Classes, My Personal Life, and Tony Hawk

Had my classes for the day. The first was with Mr. Mori. The subject was how to make sentences out of the “How many _____ do you have?”

Now, I ask you. How much trouble can we get into with that?

Lots.

MR. MORI: “how many CDs do you have?”
ME: “I have twenty CDs.”
MR. MORI: “how many brothers do you have?”
ME: “ I have three brothers.”
MR. MORI: “how many girlfriends do you have?”
ME: “What? I mean...I have no girlfriends.”
MR. MORI: “Is that so? I have one hundred girlfriends.”
ME: “ah...”
MR. MORI: (holding up a picture of baseballs)“how many balls do you have?”
ME: “I have two balls. Thank you.”

next class was with Ms. Mona. I read a short article out loud about skateboarding:

“...Many people skateboard. It is fun. I skateboard, too. It is also fun....many people think that skateboarders are not good people, but that is not true. The most famous skateboarder is Tony Hawk. He built many safe parks....”
Then we passed out a test based on the reading. While the students were working on it, Ms. Mona cornered me and asked me what the answers were. Not being the one who PREPARED the test, I said I didn't know exactly. The questions were simple enough: who is the most famous skateboarder, Are skateboarders good people, etc. We figured it out.
Lunch is wierd. they have eat with a different class each week, I guess to help familiarize me with the students, and Vice versa. It's great when I go to the elementary schools; everyone talks and laughs and we have a great time. But today I had lunch in the middle school with the ninensei(2nd years), and they were all very quiet. The teacher had warned me about it beforehand:
TEACHER: I dont understand it; in class they won't shut up, but when it's time for lunch, they're little angels!
ME: Maybe they're plotting something...
She was right. I get in there and absolutely NO ONE is talking. The only sound was the click of chopsticks and the slurping(it is polite to slurp-means you like the taste) of miso soup. I actually became very conscious of how I was eating; no way was I gonna be outdone by a bunch of little ninenseis!
Then, as if by some evil magic, the bell rang and the ninenseis immediately reverted back into ninenseis. They yelled, slammed chairs, and wrestled over the last piece of fried chicken on one poor little boy's plate. While the teacher was tried to regain control of the class, I beat a hasty retreat back to the office. My contract says nothing about wrestling for fried chicken.



What I learned today:
Skateboarders are good people.