Some funny student moments, and a look at how busy I am!!!

So yesterday found me paired up with 2 students in a mid level class that I teach on Saturdays. I have taught this unit many times by now, but seriously these 2 are some of my best students for this level.

A little background before I continue...

Japanese English speakers are FAMOUS for the mixing of Ls and Rs, but that is only one thing they find difficult to pronounce. F and H is another one that gets mixed. B and V gets mixed up as well. But let's highlight the one I will use today. S often gets pronounced as Sh, especially when the next vowel is an I or E.

So back to the class, we are looking at pictures in the book and I always have to elicit what is happening to get the students to speak. So there are many pictures, one of the American president, with a generic picture of a blonde man, and my student said it was Bill Clinton, a drawing of Tigger, the Disney character, which they just lamely call Tiger here, but the gold is a man on top of Mt. Fuji, watching a sunrise.

I ask my students "What is the man doing?" and one QUICKLY replied "Oh, he is shitting on Mt. Fuji!"

Could not stop laughing...

The sad thing is, they have no clue why I am laughing and why that sounds horrid to me!

This next one is maybe you had to have been there to appreciate it. And also a bit of a nerd.

Same students, I was checking their workbooks which we do once a month, and we had pictures of some Star Wars characters to help teach some American culture. I had never seen this before so I was a bit shocked! I asked the students if they knew what it was, and they told me Star Wars. I saw a crudely drawn R2D2 and C-3PO and asked if they knew who they were, but only the girl knew. I asked her if she knew where R2D2 was from, and she told me "He is from America!"

Daibakusho!

I don't know why, but this made me laugh soo hard. The other foreign teacher got a kick out of it, while the Japanese staff thought I was crazy, again...

Good times!

Now onto my schedule for the next month or so, so you see how busy I am.

Now my work week consists of Tuesday through Saturday. Nights and mornings find me doing web design or producing music for myself (we will touch more on that later).
So weekends are Sundays and Mondays, Sundays with Sayaka and Mondays for myself, unless plans arise. Like today...

In a couple hours I will leave to go play American football AGAIN, and have a hanami party (a sakura, aka cherry blossom, viewing party. AKA lots of drinking!) with my trainer and other foreign teachers and students. After that my school may be meeting at an izakaya for food and drinks into the night. MORE DRINKING. This will go on until almost midnight, as usual. Tomorrow is rest day.

Next Saturday after work, a fellow teacher is having a Nintendo themed party, which is a KIND OF farewell party for another teacher. This will go until the next day for sure, so Sunday and Monday will be recovery!

The next Saturday is insane... I will get off work at 8PM, change clothes, catch the train to Nagoya station, catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo, where I will take a train to Shin-Kiba, to go to Ageha (one of Tokyo's largest clubs) to see Tiesto at 11PM. Will probably go until 3 or 4 in the morning looking at the line up. Since getting a hotel would be a waste of money, the homie Ryan and I will be clubbing till morning and just rough it out Sunday and get a place to sleep Sunday night. Then prolly take a day bus back on Monday. Where I will sleep for the rest of the night!

The next Saturday night is my coworkers wedding party, aka lots of drinking and funny events. Being a foreigner at a Japanese wedding party is fun, you become the star for the night, as the bride and groom or their friends put a lot of attention on you. At least in my experience so far. The next day, Sayaka and I will get up early to meet friends at a grocer store to buy a lot of meat and such for a BBQ with a LOT of friends. Will probably been an all day event!

The week after that will be my only planless weekend, but sure that will change.

The following week will see Sayaka and I, paired with Nao-chan and her new boyfriend Hide-kun (for the Japanese pronunciation impaired He-day) taking a nightbus to Tokyo Disneyland where we will get an all-you-can-eat breakfast and a full day at Disneyland, then a night bus back to Nagoya...

This will be the first weekend of Golden Week and Sayaka only gets 3 days off, while I get 11... So I will be working on...

Music!

I am now officially involved in 3 music projects!

A pure house music project with a fellow teacher in a nearby teacher. We both love French house and want to put an American touch on it!

An online friend has a rap;/rock/screamcore band but no producer. He heard my work and asked if I could try to produce some samples for him. I sent him one, and he officially added my name as producer for the band... The lyrics will be in English and Japanese so it will be pretty interesting, plus him, the other band member and I, are very future oriented so this may go somewhere, soon...

And I called my cousin up. Now anyone who knows me, knows I have never been EXTREMELY close to ANY of my extended family, long story. Well I call him up and I haven't spoke to him in years, but he has been writing hip hop his whole life. I wanted to know where he is musically, if anything big was coming up for him yet. He told me he was working for Coldstone. This saddened me deeply and I told him I have been touching on music production but mostly electronic dance music, but told him if he gets back to rapping, I will try my hand at producing hip hop for him. He got excited and told me he would be getting internet soon and start writing and sending me his vocals and I can make beats around that, while also sending him beats to write to.

B.U.S.Y.

Spells Tommy...

Oh well, gotta live this to the fullest right?

Oh yeah,my last music production experiment, before I start doing things seriously (sitting down and planning out a complete song)

An ode to the greatest toys and cartoon ever...

G.I. Joe!