Superstitious

Now, normally, I'm not much of a superstitious person. I don't believe in ghosts or zombies or magic or anything like that... but at the same time, I won't go into a haunted house, scary movies will have me not sleeping for weeks, and stepping on a grave is very very very bad.

There are a couple of other things I do believe in though. Being able to jinx/bacchi yourself is one of them. The phrases that invite bad luck, like "what else could happen" or "what could go wrong?" or "it can't get any worse".

I also believe in test luck. Lucky underwear? Sure. Can't hurt. I don't think it'll do much really... but like I said before, can't hurt.

As some people know, I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exams - you need them for grad school in the states) in Osaka this past weekend since that was the closest location they offered it. Basically, I was studying this entire past week like a mad person when I wasn't procrastinating or working (which was often...). Paying for it turned out to be a really good motivator to study more.

So I was at my academic high school (Niimi South) on Friday, and I had gone to ask the kyuudo kids if there was any practice on tuesday since I couldn't stay for practice that day. Stupid studying. And I was talking to one of the students and we got into this conversation how both of us reaaaally don't like to study for tests lol. He's a nice kid. :) We have a similar dislike for math and studying English lol (though his English is pretty good, so I dunno what he's talking about). I swear, he looks like every single stereotypical smart boy in an anime who personifies the Japanese "theme" like Andou in Yumeiro Patissiere (see right).

But I mentioned that I was ahhhhhhh stressed and he was like "relax relax!" and he held out his palm and traced the kanji for person "人” three times in the middle. And then he pretended to eat it. And I was like... "what?"

This, he explained, was how you get rid of stress while you're studying. So I asked him if basically you ate people to feel more relaxed, and he said yes, and (as a friend pointed out later) who am I to argue with a Japanese student's study method? Especially one at an academic school? I guess it kinda worked; I generally felt silly enough to where the stress would lower a little lol.

I got my results back for the verbal and math. It's not bad, but I'm not sure how it weighs against the programs I want to apply for. I know my math is fine; I'm not applying for one of the hard sciences. So a 740 is fine. I'm more worried about the verbal score; I got a 650 and I haven't received my essay score yet. That's kinda lower than I wanted. >_< And if I'm going in to a social science... well... my verbal matters a lot more. Arrrrrg.

Oh High Schoolers...

Today was my first day at Kita-kochi, which pretty much means North Campus. It's a trade school (ie, non-academic) so most of the kids aren't going to university, and will probably have very little practical use for using spanish. Kind of the same way someone who learns Spanish will find it useful if they live their whole lives out in a place like Walnut Creek or Danville or say... Ohio. Granted, English is probably a little bit more common than Spanish is in those places, but honestly, it doesn't really seem like it when I'm out here. Sure, there are words in katakana. But then again, who really knows where those words come from anyways? We have plenty of loaner words in English.

Despite the fact though, that I pretty much taught the same exact lesson (or rather, gave the same exact presentation) each class was very very very different. Today I did three classes in total. One was mixed, one was all boys, and one was all girls. The mixed one got a relatively moderate reaction; that class was alright, I didn't feel like I massively screwed up and it was relatively fun. That was the first "do you have a boyfriend" question I got since I started the q&a session at the end. They said they didn't believe me hahhaha. I think they might have even called me a liar. This, I found highly amusing. There was a girl at the end though who came up and asked me which anime I liked. She was kawaii~ :D I'm really glad she came and asked questions, since she looked a little shy.

The second class, not a single peep. That was the all girl class. I did get them to chatter a little bit when I showed them Snorlax and talked about Disney. Just a little. Small victory for Jessica!

The last class though. Oh man. That was actually kind of fun. I had to be loud (which for me, is no small feat) because this was the class full of boys, and they kept coming in late... but they had pretty good responses during the presentation and actually came up with questions. Granted, the questions they came up with...

The first was the "do you have a boyfriend" to which I responded LOLNO. Then they asked how old I was. Then they asked which guy in the class was my type. LOL. So I looked very thoughtful. And then I looked at the boys. And then I smiled and said, "Secret."

Oh first year high school boys. You make me giggle. I hope they don't actually think I like one of them. That might be bad. But after that, the one very talkative boy (who was asking most of the questions) got up and did this little swagger walk and flipped his hair before sitting back down to laughs. And then got up again. And swaggered his way over to me, put out his hand, and said "NICE TO MEET YOU."

I think I nearly died laughing. Especially when he went back to his seat, and promptly slid out of it because the chair had slidden back or something. That had the whole class laughing.

All in all, not that bad. Despite doing "first days" at the other schools, I still get a little nervous when it's in front of a new group of 40 faces. Lord help me, I don't know how I'm going to remember their name.

Oh, that reminds me. Speaking of boys, one of the other JETs came over to visit Takahashi's castle on the weekend, and me, stupid me, thinking that the school would be deserted (like it would be in America) decided to walk through it so I could show him the school (which is rather charming).

Yeaaaaah. There were so many students there. I think some of them I taught. I'm pretty sure some of them were in classes I taught. The first thing that went through my mind? "OH CRAP."

In a couple of seconds, they confirmed my fears, and undid what hard work I was trying to do at staying under the gossip-boy-talk radar.

"BOYFRIEND?!?!?!?!!?"

Both of us yelled out "NO" almost immediately, though I think I was a bit quicker than he was at firmly denying it. The quicker you deny it, the faster they get over it and stop right?

Silly me. I have younger siblings. I should know better.

"LOVER?!?!?!?!?!" was what followed. I think I nearly died of embarrassment. Needless to say, we did not go that way on the way back.

At least it makes a good story, I guess?