Adventures in Japan

Good Job!!

In the morning we all trundled off to see Osaka Castle. Carla and I waited outside whilst the boys paid the entrance fee and poked around. Then I went to work.

I feel bad about not being able to hang out with the fellers more but their visit is going to leave us poor enough as it is. Plus Nate ain't at his best anyhow. He's been needing naps on a daily basis. Poor guy.

Plus, the hours of commute kind of suck. But I get reimbursed for all travel expenses so I just look at them as paid naps. Plus sometimes teaching kids is way fun. Like today. I had to teach a two year old boy. I know! The Japanese start training their kids pretty young. I kinda agree with 'em though, young brains soak up knowledge like you wouldn't believe.

So my co-teacher warned me that this kid was a little shy and might be hard to teach. I say teach, but with two year old kids, you just play with them and speak English and get them used to how English is supposed to sound. I get paid to play with toys. We get to the lesson and the kid won't let go of his mom. He won't even play with any of his many cars or trucks. Just as he's about to cry I show him some pictures of Jerry's tractors and the like. He lets go of his mom and plops down next to me. He points at pictures and I tell them what they are, he repeats what I say. It's pretty cool. Then we play with his cars. As we're doing this, he tilts his head, leans back, puts his fist to his mouth and laughs like this: "Ooooh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!" There's a few seconds of stunned silence then me, the other teacher and his mom all start laughing our asses off.

Seeing this, the little kid stands and up runs around the room for a bit, in that way that only small children can: like a cross between a waddle and a seizure with that crinkly diaper sound. He then stopped in the middle of the room and proceeded to do a dance. Lots of twisting and arm swinging and leg kicking. After the dance he gave a double thumbs up and said, "Good job!"

I think I cried with laughter.

P.S. Happy birthday Carla's mom.