Sensei's card

So I was organizing the closet in E's room yesterday and putting something away in her desk drawer when I found the card sensei sent to B for his birthday. She had written on it that he wasn't to open it until his birthday so E hid it. Course, when B opened it up he couldn't read much of what it said. He'll have to wait for E to get home to translate. (There's a long-running joke that sensei loves Brad Pitt. She has posters of him all over her classroom, and even a stand-up, life-size Brad Pitt. It only makes sense she'd put him in the birthday cards she makes and sends.)

This is the early Wednesday update from Japan:

Wednesday, June 25
Hello Parents! Japan lost!!! What? You don`t know what I am talking about?? World Cup Soccer!!!! A lot of people were up at 4 in the morning to watch the game! Japanese people go crazy over this event. There are Samurai Blue everywhere! But they didn`t advance so everyone is a little blue this morning. I guess this is the true samurai blue....

We are all well. We were in school all day yesterday. First two periods were cleaning. We are proud to say that our students helped out the entire time and we had lots of complements about their work!... Random people come up to us and talk to us. There was this old lady who came up to me one day and said that she saw us in the newspaper (we were in the local paper 4 times by now) and thanked us for bringing the students to Japan. Monday was the 59th anniversary of the battle of Okinawa, so we saw lots of information on TV. She was saying how Japan and America were enemies then but now we are great friends and how thankful she was that the young Ameriacan students were visiting. Our students really are drawing a lot of attention not just in school but from the comunity. When we walk on the streets, people greet us and ask questions. The students are doing a great job communicating with the local people. I walk with Joe Sensei a lot and when I am with him I get more hello`s and screams...(do not tell his fiance...).

So the students did presentations too in classrooms. hey did very well. The Japanese students listened carefully and asked a lot of questions. They tend to be shy when it is the entire class Q&A time but they were more comfortable in small groups. In one of the classes, during the whole class Q&A session, someone asked what kind of girl or boy our students liked. After a little pause, William said... 'Japanese girls...' Loud scream and I swear those girls eyes turned into heart shapes. In Japan, he is more popular than Justin Bieber. Kate was assigned to sit with a group of boys for conversation time. And the boys were so nervous. They were pushing each other to decide who gets to sit next to her :)

It was fun to see them trying to communicate with each other. Their Japanese have gotten a lot better! I told them that and someone said...`because we are talking to real Japanese people every day! Oh ... really? I am a real Japanese person too... I ... am hurt.... They are trying at home too but sometimes the host family is not letting them practice as much! They are trying to b so nice and attentive that they are not letting our students complete sentences! In Japanese, verb comes at the end of the sentence. So 'Please give me some water' would be `water-give-please`. So when our student says 'mizu...(water)....' the host runs to the kitchen and brings water before he could finish the rest of the sentence! The worse one was that I heard that someone was trying to say that she wanted to do laundry. She had the dirty clothes in her hands. Before she could even say any word, the host mother snatched the clothes and washed them!! This is not good!! We needed to ask them to please have our students complete sentences before they react! It seems that most of the families are getting use to the portion size though. Our students don`t have two extra dishes of food like they did at the beginning....

Most of the students went home after school to hang out with the host family and rest after school. Some went out for a walk and to stores. Today we are visiting a middle school and a Zen Temple. We will experience zen meditaion. It should be fun.