Kids say the weirdest things
Feb. 7th, 2007 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flonnebonneSo, like, I guess I should talk about all the crazy shenanigans that go on in a Japanese junior high school (grades 7-9), as I'm sure you're all dying to know about my sordid little life. My school is actually not too weird, compared to other stories I've heard about schools in which incessant kancho-ing and setting people on fire are common ways of saying hello.
But still, my school is in Japan.
I've been keeping a big list of any weird things my students do (when I can remember to write it down), things both naughty and nice. The list gets weirder as you go along. I've noted who did what and what class they're from too, if I could remember it, mostly for my own benefit and for you,usagivindaloo.
Naughty (or just weird)...
-Takuma ("a big baby" according to his homeroom teacher) was lying across the hallway so that other students had to step over him (3-4)
-dragged around a clothespin on a string and called it his pet (was this Takuma again?)
-whenever I ask Satoshi to do something, he usually says in a cheerful voice, "No! No! I'm tired!" and then he goes and does whatever I asked him to do (3-3)
-Yuuta: "Do you know how to use a Death Note?" (3-4, during grammar practice)
-someone showed me a black notebook and told me it was a Death Note, then pretended to write down names
-when I said "missile" and pantomimed a missile firing (we were playing Battleship), misinterpreted it as "miso" and laughed his head off about it with his friends until I could get Ms. Morito over there to help explain (Daiki?)
-the bad boys of 3-5 cut up a worksheet with the teachers' faces on it and started pasting the pictures on the wall and writing weird labels on them (which I couldn't read)
-Taiki: "Mr. Entsu is drug. Drug!" (3-5)
-Mika: tried to rearrange the sticky tabs in my textbook without me looking. Failed. (3-2)
-Itsuki and co. stuck tape on the back of my shirt (3-2)
-Itsuki: "Mambagi?" and other nonsense words that are neither Japanese nor English. Sometimes I really hate that boy. (3-2)
-Itsuki: "Penis! Vagina! Pussy!" (3-2)
-I sometimes see boys playing with each others' hair, putting clips in each others' hair, playing footsie, sitting in each other's laps, buffing their nails
-during the school festival, after the serious choral singing segment there was a band segment. A bunch of students got up on stage and starting rocking out really, really badly. They were led by the student body president, who is quite possibly the worst singer I've ever heard. The rest of the students ran to the stage and stood up on chairs to cheer them on.
-during a volleyball game, Momoko ran right into some metal folding chairs in order to return a ball, tumbled over, then immediately ran back on court because the ball was still in play. Her team won the point, if not the game. (2-4)
-oh man, the cheers they do during games are really weird. They're all memorized and rehearsed and synchronized and stuff. Example： "Mo chiki chiki chiki chiki mo ippon yay!"
-"Yesterday was KimuTaku's birthday, so Happy Birthday, Morito-sensei!" (Ms. Morito really likes Kimura Takuya and the kids constantly tease her about it) (3-5)
-The bad boys of 3-5 were storing dried old bread on top of a cupboard, probably hoping for mold to grow
-Yuu, practicing for the speech contest in front of me and another teacher: "Chikusho!" (3-3)
-"I saw you with your boyfriend!" "I saw you with your boyfriend!" "I saw you with your boyfriend!" (after my town's Holland festival, when I was seen walking around with some male JET friends. I still hear about this, four months later)
-"Don't mind! Don't mind!" (they really do say this all the time, it's not just in anime)
-Practiced giving each other the finger during class. Even used the curtains on the windows to create a silhouette effect. (third year)
-kindergarten boys: "Good choice!" in response to me saying, "Good job!" (I have no idea why they were saying this, but it was awfully cute)
-When Mr. Shikai asked, "Do you know who Lilo is?" a boy answered, "Youkai." (first year) (Lilo is from Lilo and Stich, btw)
-"What is a food made from milk?" "Cow." (third year)
-Writing assignment about what kind of bedroom they want: "There is a tennis racket on the floor. There are comic books on the desk. There is a boyfriend in my room." (second year)
-Taiki and another boy doing a phone conversation on Ms. Morito's Anpanman phone: "Hello, this is Mike." "Go to hell." "Thank you, Mrs. Brown." "You're welcome, go to hell." (3-5)
-Smart boy who refuses to tell me his real name: "Do you know sexual intercourse? I like it very much. I have some free time. Would you like to play sexual intercourse with me?" (3-2) (well, at least he said it in English)
-"Do you like pussy?" (the boys of 3-2 again, sigh)
Christmas Cards!
-the second years drew beautiful, cute, colourful, NORMAL cards, mostly for their parents
-the third years drew weird, weird abominations, mostly for their friends
-"Dear Yuta mama, You can kill Yuta. Masaya." (3-1, wrong names)
-"Dear Masaya mama, You can kill Masaya. Yuta." (3-1, wrong names)
-Masaru pasted a picture of some random person he couldn't identify on his card (3-3)
-3-3, the friendliest class, wrote "I love you!" a lot for their friends (Aw.)
-drew santa killing rudolph with a bat, blood dripping (3-4, the most normal class)
-"Merry Christmas! I can always kill you." (3-4, the most normal class)
-gravestones, etc. (3-4)
-"Dear Abe, you are good politics, but you have to think about environment. Etc." (Abe is the Prime
Minister) Pasted in a photo of Abe with some random guy he couldn't identify (3-3)
-Masaya: "Dear Takuya Kimura, You should talk to my teacher. Because she think you are very
cool" (3-4)
-"Natto cake is delicious!" (Taiki, 3-5)
-an all black card (3-5)
-"I want presents! Please come to my house, Santa-san" (3-5, I helped with the grammar)
-pasted pretty shiny ribbons and leaves into their cards (two boys in 3-5)
-the yankee boys of 3-5 were skipping class that day, otherwise there'd be more weirdness
-3-2 was disappointingly normal, if misbehaved. Just a couple of KimuTaku cards is all.
-Natsumi Tsumuraya: "Merry Christmas! I think Christmas is enjoy. Let's enjoy Christmas! I want a lot
of money for Christmas. But I won't hold my breath." (2-3?)
-Taiki: after making that natto cake card he keeps talking about natto cake. He told me that he (not his mom) made a sponge cake with natto filling and natto mixed into the icing and natto decorations on top. I think he's lying.
-"I have met Kimura Takuya. I have met SMAP. I have played baseball with Kimura Takuya. I have lived in Kimura Takuya's home" (3-2, when asked to write boasts using "I have done such and such")
-Someone in 3-5 put up a SOS Club symbol (from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi) on the wall. When I caught some students throwing paper balls at each other, they pointed at the SOS sign and blamed it for their bad behavior. I suspect Taiki might have put the symbol up.
-Words that came up when we were playing shiritori on the blackboard: "Evangelion," "Evangeline," and "thinger." Actually, "thinger" came up twice because another group copied the first group (third year class)
-boys sitting on each other and pretending to have lap sex (yes, I'm serious) (3-3)
-Kai and Ayaka doing a telephone conversation: "Are you free on tomorrow? Let's steal a lot of money from a bank" "Yes, I'm free. What time?" "How about midnight?" "OK. See you then. Goodbye." "Bye." (1-4)
-Me: "There was a boy who went to Canada for homestay--"
Keishi: "Your boyfriend?"
Me: "No, a small boy."
Keishi: "Your small boyfriend?"
Me: "No. (I finish the story)"
Keishi: "Your husband?"
Me: "No!"
(The bell rings)
Me: "Goodbye, class."
Keishi: "Goodbye, MRS. Stephanie." (3-3)
(Keishi was a lot easier to handle when he sat in the back row rather than the front)
...and Nice
-one of my first year students is named Genki, and he is indeed genki (energetic). One of the things he makes a point of doing is telling me that he likes chicken whenever we have it for lunch. "I like chicken. Chicken is saikyo! (strongest!)"
-Karen: "Was it difficult for you to become a teacher?" (3-3, when we were studying "Is it difficult for you to play tennis" type sentences. That is just kick-ass grammar.)
-Shouko braided a bracelet for me out of embroidery thread (3-5)
-Maya made me a small violet-coloured rose out of ribbon and fabric, as well as a cell phone dangly thing out of beads (3-1)
-a few students, including Maya's sister Natsumi, made me Christmas cards.
-before class, a couple of students usually come to the staff room and offer to carry my stuff up for me.
-the kindergarteners gave me origami animals (er, I think that's what they were) and a couple of other things, including a film canister for some reason.
-a lot of the girls giggle like crazy even when they're just saying hello to me.
In general, the students are very sweet and...um, interesting. Yeah, we'll say interesting. My level of Japanese is laughable so I can't have any in-depth conversations with them, but I can sense that The Force is strong within them. The Force of weirdness. Yes.
But still, my school is in Japan.
I've been keeping a big list of any weird things my students do (when I can remember to write it down), things both naughty and nice. The list gets weirder as you go along. I've noted who did what and what class they're from too, if I could remember it, mostly for my own benefit and for you,
usagivindaloo.Naughty (or just weird)...
-Takuma ("a big baby" according to his homeroom teacher) was lying across the hallway so that other students had to step over him (3-4)
-dragged around a clothespin on a string and called it his pet (was this Takuma again?)
-whenever I ask Satoshi to do something, he usually says in a cheerful voice, "No! No! I'm tired!" and then he goes and does whatever I asked him to do (3-3)
-Yuuta: "Do you know how to use a Death Note?" (3-4, during grammar practice)
-someone showed me a black notebook and told me it was a Death Note, then pretended to write down names
-when I said "missile" and pantomimed a missile firing (we were playing Battleship), misinterpreted it as "miso" and laughed his head off about it with his friends until I could get Ms. Morito over there to help explain (Daiki?)
-the bad boys of 3-5 cut up a worksheet with the teachers' faces on it and started pasting the pictures on the wall and writing weird labels on them (which I couldn't read)
-Taiki: "Mr. Entsu is drug. Drug!" (3-5)
-Mika: tried to rearrange the sticky tabs in my textbook without me looking. Failed. (3-2)
-Itsuki and co. stuck tape on the back of my shirt (3-2)
-Itsuki: "Mambagi?" and other nonsense words that are neither Japanese nor English. Sometimes I really hate that boy. (3-2)
-Itsuki: "Penis! Vagina! Pussy!" (3-2)
-I sometimes see boys playing with each others' hair, putting clips in each others' hair, playing footsie, sitting in each other's laps, buffing their nails
-during the school festival, after the serious choral singing segment there was a band segment. A bunch of students got up on stage and starting rocking out really, really badly. They were led by the student body president, who is quite possibly the worst singer I've ever heard. The rest of the students ran to the stage and stood up on chairs to cheer them on.
-during a volleyball game, Momoko ran right into some metal folding chairs in order to return a ball, tumbled over, then immediately ran back on court because the ball was still in play. Her team won the point, if not the game. (2-4)
-oh man, the cheers they do during games are really weird. They're all memorized and rehearsed and synchronized and stuff. Example： "Mo chiki chiki chiki chiki mo ippon yay!"
-"Yesterday was KimuTaku's birthday, so Happy Birthday, Morito-sensei!" (Ms. Morito really likes Kimura Takuya and the kids constantly tease her about it) (3-5)
-The bad boys of 3-5 were storing dried old bread on top of a cupboard, probably hoping for mold to grow
-Yuu, practicing for the speech contest in front of me and another teacher: "Chikusho!" (3-3)
-"I saw you with your boyfriend!" "I saw you with your boyfriend!" "I saw you with your boyfriend!" (after my town's Holland festival, when I was seen walking around with some male JET friends. I still hear about this, four months later)
-"Don't mind! Don't mind!" (they really do say this all the time, it's not just in anime)
-Practiced giving each other the finger during class. Even used the curtains on the windows to create a silhouette effect. (third year)
-kindergarten boys: "Good choice!" in response to me saying, "Good job!" (I have no idea why they were saying this, but it was awfully cute)
-When Mr. Shikai asked, "Do you know who Lilo is?" a boy answered, "Youkai." (first year) (Lilo is from Lilo and Stich, btw)
-"What is a food made from milk?" "Cow." (third year)
-Writing assignment about what kind of bedroom they want: "There is a tennis racket on the floor. There are comic books on the desk. There is a boyfriend in my room." (second year)
-Taiki and another boy doing a phone conversation on Ms. Morito's Anpanman phone: "Hello, this is Mike." "Go to hell." "Thank you, Mrs. Brown." "You're welcome, go to hell." (3-5)
-Smart boy who refuses to tell me his real name: "Do you know sexual intercourse? I like it very much. I have some free time. Would you like to play sexual intercourse with me?" (3-2) (well, at least he said it in English)
-"Do you like pussy?" (the boys of 3-2 again, sigh)
Christmas Cards!
-the second years drew beautiful, cute, colourful, NORMAL cards, mostly for their parents
-the third years drew weird, weird abominations, mostly for their friends
-"Dear Yuta mama, You can kill Yuta. Masaya." (3-1, wrong names)
-"Dear Masaya mama, You can kill Masaya. Yuta." (3-1, wrong names)
-Masaru pasted a picture of some random person he couldn't identify on his card (3-3)
-3-3, the friendliest class, wrote "I love you!" a lot for their friends (Aw.)
-drew santa killing rudolph with a bat, blood dripping (3-4, the most normal class)
-"Merry Christmas! I can always kill you." (3-4, the most normal class)
-gravestones, etc. (3-4)
-"Dear Abe, you are good politics, but you have to think about environment. Etc." (Abe is the Prime
Minister) Pasted in a photo of Abe with some random guy he couldn't identify (3-3)
-Masaya: "Dear Takuya Kimura, You should talk to my teacher. Because she think you are very
cool" (3-4)
-"Natto cake is delicious!" (Taiki, 3-5)
-an all black card (3-5)
-"I want presents! Please come to my house, Santa-san" (3-5, I helped with the grammar)
-pasted pretty shiny ribbons and leaves into their cards (two boys in 3-5)
-the yankee boys of 3-5 were skipping class that day, otherwise there'd be more weirdness
-3-2 was disappointingly normal, if misbehaved. Just a couple of KimuTaku cards is all.
-Natsumi Tsumuraya: "Merry Christmas! I think Christmas is enjoy. Let's enjoy Christmas! I want a lot
of money for Christmas. But I won't hold my breath." (2-3?)
-Taiki: after making that natto cake card he keeps talking about natto cake. He told me that he (not his mom) made a sponge cake with natto filling and natto mixed into the icing and natto decorations on top. I think he's lying.
-"I have met Kimura Takuya. I have met SMAP. I have played baseball with Kimura Takuya. I have lived in Kimura Takuya's home" (3-2, when asked to write boasts using "I have done such and such")
-Someone in 3-5 put up a SOS Club symbol (from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi) on the wall. When I caught some students throwing paper balls at each other, they pointed at the SOS sign and blamed it for their bad behavior. I suspect Taiki might have put the symbol up.
-Words that came up when we were playing shiritori on the blackboard: "Evangelion," "Evangeline," and "thinger." Actually, "thinger" came up twice because another group copied the first group (third year class)
-boys sitting on each other and pretending to have lap sex (yes, I'm serious) (3-3)
-Kai and Ayaka doing a telephone conversation: "Are you free on tomorrow? Let's steal a lot of money from a bank" "Yes, I'm free. What time?" "How about midnight?" "OK. See you then. Goodbye." "Bye." (1-4)
-Me: "There was a boy who went to Canada for homestay--"
Keishi: "Your boyfriend?"
Me: "No, a small boy."
Keishi: "Your small boyfriend?"
Me: "No. (I finish the story)"
Keishi: "Your husband?"
Me: "No!"
(The bell rings)
Me: "Goodbye, class."
Keishi: "Goodbye, MRS. Stephanie." (3-3)
(Keishi was a lot easier to handle when he sat in the back row rather than the front)
...and Nice
-one of my first year students is named Genki, and he is indeed genki (energetic). One of the things he makes a point of doing is telling me that he likes chicken whenever we have it for lunch. "I like chicken. Chicken is saikyo! (strongest!)"
-Karen: "Was it difficult for you to become a teacher?" (3-3, when we were studying "Is it difficult for you to play tennis" type sentences. That is just kick-ass grammar.)
-Shouko braided a bracelet for me out of embroidery thread (3-5)
-Maya made me a small violet-coloured rose out of ribbon and fabric, as well as a cell phone dangly thing out of beads (3-1)
-a few students, including Maya's sister Natsumi, made me Christmas cards.
-before class, a couple of students usually come to the staff room and offer to carry my stuff up for me.
-the kindergarteners gave me origami animals (er, I think that's what they were) and a couple of other things, including a film canister for some reason.
-a lot of the girls giggle like crazy even when they're just saying hello to me.
In general, the students are very sweet and...um, interesting. Yeah, we'll say interesting. My level of Japanese is laughable so I can't have any in-depth conversations with them, but I can sense that The Force is strong within them. The Force of weirdness. Yes.
