Making kids cry, half marathons, and diets

I made a kid cry today.

I don't feel bad about it at all.

Let me explain. I was teaching my small school, Miyahara today. I taught the 5th and 6th graders together for a wonderful experience of 8 kids in one class. It went really well. Then I taught the 3rd graders. We did Classroom supplies.

I started with pencil, because it's easily one of the most recognizable and used classroom supplies. One of the kid trying to be funny said pan-tsu instead. I can understand where he made the connection. Pen-sil, pan-tsu, but pantsu means underwear. I laughed with the rest of the kids the first time and corrected the class. Then when he kept saying it through the next 2 new words (I say the new word then go through the old ones as review as I walk to get the next flash card), I said, flat out, if you don't say it right we can't play the game. They corrected and everyone said it correctly throughout the rest of the vocab. Then I taught them What is it? (NO one remembered from last month what it meant. *sigh* I really want to see these kids more often) and I have a/an/nothing blank. (nothing goes in front of paper or scissors. plural) Then we played a game.

The game is a variant of the chip game and the janken game I've previously played. I give all of the kids 3 chips (with a normal sized class I give 5, there are only 5 3rd graders) and one vocabulary card. I made sure that they could each say their individual card correctly. Then they get up, run through the conversation twice, each person in a pair asking, then they janken (rock, paper, scissors, 1, 2, 3). The looser hands over a chip. When they run all out I make them come to me for a new one "one more, please" and do the conversation with me. Easy. My highest scorer has been 21 at the end of 10 minutes. Today's was 9.

The kid who was messing up the vocabulary originally, well, of course I gave him pencil. And he said it, but then wouldn't say the grammar. So I said, okay, do you want to play? and he said no. So I took his cards and chips and had everyone else start.

Yeah, tears pull at my heart strings. As hard as a fly can move the Great Wall of China. I wouldn't play his game, and he didn't get to play mine. Simple.

Halfway through the game I asked him again if he wanted to play and when he said it right I gave him his 3 chips and a card. It worked out well because I'd already moved around the class and corrected everyone else so they could help him when he didn't remember the grammar.

In other news. I've been taking long walks again now that it's not pouring (knock on wood). It's been drizzily the last few days, but the last 2 I've still gone out for an hour + walk each day. Yesterday was a full 1:20 and I got totally lost. Not really, I just didn't know where I was and only had a vague Idea of where I was going. I was worried the direction I thought was home wasn't because the roads might have curved, but I was good. And yes, I did have my cell and money on me in case I needed to call for help or catch a cab home. But really, it's only a 91 square mile island. Eventually I'd hit the ocean. Although that logic works so much better in a car.

I'm trying to get good enough to participate in a half marathon. I just have to walk 21km (or so) in 4 hours. If I can walk 5 in less than an hour it's just a matter of building up my endurance. This would be good for saying that I accomplished something, an achievable goal, and that I would have the endurance to out walk zombies. Just in case. Seeing how my knees are bad and I wouldn't be very good at out running them. Yeah, I've been keeping up with the post-apocalyptic workout (link not grandma safe). And no, it's not just about zombies, it's about any of the nightmare scenarios that hollywood has come up with. And in today's nuclear society, terror threat yellow, and working in public education, I thought it might be a good idea if I too was a little less slow and useless in such a scenario.

I've also started lifting weights. In the shower, where I'm not completely bored by it. My 25 fluid oz conditioner has been serving as a weight, but I think I'm gonna have to move it to my living room during tv, just because I've started doing core too, and that just doesn't fit in the shower.

And yeah, diet is going relatively well. I've lost about 2.5 kilo in about a week and a half. I've also noticed that if I just don't eat all of the rice and bread they give me, I'm USUALLY not still hungry after lunch, and it takes me until 5-6:30 to start to want dinner. Have a later night snack around 8 and I'm good to go. And keeping it all around 1200 cal (or at least, I think I am, still not sure what lunch is suppose to be, but I've been steadily loosing these past two school weeks, so no worries there). Unfortunately this does mean that yes, I am hungry right now, even though it's only 7:15 and normally people don't get to friday night pizza until after 8 or later, so yeah. If I get there too early, too bad. I'm hungry now. And people are crazy for wanting to eat after 10 anyway.