brazilian kid was going to be absent and commented on how the class was actually going to maybe be quiet today since he wasn't going to be there and how we might actually get stuff done, I was kind of shocked and defended the student a bit by pointing out that this other kid was even louder so our class was not going to change. The fact that it's been done several times when this kid is absent makes me wonder if the kid just made a really bad first impression, or if it was actually because he wasn't full Japanese or even Japanese looking. I know he's actually pretty smart and probably understand most of what I say. I'm pretty sure he's pretending that he doesn't always. But whatever. He doesn't draw penises (boys are pretty much the same everywhere I guess) on the fogged up window and actually tells the other kids to shut up when others are presenting, so I don't care. It's just kind of unfortunate that he carries this kind of image with the teachers though, cause I'm pretty sure if he were in an American high school, he either be on the honors track, or he'd be one of those really smart slacker boys.

Either way, I'm going to miss everyone I've met this past year when I leave Japan.

It's so weird to think about only having about six months left. D: