Waiting on the bus today there were four high school students chatting freely, shouting at their friends across the street, ignoring the bundled up old foreign lady with her sickness mask. They made some comment to one of their distant friends that seemed a little catty (they kept shouting, "You've got thin legs! Your forehead is beautiful!", etc.) and so I in turn felt mildly acidic, so I turned to them and said, "Excuse me. What time is it?" It was the falsest acting of mine so far, completely ignoring anything they said in Japanese. I let them flutter amongst themselves, one of the girls translating for the entire group. They didn't really answer me properly but they understood what I was saying. I let them go back to their "oh my gosh I don't know English, no way that was really amazing," etc, etc, but then I gathered my guts and prodded once more. This time I really cheesily faked more stupid foreigner ness and asked if they rode the bus, where they were going, if they were high school students. I lamented the lateness of the bus and one of the girls was so tickled by my "oh my gosh" that she mimicked before she could stop herself. Little did she know I would totally not care if she mimed me.
Anyway, bus finally came and we sat separately. I didn't want to be harassing them or anything, and was getting ready to go to Usuchuu, where I am the invisible girl. But when they got off the bus, I thanked the girl who translated and she smiled, that sheepish, excited smile I'm getting used to. I waved to the boy and girl who were outside the bus window as I passed and they waved back smiling, to my surprise. The bus stopped a moment and when I passed them again, they waved to me again and I waved back. I went in a liar, but there was a moment that they reached out to me without me having to prod them.
School today was actually pretty good. Typhoon tanked, unfortunately. The kids wrote their own questions but their English is so weak only Tomoyuki could answer. His team took all the points and the T, but it didn't matter since no one else tried. If I had asked more simple questions... I almost had them on the hook. I could see they were interested in the game idea.
Anyway, second year went surprisingly decent. The smart boy makes me feel much better about the whole ordeal. In the beginning he was dead set against me, but now, he even thanked me. That's pretty huge. I was able to speak a lot of English to the girls and to give one of the girls some advice on how to find pieces she knew before worrying about the parts she didn't know. Unfortunately she doesn't know anything, so it's a little late. I just want her to survive into high school. I worry about the 3rd years since I'm not sure they'll pass and get into high school.
First years were lovely as always. And it may be bad, but I have decided my loud boy is a very handsome young man. I want to meet him again when he's about ten years older. He's a good looking kid, sure, but it's his attitude. He's not terribly good at English, I think he struggles more than most of the other kids in the class. But when I talk to him, he gives his utmost attention and tries hard to understand, and he responds enthusiastically. He was tired and I said, "you played basketball, and then you studied hard," to which he said, "oh yes. Study," and made a terrible face. I laughed and made a face back. He was pretty pooped, so I said, "Hang in there. Fight." (they all know "fight" over here), he said, "Fight!", and I said, "Hang in there!" and he said "Meninger?". I tried to mime out "hang in there" and realized mid thought I had no idea why "Hang in there" means what it means. If you translate it literally, it becomes "hang inside of that over there", which to me does not read as "ganbaru". Unfortunately I was still talking and he was still listening while I made this discovery and the poor boy seemed lost. He asked the teacher, "What's Hang in there?" and she answered, "Ganbatte". He looked at me with great relief and said, "Oh, Thank you!" and stuck out his hand to shake mine heartily.
I got my box of presents back from the vice principal of nagawasho. I opened the girls' package and recorded a lot of videos. I'm rather pooped. Early morning tomorrow since Mr. Fujita wanted me to stop in at 8:25am before getting on the bus. Mildly pissed about this since Mrs. Takekawa always let me go straight to the bus stop (the bus is at 8:40, I am not technically on duty until 8:45). So now I have to get up at a strange hour, which is going to significantly affect my likelihood of waking up at all, and my energy will not be at the right flow when I get to class. Annoyed.
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