クリスマスだよ！

Okay, so I plan excellent starting points for a Christmas lesson for next week, and I:m all prepared to finish out this week with regular lessons and go pick up Natalie in Okinawa Honto. So I clean a bit last night (okay, my dishes are still unwashed and I have to bleach the bathroom, and vacuum, but I got everything else put away or in nice orderly piles) and then sat down (or I started to while I was cleaning and then ran out of steam) and watched the first two parts of that SciFi special Tin Man. So I go to bed at a (somewhat) reasonable hours and have a horrible night's sleep (I:ve been sleeping badly lately, I:m wondering if it:s the heat, because while I was shivering under my 4 layers of blankets, I actually would pass out for hours as uppose to tossing and turning all night).

So, my alarm goes off and I go, oh yay, another day at Seijo and I won:t get to see them next week, which is too bad because it:s one of my favorite schools and Natalie won:t get to--wait, I won:t get to see them next week. That means They:ll MISS CHRISTMAS!!!!

This was no good. No good at all. So, in the 15 minutes that I had to leave the house after getting decent and all, and during the 30 minute ride to work, I make a Christmas lesson. Woot. It went like this:

1) Introduce Christmasy vocabulary while telling (what I know) of the story of the Original Nicholas. Vocabulary includes: Santa Claus, presents, toys, sled (I guess I could use sleigh, but sled is more universally useful and they mean the same thing, right? Sleigh is just fancier?) reindeer, elves, Christmas tree, snowman, bells.

2) We make dorum bells. Those origami bells that I learned how to make in the 4th grade (thank you Ms. Aubrecht). This went rather well, up until the 6th grade, who found it too hard and too easy all at the same time. It was rather difficult, and I think from now on I:ll use tape instead of glue (the kids just couldn:t get the hang of being gentle with them).

3) We play reindeer games. Not really. We do a huge vocabulary review. I devided the class into two teams and had each team pick one of the living things from today:s vocabulary. (Santa, snowman, reindeer, and elves in order of preference) Then they have to race to say the answer to my english question, who ever answers correctly first their person moves one step closer to the christmas tree I drew in chalk at the end of the classroom. Depending on how much time we had left after the bells, I:d make 5-7 lines on the board for steps, crossing sweeping hills of snow (two large squiggly lines) that the game piece (my flashcard with magnets on the back) will travel down. Then, as I asked the questions *who:s this? What is it? Etc* I:d show them the flashcard. It went well. Again, until 6th grade. But whatever. I had about 15 min to plan the lesson, what do you want from me?

So yeah, that went well. Now, I:m sitting here chatting to my parents who are up waaaay too late helping Natalie last minute pack and get everything together because she:ll be flighing out in about 10 hours. I:ll be flighing out to meet her in 28 hours.

In other, less happy news, the 5th grade teacher at Seijo (who has somewhat adopted me :D ) just invited me to Seijo:s New Year Party. It:s tomorrow night. So yeah, I:ll be in Naha. 残念, but what can you do? She said that she:ll definatly invite me to the next party though.

Speaking of Seijo and school. I realized that I haven:t given you all the culture lessons like I should be (or I have, and in my sleep deprived stupor (I did say I didn:t really sleep last night) I:ve just forgotten). Let:s talk about lunch.

I mean school lunch, or 給食　and how different kyuushoku is from american school lunch.

In America, everyone has their set time to show up at the lunch room (or shokudou　食堂) and then the lunch ladies serve you while you scream loudly to your neighbor, and when your class:s lunch time is done, then you go to whatever you have next, usually Teacher Supervised Outdoor Activity (ie: recess, although I loved the way that Mrs. Marsili put it). All good.

In Japan, everyone shows up to the shokudou after 4th period (unless they:re like Heiichi, where they don:t have a lunchroom right now due to renevations and they all eat in their classrooms). At the shokudou, today:s lunches have already been placed, sorted by grade, in large metal bins that the students take from the storage rooms and bring to the tables. There is a serving table, where the students line up and the students dish out the appropriet serving sizes into the appropriet bowls or dishes for everyone in the class. Then the students sit down at their tables and wait. Two students, usually 6th years, will come on the microphone at one end of the shokudou. They will say *静かにしてください* until everyone is silent. Then they will read off what is for lunch (which might be very specific, like curry rice, or very vauge, like today:s fruit, which turned out to be a fourth of an orange), say something that I can never understand, then tell everyone to put their hands together (a loud clap is heard), and then they tell us to enjoy the *delicious* kyushoku, which everyone then repeats *いただきます！* (itadakimasu, which litterally translates I accept or something like that, but it means thank you for the meal). Then everyone, at the same time, begins to eat.

After a set period of time, the same student will go back to the mic and ask everyone to raise their hand if they:re done eating (it doesn:t matter weither you:re done or not because time is up at that point), then they say for this delicious (although Sunagawa says interesting) lunch *ごちそうさまでした* (gochisousama deshita, litterally it was a feast), the last of which is repeated by Everyone, and then nothing is heard under the malestrom of chairs being put away (they actually have an extra shelf so that the stools can be slid under the table off of the floor to make sweeping easier) and kids talking as they take their dishes back to the surving tables, clean their plates, sort their garbage, and then head back to their classrooms for *cleaning time* (but I don:t think everyone does the cleaning, they rotate between jobs and days off).

I would also like to take this time to say that the kids clean the school. There is no janitor. This means that the bathrooms don:t get cleaned with anything stronger than soap, because the kids can:t be responsible for chemicals.

Cleaning time lasts as long as the kids take to do their job, then they have hiruyasumi　昼休み or afternoon break. Starting from the end of kyushoku, this can last for up to an hour and a half. Yeah, yay vacations.

Okay, I:m done for now. Until next time.