Busy. Busy. Busy.

This time of year is very busy at the junior high level, and I’ve been working weekends as of late. I say work, but mostly it’s just going to watch baseball, table tennis, kyudo, and track meets. Last weekend was a choral singing competition. My co-workers said it was called konkuru and were shocked to find out I didn't know the word; they'd assumed it was an English loanword. Upon doing a little research, I found out it's of French origin. I’m still not sure what it means though; I meant it when I said a little research.

Anyway, a student I coached won the town-wide English speech competition. She is going on to compete at the regional level. I would be prouder if it wasn’t for the fact that all three contestants were my students. I was a shoe-in as the winning coach, and I also happened to be the head judge. Next week the real competition begins. The bragging rights of no less than ten English teachers are on the line. Wish me luck.

Hmm… I guess wish my student luck, too.

When I haven’t been coaching students on their speeches, planning lessons for teachers too busy to plan their own, or sleeping, I’ve been playing with my Nintendo DS, usually around 3 hours a day.

Before you get on your high horse about video games, productivity and all that, I want to point out the game I am playing is called... actually, I’m not sure what the name is; I can’t read it yet, BUT that doesn’t matter. What matters is what it does. This game is a kanji trainer so that I can improve my reading and writing ability, and it's fantastic. My understanding of more complex kanji has skyrocketed.

Signs all over town are beginning to make sense. I understand I’m NOT supposed to touch that thing. Don't pull, push. I know the symbol 麦 means it's that nasty wheat tea that tastes like burnt popcorn so I don’t mistakenly drink it ever again. I know the sign on the cake in the staff fridge doesn’t say “Please don’t eat, property of Matsumoto-sensei” but “Help yourself, from Matsumoto-sensei.”

Comprehension is a wonderful and fattening thing.