Entries this day: Today

Today

6:51pm JST Saturday 7 June 2003

Today work was pretty much okay - the schedule could have been more packed. Just before the third lesson a new schedule was put up, so I had approximately 3 minutes to plan a lesson for 4 people. Not gonna happen; I hadn't even pulled their files of course so I didn't know what lessons they had done recently, etc. So I just faked a lesson, not referring to the book much, thereby ensuring they hadn't just done the lesson I was doing cause it hadn't previously existed. Rock.

Later, I went to the voice room, sat down all like, "yo" and then Carla came in.

"D'oh!"

I was supposed to be doing a lesson; I had gotten my times mixed up. So that was another lesson I faked. Not like I don't fake most of my lessons, of course.

It went rather well even so.

Then I went to the voice room; Carla was all, "you got voice now, bud" to me in a mock helpful manner.

Oh, speaking of mocking, Benny, who could be considered "cool," is actually just mean to people. It's the way he interacts, and the whole deal seems to be the same thing as in high school. The popular kids are flat mean to others. And it's not like he physically hurts anyone, but just verbally fucking with people, and cut-downs and such. What's the deal with that? Why do people put up with it? Should I intervene more than, "hey man, that's mean" ?

It's just weird.

The quote of the day from work:

I have had snake soup three times.

The snake tasted like chicken.

- - - -

After work, I zipped over to the rather large bookstore in search of an English text for Fumi. I found two of rather different styles, and I hope she likes at least one of them. At the same time, I hope she doesn't just pretend to like one of them. I'll continue looking. (maybe)

As a non-trained English teacher, I don't know what to really look for in a book. Part of the question stems from the wide range of learning patterns of different people. I have heard from Steve that no one really knows *how* people best learn languages.

My stop is next. (I've been writing on the train (nambu line Kawasaki to Musashi-Kosugi))

8:07pm

Home now. Just ate something fishy, and by that I mean it was seafood. But it wasn't a fish with scales. It had skin like a catfish, but seemed to just be a headless cone shaped thing with two flaps (fins (tail)) near the point of the cone.

It tasted like.... the sauce it was in. The meat was a bit chewy, but not like oysters. It seemed to be cooked, but I couldn't tell how it had been heated. The texture was a cross between pressed chicken and fish.

And it had been cut crosswise halfway through the cone about every 1.5 cm down the cone. I don't know what that was about, except maybe to prove that it had been cooked, or maybe just a stylized presentation. Hard to tell.