Random Thoughts

As the title says, random thoughts.

-Today was class 3-4’s request day for kyushoku (school lunch). Every 3nensei class gets a request for their favorite meal before they graduate, and they are always HELLA good! It is the only time of the year that kyushoku actually is as fatty as nasty American lunches. Today’s was curry udon (like it sounds, udon in curry, YUMMY), salad, kinako agepan (everyone gets a small loaf of bread fried and covered in kinako (soy flour, it is WAY better than it sounds)), AND chocolate cake! And not even crappy school lunch-type chocolate cake, but GOOD fresh and FATTY chocolate cake! Dude, talk about carb overload! It was hella good, though! Students should be in charge of kyushoku every day!

-Today I ate lunch with class 3-1 and while it was mostly eating in silence as usual, one kid worked on translating a question into English for about five minutes with this result: “Why do black woman no hair?” Um!!!! Hahahahaha. He was trying to ask why black women look like they have no hair. Um. I think he was trying to ask why their hair is different, but in his opinion it looks like they don’t have real hair or something. Anyway, that was an interesting conversation ;)

-For being a pretty organized society, Japanese people are laidback about the WEIRDEST things. Even procrastinating Americans book their flights in advance, but Japanese airline tickets don’t even go on sale until two months before departure. When you book through a travel agent (which everyone does), you don’t even know your flight times or hotel name until a week before you leave!

On this subject, I don’t know if it is just my school, but our student council and teachers are TOTALLY unorganized when it comes to assemblies (I am not calling them “pep assemblies,” as there is NO “pep” to be found in the assemblies here!). Like, you would think they would run over the logistics of who does what before big events like the 3nensei okurukai (send-off) and other things, but they are always running around fixing things DURING the assembly while everyone sits and waits. It is weird!

Even moreso, some of my 3nensei still don’t know where they are going for high school! Most of my kids JUST found out if they got into the schools they wanted. However, one of my kids I talked to finds out on March 15th if he can go to the high school that he wants to go to. Um, school starts on April 9th!!!! Hello, doesn’t one need to know such things a little more in advance?! I don’t get how that works. I would be freaking out with anticipation if I were him! Likewise, the teachers who get switched to other schools (tons get moved every year for reasons I cant comprehend) don’t even know until like the end of March. It is so weird!!!!

Okay yeah, end of random-ness.