Eight days

Eight days until my favorite third-years walk out of Nichu's ancient hallways forever. In one of the homerooms, the day has been marked by a sheet of paper with the letter "8" decorated as a bee. (My JTE explained that the Japanese word for "bee" is pronounced as はち。This also means "8." You learn something new every day! It also just happens to be the evening I've gotten my new dictionary delivered!)

I was allowed to design the entire lesson plan for their last English class in junior high. I kicked it off with some mad libs to change the infamous Japanese story, Momotaro the Peach Boy.

"An old woman and man lived in a beautiful city. They wanted a baby. One day the woman was washing a moai in the river.



A big orange was in the river! The woman got the big orange . They wanted to eat it.

But, inside it was a busy boy! The old man and woman were very happy.

Seven years later the boy became very strong. He went on a trip. He heard about a city named Motomiya There were many dangerous cats in the city. He wanted to eat the cats.

The boy arrived in the city. The dangerous cat was there. The boy had a fight. It was a very hungry and cheap fight.

The boy killed the cat. The king was very happy. He gave the boy one yen and his lucky daughter."

It was then followed by a Jeopardy-style game, which I dubbed "English Olympics." I thought it was fitting, because the 2010 Vancouver Olympics just hosted the closing ceremonies yesterday. I asked them random questions, testing whether they knew facts like my last name. (Last time, they could've sworn my name was Ms. Green, like the character in the textbook). I also got them to stand up on their chairs, to keep things light.

We also played gesture games, where I saw a classroom full of teenagers doing their best moonwalk or doing the choo-choo train dance.

But for me, I had the most fun distributing presents. I have spent the past few days burning almost 90 mixtape (?) CDs for these kids. I've even included some Celine Dion, to make fun of Te-chan who said he liked the Titanic song. And not only that, but I have spoiled them with personal messages written on postcards bearing photos of their homeroom with yours truly. I started getting misty-eyed when they each said "Thank you so much!!" and eagerly read the postcards. H.-chan just sent me a text, saying thank you for the present. Warm fuzzies!!!

I'm going to miss those kids...