And for some reason, most of the spam seems to be attracted to my Centipedes are super gross. post.

I have no idea what kind of connection can be made with spam and centipedes.

And speaking of bugs, today at summer school two of the boys kept picking up cicada shells as we were walking through the park on the way back to school from our boat races. I hate cicadas and that includes their nasty shells. I think one boy had like five in his boat. Then they left them on the computer desk at school. e_e

Which, actually makes sense seeing as yesterday, although fun, was really super busy. Just like today will be.

Around 8:20 some ridiculous alarm starts going off. Not my phone alarm that I use to wake up, but one outside. I thought maybe it was a fire alarm, but no one seemed to be moving or going anywhere. I didn’t hear any doors open or shut, and when I poked my head outside, the world was continuing on as if nothing was going on. I wondered if I was going crazy and was the only one to hear it, but it was just too damn loud for that to be the case.

So I figure whatever, I’ll just let it be, as I grow increasingly irritated because it just won’t shut up. I’m in the bathroom doing my makeup, and my phone alarm goes off. Great. Just what I wanted to hear.

At least I have control over that one.

The alarm outside wasn’t turned off until about 8:35.
I still have no idea what it was, but no one was knocking on my door telling me to evacuate, so it couldn’t have been anything serious…

Right?

I made Jacksonthehamster.com.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do! I’m going to try to update it as often as I can with new photos and video of the cute little guy. I also want to have some live streaming action, I just keep falling asleep when he’s awake, haha. But now that I’m well rested, I’ll hopefully be able to do it.

Jackson is also on Facebook and Twitter! Please add him if you haven’t already. <3

But most important, make sure you visit Jacksonthehamster.com!

So here it is.

Yesterday, I was teaching a phonics class. The kids in the class are between six and eight. One boy, we’ll call him N, is half Japanese and half American.

So there we were playing a game where I hold up a grapheme and they need to give me words that begin with the corresponding sound. For example, if I held up the card that read ‘T t’ they would say, “tiger! ten! two! tent! tree!”.

We were going through a deck of flashcards and came to ‘B b’.

Naturally, I hear, “bird! boy! box! big!” and all of a sudden I hear N going, “bitch!”

I thought maybe I had heard incorrectly (all the kids were yelling) so I said, “N, what did you say?” And again, loudly and proudly, he yells “BITCH!”.

I was definitely surprised. I told him that he was right, that IS a /b/ word, but that it wasn’t a nice one to say. Honestly, I think he had no idea what it actually meant, but wow, did NOT see that one coming!

1. BBQ sauce on saltines was far more delicious than I could have ever anticipated.

2. I am using Tumblr a lot right now. Follow me > eidorien.tumblr.com.
Ask me something too. That would be fun.

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We do it twice a year, and it’s basically a speaking, reading, listening and writing test that we give to all the students. The kids who are in Step One don’t have a writing section, because they’re mostly four to six years old. Of course, the two and three year olds also don’t have any tests. Instead, they have progress reports and normal lessons.

Level check week is always really fun.
You really get to see what the kids have learned and there are always some great moments.

My personal favourite from this year went something like this…

I was testing a little girl, who we’ll call Y. She is four years old and a regular chatter box. She’s super cute and has tons of energy. She’s just really really talkative and always has been. We come to the section on emotions and after doing a vocabulary check, we moved onto grammar… or simply, a Q and A. (A is Adrienne… me…).

A: Are you happy?
Y: Yes!
A: Great! Okay, are you sad?
Y: No!
A: Good! Are you angry?
Y: No! (pauses) ママはいつもangryだけど… [But my mother is always angry]
A: (laughs)
Y: Yちゃんが大好きだからって [She says it's because she loves me]

Her mum was watching through the window and started laughing as well. It was pretty cute.

There were some really nice surprises too. A few kids I thought were maybe not ready to level up, were.
So we’re off to a new semester and so far, so good. We have a few new classes starting up, and the mix of kids in the classes has changed, making things definitely interesting.

I’m looking forward to the next couple of weeks as everyone gets settled.

Seriously, it can’t come fast enough.

A couple weekends ago we went to Hikone. I got really sick at the hotel. :/
So I’m doing all I can to make sure my digestive system doesn’t go haywire again.

I also hope the sakura are out in full bloom.

Instead of asking hey, is something up? What’s happening here?

People get all accusatory and annoyed. Sorry, but we have problems with aspects of the site, and hey, we’re people. We all have lives too.

We’re doing this for free and we don’t get paid.
But you’re right. You’re entitled to get what you want done exactly when you want it up there.
Never mind the fact that we all have other stuff to deal with. Family, boyfriends, friends to spend time with. Jobs to do. Errands to run and so on and so forth.

It’s nice that there are so many accepting, empathetic and forgiving human beings in the vk fandom.

How I love sarcasm.

My friends and the people I care about here are all okay, as am I.

A lot of people e-mailed, messaged or called to make sure I wasn’t hurt, which truly was both touching and appreciated. Luckily, I live in Nagoya and we weren’t super affected (physically) by what happened.

I was at work when the earthquake started, and honestly, I didn’t even notice it at first. I don’t usually realize they’re happening, but then I saw Meg hiding under the desk. Then she started saying there was an earthquake, and eventually, I could see the picture frames and desks shaking around us. We’re on the fourth floor so yes, the building swayed a bit. Fortunately it wasn’t enough to even knock anything down and even when I came home, things were exactly as I left them.

Just as it started one of our students came up, so Meg told him to hide under the table. He kept asking why, because I guess he too couldn’t feel it so much. She explained there was an earthquake, so then he kept asking why there was one… After other students and parents started to arrive, he stood near the door and made sure he told every single person that there had been an earthquake, haha.

As we felt it shaking, we knew it had to have been a big one where it originated, but it’s hard to even begin to imagine the scale that it actually reached.

Of course everyone has been talking about it, but things are pretty much back to normal here. The trains and buses never stopped running. It’s strange, because you see all the videos and photos on the news and internet, but I look out my window, and it’s just a bright, sunny day. Not that I’m complaining, but it’s really hard to imagine that all the disaster that’s happening is so close.

It’s hard to find something appropriate to say, but of course I wish the best for everyone who has been affected.