Today at Usuchuu was... Good. It was actually good. I am having a hard time understanding what has happened in the universe to right the wrongs and set things back to order.
The third years were as listless as ever, but consistently so- they never piddled out or stopped trying. The tall sports-lookin kid who seems to eternally have one pant leg rolled up answered "I'm so so" to the morning "How are you?" and when I asked him why, he answered 英語きらいから. His handwriting and speaking are both very good though. The whole class is of high level. I think it might be the stress of tests pushing them onward, but they're not a bad class at all. The boys enjoyed the "Big Ben" lesson today (no matter where you go, boys love penis jokes. It is a fact of life) and I've realized by encouraging such word play they'll speak more and there's a lot less tension among everybody. It doesn't hurt anything and it's kinda fun to freak them out by agreeing (One of the second years today informed his classmates "Go to hell. 地獄へ行きなさいと言う意味だ". When I responded, "That's right!" with a bright smile he looked at me like I'd grown a second head). As always the students played janken against me to decide who would read next, but they would all cheat blatantly, changing their hands after I'd thrown mine. "Bad sportsmanship, all of you," I scowled at them, and the boy with the highest skill in class translated. So from then on I started cheating too. The first time I blatantly changed my hand and it sent up cries of surprise. Next I started the rock paper sizzors chant but turned around and hid my choice, revealing it only after everyone had grudgingly chosen their hands. It became sort of a fun atmosphere.
The first years were even more peppy than usual and if I had been a little more prepared for their enthusiasm we could have continued あいさつ for quite a while. The lesson was unfortunate- "How long", one of the least useful pieces of grammar I can imagine, especially for the first years who haven't learned future tense or "can/cant" yet. But they seemed to get it easily and the teacher had me write some model sentences. I know she wanted a boring textbook conversation but instead I chose "How long do turtles live", "How long is your hair" (I had all the kids ask me and they guessed among themselves), and the prerequisite boring "How long did you watch the baseball game". Other than my complaints about the content of the textbook things went smoothly, and when my little sports-lookin kid had a question I was able to answer from the textbook with minimal slip-ups. Thank goodness I took the time to prepare. It's been two weeks since I've seen the kids, the last time being the day that the second years were out sick, and the time before that was when everyone seemed to be down and out. Today all of the kids were back on their feet.
Finally, the second years. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was really pleased to find that only Shuji and his three followers were misbehaving (the three followers not so much). It was distracting but I ignored them utterly and completely and saw only the kids who were studying. And they were diligent. Quiet, not speaking, and not at a high level, but they had manners and didn't talk to the distracting kids. I only lost patience one time when Shuji started hounding the teacher for something "今頂戴。今頂戴｡ 今頂戴｡” I glanced at him and quipped, "何歳?" before I remembered I wasn't talking to him and returned to ignoring him the rest of the lesson. And it went really smoothly. There was getting up, noisiness, rudeness, forgetting of notebooks, and the like. But when I walked around and talked to the kids, they talked back to me and a few asked me for help (Sara-chan did too... I really like that kid) and they weren't giving me the cold shoulder. I egged the small boy who wants awfully badly to join Shuji's crew into conversation a few times. He thankfully hasn't caught on that by saying anything at all to me he's playing the game, so I can still talk with him a little.
Today's drawing was of the turtle, as I am having that desire to play Shadow of Colossus again. It's going to be a long five months without, but it will give me time to save up money for a PS3. It's stupid but I need The Last Guardian. It's just... the way of the world.
Also. Fake PS. This morning my room was 73 degrees. And suddenly, the world seemed good again. Words cannot express my feelings.
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