Yesterday, one of our students told us a cute little piece of information. He goes to school with two of the kids I teach, S and H. It turns out that S has quite a crush on H… haha. But it’s a ZOMG BIG SECRET so we can’t tell anyone.

It’s pretty cute though.
And the boy who told us, is hilarious. He stays like half an hour after class is over, just to hang out and talk, haha.

There’s another another boy, who has a crush on one of the girls in his class. One day she came in saying how she had a date, and he was all huffy, saying things like, ‘You’re too young to date!’ ‘That’s so stupid!’. They’re only seven, so it’s nothing serious, but it was pretty funny.

Oh, there’s also M. Who used to give me a really hard time, but lately is being awesome. She was so good in class on Saturday, so I made sure to tell her mum what a good job she did. Her mum was really happy, so she was like YAY WAY TO GOOO and that made M super happy as well. So hopefully we’ll continue down this path of awesomeness. She would also like to go drink tea with another little boy who takes English lessons with us. They are six.

In other school related news, one of my classes now says ‘awesome’, because I say ‘awesome’ all the time. They are four and five. It’s… for lack of a better word, awesome.

I also have a little one, who’s two, who now knows the word ‘no’. Her mother probably hates me, because she frequently says, NONONONONOONONONONO. She’s super cute though, and sounds like Pengu — and I mean that in a good way. She’s just two, so you can’t expect her to have amazing language skills at this point, haha.

This past week was a really good week at school. My classes went really well, for the most part. Oh, and I learned from JW (who is seriously adorable, he’s a chubby little boy who’s just super genki) that if you don’t eat carrots, you can’t make it into first grade.

I have one class on Thursday that’s all boys. It’s one of the most fun classes to teach, because they’re a great group of kids who are really funny and just like to have a good time. The only downside is that they do speak a lot of Japanese in class, when they’re not supposed to. They also know they’re not supposed to.

So, when they start speaking a lot (asking questions to better understand is one thing, but F especially just chatschatschats in Japanese… or English…. he just talks a lot in general. Awesome kid, though), I remind them that it’s ‘English time’. Every time I go, ‘It’s English time!’ They all go, ‘ENGLISH TIME!’. I have a class (again of all boys, and again really fun because they get along well and joke a lot) on Saturday who does the same thing.

But in the Thursday class, it’s too much, so it gets to be a problem. No one likes having their name on the board, and I don’t want them to thing speaking Japanese is bad, I just want them to know that it’s time to practice English. So we’ve made a little game. Everyone gets their name on the board at the beginning of class, and everytime they speak and exessive amount of Japanese (and not being a legitimate question) they get a strike. It’s three strikes and you’re out, but no one’s gotten that many yet.

It’s funny, because they like to call each other out. So if it’s like two words, you get their other classmates going, ‘JAPANESE! JAPANESE! JAPANESE!’. The one who spoke in Japanese, usually goes, ‘NONONONONONONONONONNONO’. And sometimes they decide to tell me that they were speaking Chinese instead (which clearly it’s not, because I understand Japanese and I don’t understand Chinese -_-).

Anyways. It’s fun. That’s the main point behind that.

Next week is Halloween, and I’m still trying to decide what to wear for a costume.

Apparently, today in one of the classes I don’t teach, one of the kids was looking at the book ‘Emma’. You know, by Jane Austen.

It’s a kids version, more or less.

On the cover, is a blonde girl (obviously Emma) dressed in white with white flowers in her hair.

According to one of the kids at school, the book is about 「エイドリエン先生の結婚式」… Adrienne-sensei’s Wedding.

I don’t think I can offer any other comment, haha. It was cute.

I’ve been watching Trivial Pursuit, and for some reason it always makes me think of Kat and this quote from How I met Your Mother:

Robin: We [Canada] may not have a fancy NFL team, or Prince, but we invented Trivial Pursuit! You’re welcome, Earth!

… and he seemed like a very nice man. I mean, he pleasant and nice, but I found myself wanting to hit my head against the counter a few times. M for me, H for him.

So here are some snippets of the conversation. A lot of these are actually pretty typical questions, but for some reason, they surprise me every time. I guess, I figure that if you’re going on vacation, you’d do a little research about the place first, but I know that for most people, that’s not the case at all. But like I said he was a nice guy so don’t take this as I’m complaining about it. I just thought it was amusing.

H: Can I have a site where I can see the Falls?
M: … no, we’re not that close.
H: *Obvious disappointment* Oh. Well, are there any campgrounds where you can see the Falls?
M: No. Only hotels.
H: Can you hear the Falls?
M: Not really, no.

*We were talking about the park, and then he asks this*
H: So, can I just go to it anytime I want?
M: Well, we have a security gate, but when you check in we’ll give you -
H: No, I mean the Falls.
M: Oh, sorry. I thought you meant the park. Yes, you can go whenever you want. You don’t have to pay to see them. You can drive by, or park and get out to view them.
H: So I can just pull over, and watch the sunset?
M: O_O No… you’d have to park and go along the sidewalk that follows the river.

And a note on this one, it gets pretty busy down there. So I’m sure you can imagine that if people just started pulling over to watch the sunset, you would get a lot of angry drivers. Sometimes you can hardly move to begin with, so having someone pulled over would make it that much worse.

H: ARE THERE ANY BEARS THERE?
M: In the park? No… there aren’t any bears around here. Just our mascot. You don’t have to worry.
H: Oh I’m not worried, I just wanted to know if I’d see some wilderness.

Once again, we are in a city. You have to go a few hours up north to start seeing bears. Unless one escapes from the Zoo again.

H: Can I go hiking near the Falls?
M: e_e No. But there are hiking trails in the Gorge, just up the river from the Falls.
H: Oh. Can I fish?
M: Yes, you can fish in the Gorge, or in the river behind our park.
H: Do I need a boat?
M: To fish?
H: Yes.
M: No?
H: Can I go boating?
M: Not near the Falls. There’s a huge whirlpool. You would get sucked in and die.
H:  *Laughs* Well, that wouldn’t be a very good vacation!
M: No… no it wouldn’t.

H: So like, can we make a bonfire?
M: Yeah, of course! We sell wood in our store. You can’t bring it across the border, they’ll make you toss it.
H: Oh I see. Can we go foraging for wood?
M: Foraging for wood? (I repeated it because I was kind of surprised, Nicole heard me and doubled over in laughter in the kitchen, which made it hard for me to contan my laughter)
H: Yes.
M: No.
H: Oh. I have to buy it?
M: Yes.

So, here’s a little note on this one. This is not the first time we’ve been asked this (but we don’t get it often, because a lot of people have some common sense). If we let everyone staying at the park forage for firewood, do you really think we’d have trees left? They don’t grow that fast and to make a bonfire, you’d need a good amount of wood.

I actually like customers like this, because he was fun and had a sense of humour. Yes, a lot of the questions could have easily been answered by merely looking at a photo or map of the area, but he wasn’t rude about it and he believed me (not that I lied, but you get some customers who keep asking you because they don’t like your answer).

I forgot to say to all Jamrock employees, I GOT A MESSAGE FROM LUKE. They are returning for about two weeks at the end of July on their favourite site. Hahaha. I love that guy.

So this morning, my Grammy calls and asks if I want to go to dinner with my cousin, aunt, uncle, Grampy and her at the revolving dining room in the Skylon (in Niagara Falls).

I say, sure. Why not. It’s my day off, and I haven’t been there for years. My Grammy used to take us sometimes when we were younger, usually when my two older cousins came down to visit (they live just up near Toronto). But other than that, I’d never have a reason to go. I found this video on YouTube about it. This is not me talking. I just found it, and thought it was appropriate for those who don’t know about it.

Anyways, we had a nice dinner. My Uncle had these cards (that locals get? I guess?) so you get like $20 off per meal, which includes one appetizer, a main course and desert (the desert is split between two people). So that was pretty good. I had Chicken Cordon Bleu, and it was good! I’ve never had it before, but hey, there’s chicken and some ham… can’t really go wrong. Unfortunately the only vegetables I could eat were the potatoes, since carrots are the spawn of Satan and I can’t eat broccoli, which was weird because I feel odd if I have quite a larger portion meat than vegetables at dinner…

So yes, dinner was nice and it was a lot of fun. They had the lights on the Falls (as usual) and my Aunt and I got into a debate about what colour they were which turned pretty ridiculous. (I swear they were yellow-ish green at some point, but no one seems to have seen that… and then when they were white, she was calling them “pinky-blue”, haha). Grampy was pretty good too; he got this new leather jacket which he apparently just loves, so he wore that. This is kind of gross, but Tyler was sitting at the edge, near the window. The windows don’t rotate, and his leg was against the side. He looks down, and notices his pants have this huge green line of dirt from the side of the windows and rotating. It was like, all rubbing off on his pants. e_e

But the best part.

Was our waiter.

He was nice, and took off the 3% tourist tax when he found out we were somewhat local. And it never occurred to me who he was, but he was talking to my Uncle about hockey (my Uncle plays in like, an older guys league for fun). And the waiter asks if my Uncle knows Dave.

He’s like, yeah! I know him. I overhear this, and I was like… DAVE IS MY BOSS.

Then the waiter goes, DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE MY VOICE!?

I thought for a minute, and then it hit me.

BUDDY DAN. (And I actually said that to him).

Then he told me about how he always calls and stuff, and I was like oh I know. I answer the phone a good portion of the time when you call! It seriously made me laugh. I feel like somewhere in the back of my mind I knew he worked there, but it never really registered.

The back story, for all non-campground employees, is that Dave has this friend Dan who calls us at varied times throughout the summer, asking of Dave’s around. Most of the time, he isn’t because he’s out doing whatever needs to be done at the park. But Dan’s catch phrase is, “Hi, this is Dave’s buddy Dan!” or he’ll say, “Okay, can you just tell him buddy Dan called?”

So we naturally refer to him as BUDDY DAN.

On an unrelated note, they had a real pianist there which was so cool. I loved the arrangements of his Christmas music! It was kind of blusey, jazzy, ragtimeish… depending on the song of course. I’d love to get my hands on it, but I didn’t have the courage to actually go over and ask who did the arrangements.

So I just was looking at the S-T stats, and it read: 2666.

Which of course, made me laugh.

And then I was wondering, who got 1666 this year? I’ll have to check when I get to work tomorrow.

Mr. A also has decided that he’s going to convert the rec hall into a place for me to live so that I don’t have to go to Japan. Seeing as his other ploys didn’t work out, I wonder how this one is going to fair. You gotta give it to him though, Mr. A is pretty awesome.

“I JUST GOT SOME SPANISH GUY CALLING ME ON MY JESUS PHONE!”
“What did you do? Did you just hang up on them?”
“Yes.”

Hahahahahahahahaha.

I should probably mention he was holding up his cell phone as he was saying this.

I am getting a cold.

I can feel it… my throat is getting all dry and sore and no amount of liquid has made it feel better.

I AM NOT IN THE MOOD TO CATCH A COLD.

Although I guess you never really are.

.
.
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Admitedly, wearing flip flops to work when it was cold out (today) probably wasn’t my brightest idea.
But I don’t want to give innnn and I want to keep wearing them.

It’s like the other day. My boss was going, ‘IT’S COOOLLD. IT’S COOOLLLD’, yet he was wearing shorts.
So I said, ‘…. why are you wearing shorts if you’re cold!?’
And he replied, ‘BECAUSE I WON’T GIVE IN TO IT!’

Hahahaha.

Ahh, I’m thirsty, but too warm to actually get out of bed to get a drink.

“I don’t like it when pasta talks”.

A: DAVE! If you ever want to go camping in Poland, these people left their brochure!
D: Oooh!
A: They stayed here, and they own a campground there. So they gave this to us.
D: *takes brochure* Ooh. THEY EVEN HAVE FISH THERE! THEY HAVE FISHING.
A: Yeah! It looks nice. AND THEY LEFT US A KEYCHAIN.
D: It’s nice! Did you show my father?
A: No, not yet.

Okay, so this probably isn’t half as funny if you don’t know my boss, but for those that do I’m sure you can appreciate the conversation.