Entries this day: Dream Teaching Work natalia zz_camp_del_christo

Dream

6:23am JST Tuesday 15 July 2008 (day 13992)

Fred had talked to dad about what more Fred had to do to finish his project and Dad was like, "just peel the remaining carrots and you can be done," Fred had a clear plastic garbage bag of maybe 70 large cut carrots, and simply had to peel them. I offered to help and fred accepted, but then he was being intentionally wasteful of the carrots by cutting off hunks of them and calling it "peeling" whereas I was peeling off a much thinner layer. My way was taking a bit longer, but producing significantly more consumable carrot content. Fred didn't see how I was doing it before he advised me to do it his way to save time. I was like, "no way; I'm specifically *not* doing it your way to save carrot," and it was a bit of a tiff between us, but eventually he relented and just let me peel carrots any way I chose.

Teaching

11:09pm JST Tuesday 15 July 2008 (day 13992)

And by Teaching, I mean not really teaching so much as "practicing" some English stuff with my student who doesn't seem very interested in learning, but just confirming that he can get by with what he alrady knows.

I mean like, for making a hotel reservation, he can answer the Qs when? single or double? smoking or non smoking?

I asked for his credit card number and he said "later" which I don't know if that meant he would actually say that while making a reservation or if he couldn't think of a fake credit card number while practicing with me. But whateva.

When "ordering food in a restaurant," he flexed hi skills of being able to say "more cheap" and 'too expensive," and "do you ave," which will get him far enough so that he won't tarve, but I'm not sure that he'll get the food he actually wants. He didn't seem inclined to learn any more subtle ordering techniques, but.

We made it through the first hour and then breaktime and when we came back, he was keen not to do any more practice, but he asked me about the US and was asking why people were fat and why people drive instead of walk and I was ike, "culture," to explain everything. He was asking about the size and I looked up on wikipedia that it's 8893 km along the border of US/Canada, and he was all shocked. he asked how many states there are, actually he asked how many capitals there are and I said 50, and he was ike, "and Hawaii [is] 51," and I was like, "um, Hawaii is 50," and it was kinda hard to keep good humor about me when he assured me it was 51, and i assured him it was not.

Anyway, he agreed in the end, and I didn't have to bust out with Puerto Rico would be 51 as if that would ever happen,

And he asked basically how man.

h, no. he asked which state was first. And I was like, "well, 13 were all first." and he was like, "what????" and I was like, "Wel, back in the dizzle 13 colonizzles all decided to bandizzle togizzle" beause that's about how little he would have understood, so I asked him hwhich was the first prefecture in Japan, and he said, "all together." and I said, "exactly." And he asked if I could recite the 13 original colonies, and I must admit, I could not. I got 8 written down, but my 8 included Vermont (which was not included) and I forgot New Hampshire which woulda been obvious had I thought of it, but I didn't know that the Carolinas and Georogia were in the list. Dang.

So, oh and I forgot New Jersey, which I'm sure Frank would not be impressed, but anyway he then asked if I was able to recite (write) ALL the staes, and I asked if he could write all the prefectures. He said, "of course!" and it was ON.

I busted out 49 states (and as yet haven't figured out which I forgot) and he busted out 44 prefectures, but I think he's missing 3, though he says it's actually 45 cause north and south Hokkaido and East and West Tokyo are not really included, and I'm like, "B S cause I'm 99.999% sure his claim is full of beans, even if he's just trying to save face. I don't need to rub it in his face, but I will write right here, just for the record, that I have memorized all the prefectures (and sixne forgotten the details oof the list) and I think I'll get back on to learning that again, along with the mising state (sorry, state!)

The good news is I took pictures of our lists, so I can find my mising state and his missing 3 prefectures.

Hey I want a Pleo; I just saw an ad for this little robot dinosaur on the train TV ads. It looks cute.

So anyway, at the end of the lesson, I was like, "so you wanna practice again?" as he was trying to remember the "last" (45ht) prefecture, and he was like, "no no next tiem," and I was like, "aight" and didn't press him. When Suzuki-chan asked me in japanese like, "so, did he do more than last week?" (in Japanese, "we did lots of practices in English," which was true; we did do more practices this week than last week, and overall we did speak more English this time than last time, and since Japanese rolls off the tongue with such loosey goosey meaning and ranges of possible realities behind the scenes I didn't find it too difficult to not say he did basically squat for the last 30 minutes.

BECAUSE, last time when I was more honest about how much he didn't study, that news was reported to the next person and the next person who called my student's boss to let him have a little chat with the student as if that's going to help!!! If the boss pulls him into a meeting, "you better study cause we're paying for this," it's *not* (in my opinion) going to do anything positive for the student's desire to study.

okay bye

Work

11:05pm JST Tuesday 15 July 2008 (day 13992)

Good day at work. for two reasons: One: I got the site on which I've ben working updated to use the new skin thing that Andrew created recently (although it's apparently going away soon, but it will allow for mobile phone sites to be made easily.

two: I recieved a key to the front door of the office, so now I can roll in anytime I like. Even right. now.

Malek was like, "here's the key. Don't steal anythig."

Cool.

They all left the office at that point (Male, Sho and Andrew, and I was busily not stealing anytihg when Andrew came back and coded a bit more with me (and I gave him some of the changes I had made) and it was all good. We rolled out together and I tested my new key. And it looks new, too, like they just got it cut for me.

I'm pretty happy about that.

natalia

2:15am Wednesday 16 July 2008

Had a lovely 2 hour chat with Natalia upon arriving home tonight. It started with me giving her mail to open.. at first she didn't want to cause it was a bill.. but after a bit she realized it was *my* bill!

We had a good laugh and she told me the great news about her job situation, and her upcoming holiday for a month in Spain.

Rolled downstairs to scope a confusing message on the white board. Turns out Natalia had misinterpreted Suzuki-san's confusing note which he replied to me (about the light being out in the kitchen), in which he said, "it's been confirmed," and "I change it today or tomorrow." and not to his previous message referring to us having a party for Shin, the new tenant of our little crib.

zz camp del christo

2:41am Wednesday 16 July 2008

It took me 25 minutes to write the previous entry because I just started _Jesus Camp_ at the same time.

I can pretty much respect / understand how they reached the conclusion ("they" being the human protagonists of the movie).

But it certainly doesn't sway my conclusion that organized religions (including / especially Christianity) intend simply to further themselves (the organizations) by diminishing the members' selves.