it's ofishial

i'm allergic to tuna. why did it take me 24 years to figure this out? well, according to the internet, the stuff in tuna that everyone's allergic to is removed in the canning process. mark and tuna will never co-exist peacefully...unless of course it's canned first. my huge outbreak that i blogged about a few months back lasted about 3 weeks, so last night i was kinda worried. either my body developed a little resistance to tuna's effects or all the chocolate and water i drank in my despair last night killed it. i'm fine now. i was anticipating another 3 weeks of unsexiness. and yes...when i am depressed i drink water. i also drink water when i'm happy, just not as much.

I bought chicken nuggets from the store.

I just re-read my last few blogs, and there are some changes I would like to make. Not grammatical through. OK, the two PB jars were half empty a few days ago. Today they are half full. That is because I have 3 weeks of vacation starting about 1 hour ago. I will do fun things. I am not sure what, but I hope they are fuh fuh fuh funner than being an English teacher. Also, not only did the Thai noodles ruin my sweatshirt, but they also ruined my stomach resulting in my first sick day ever. I could have actually gone to work and been fine, but I was up until about 5am being sick so I just couldn't be bothered with anything. It was Christmas too, and what better way to celebrate Christmas than by not going to work! Yah for Mark's first ever sick day! I felt kinda bad when I called in, like I was cheating the system or something. Of course I lose money and I will probably regret it the next time I'm broke, or when my wife wants a diamond ring instead of a key ring...or the kids want health insurance...ahhhh. Well too bad for them, because I stayed home on Christmas.

My life's metaphor

Last night I spilled ramen juice on my sweatshirt. I thought maybe it would just dry up and be gone...but no. It appears that it is going to be a permanent oil stain. This new stain, along with a huge one that makes me look like I fell asleep in a puddle, have made me do some serious thinking about my sweatshirt's life. It's old, tattered, stained and frayed. We have been through a lot together. Two different universities, my drivers license and student ID, countless cold days....the list could go on and on. It's kinda like an adult blankie, except it has more uses. If you ever remember seeing me during any non-summer months, I was probably wearing it. When I began writing this blog about two minutes ago I was sad, but as I think back on the past 6 1/2 years of my life, I can't think of anything it's done for me. In fact, I feel kind of cold towards it (haha). I brought it around the world, I washed it like once a year, and I fed it ramen juice. What did it ever do for me? Did it make me popular, help me meet girls, or even keep me warm on the coldest of nights? NO! I think the reason I am sick right now is because my sweatshirt failed me. I am buying a new one someday. I want an Abercrombie one.

Also today I pulled down a kid's pants. It wasn't in a violent child molester way - but more of a sit down kinda way. That probably doesn't make any sense. The rest of the class was sitting in a circle and he was prancing around me trying to entertain the rest of the class with his childish antics. In my subtle attempt to get him to sit down I gave his shorts a little tug and.....well, he didn't think he was "Mr. Cool" after the rest of the class saw him in his undies. The class was just cracking up. I guess it's a good thing that he didn't cry.

Also, I am going to stop ignoring the voices in my head...if you know what I mean.

sin chibi

It's almost Christmas!!! I will celebrate by....going to work and coughing a lot. Recently my body has decided that the best thing to do all day is cough. So that's what I do. Today I coughed for like 60 seconds straight...and not just normal girly coughs, but like launch my germs into the next room coughs. It was kinda embarrasing since after all - I was in the middle of teaching. But oh well. I could cough at home or cough and get paid. People always say "no news is good news!" I am not sure if they are serious when they say it - well maybe if it is regarding a bad situation...but hopefully not their life. To me, most news is good news (not CNN). Because it means that something happened. I am really not sure what I am talking about or why. But my throat still hurts and my Thai Noodles are almost ready. I have two big jugs of peanut butter. They are both half empty. The reason for this is when the first one was half empty I decided it was too difficult to get more PB out and I got sick of getting it on my knuckles. So I just opened up the second jug.

Haha, I just accidentally dropped the sauce packet into the boiling water with my noodles, then I fished it out with the spatula that I used for pancakes yesterday. Today I didn't have to teach the little munchkins because I guess one of the parents complained! YES! So in other words, by sucking, my job got easier. I am not sure if this blog is making much sense. Usually when I blog, I have some sort of topic, but today i just sat down and started writing. This is kinda what my research papers were like my freshmen and soph years (of college not HS).

To get to the other side!

Today I asked this guy about his week or family or something. Either way, while he was babbling on about who knows what, I thought of a cool joke. It goes something like this:

What did Shizuka say to her boyfriend when he gave her coupons for the Noodle Shop?

Answer: How RAMENTIC!!!!!

I've only thought up a few jokes while students talk me to death...but I think this one's my best.

The Japan Times

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday the partial lifting of its four-year-old import ban on Japanese beef, while welcoming Tokyo's decision the previous day to resume imports of U.S. beef after a two-year ban."

Great. So both countries ended bans on the other's beef. So now Japan can buy beef from America and America can buy beef from Japan. I have been fortunate enough to eat beef from the US and from Japan - and to be honest - they taste the same. I'm sure there is a very logical explanation, but for the sake of simplicity, why don't both countries just re-ban it?

And the award goes toooo.............

Minnesota. According to the strib, MN is the healthiest state again!! Yes!! I haven't been there in over a year, but other than gain ten pounds and get a serious rash - my health hasn't changed much. Maybe it really is the healthiest state, but I still can't help but find this funny:

"Minnesota held onto its spot as the healthiest state for a third year in a row in a nationwide ranking.....from United Health Foundation, based in Minnetonka."

And only 9 percent of kids live in poverty. Crazy.

ESL old lady

I think I mentioned it in an earlier post - but just incase - there are a couple kinds of ESL funnies. When a student tries to be funny, makes a strange mistake or when their personality is just wacko. So today I had this cute old lady telling me some story about who knows what?@!? She was a wacko - a cute old one.

We were talking about how the Yen is worth so little right now... she went on to tell me how it used to be worth way less back in the day... "when the Americans visited Japan" (I am only about %90 sure that she was talking about WWII). Then "my dog brought good food to his girlfriend's house." "He did a sorry style." I have no clue at all where that came from or why she said it. But to finish off, she asked if one of my parents was J, I told her it was on my mom's side and she said "I'm sorry." Again, no explanation and I can't even figure out what she meant. But it was funny.

In other news, last night was the first night in my life that i've ever just left the trash in because i was too lazy to take it out. Usually it's because i forget...but i just couldn't be bothered. So a few more days of rotting chicken fat in hanging above my sink. Oh well, since it's about 40F in my room it shouldn't start to smell for awhile.

A couple quotes

From the "personality" lesson...where I try to get students to talk about different personalities. So I start with "tell your partner about your best friend" - hoping they will say something like "he's nice" or "funny."

Student 1: Do you have a best friend?
Student 2: Yes, I have many best friends!

Later on in the day...a student trying to explain to me that he's not a vegetarian because he was raised eating meat: "I was raised by animals."

Teaching English etc.

Today I was doing a lesson on the "water cycle" with 3 students. It shows a picture of the trees, a lake, rain the sky/clouds etc. The students learn new vocabulary like condensation and evaporation etc. They are suppposed to practice using language like - first, then, because of, as a result etc. to describe how water goes from rain, to a lake and then back to clouds...hence the "water cycle" title. The second page has a picture of the same diagram except it also has a factory, cars and dead trees. The discussion is as follows:

Me: So, looking at this picture, work together and describe how normal rain becomes acid rain.

Student 1: Well, when sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and hydro-chloride react with the rain and the PH is under 7, you have acid rain.

Student 2: .......
Student 3: .......
Me: .......OK! Good work class.

I hate kangaroos

Well day two of my diet didn't go so well. I forgot my lunch at home...so I ate at maccas. Eating there is bad when you're not on a diet. I stepped on the scale today and it was exactly the same as yesterday.

Tmrw I have to teach "chibis." I guess that is what they call kids from the age of birth to the point when they speak their first word in their native tongue. How my evil employer ever managed to convince people to bring their little tots into English language lessons when they don't speak Japanese is beyond me. I bet it was from some person telling them that children learn language better when they are younger. I, however, completely disagree with this. While I have not read about it, studied it, or even dealt with it first hand..I have studied another language and it was pretty hard. I can't imagine it would be any easier for a 6 month old. To me this is an excuse used by adults to avoid learning another language. "Oh, I wish I would have learned it when I was 5, it would have been so easy." "Now that I am old and have all these dictionaries and grammar books it's just impossible!"

To me the reason people find it so difficult is usually because they are afraid to make a fool of themselves. They don't want to make mistakes or say something only to find out later that they sounded like a perv. Of course there are also the obvious reasons like studying for 1 hour a week etc. I'm sure if parents only talked to their kid for 15 min a day they probably wouldn't learn the language too quick either. I mean cmon...little American kids aren't learning real English anyway. Whenever people speak to them they speak like idiots, they add "y" onto the end of everything. I think I should open a language school designed to teach E in that method. That would be retardedy wardedy.

I just came up with that theory (I'm sure I'm not the first) all because I don't want to.....

"jump like a monkey, jump jump jump
hop like a kangaroo hop hop hop
sing like a something sing sing sing"

Yes, I will be singing that in about 12 hours, I don't even know the words. wish me lucky ducky.

Pet peeves

There are a few things in life that really bother me. While the list is not complete, these are the things that are bothering me at the moment:

That I have to shave everyday before work. I just hate it.
That I have to work everyday after I shave. I hate that too.

Well, that is all I can think of at the moment. I could just quit and not shave. But what would society think of me then?

And in sad news...81.4 kgs. I am not sure how much that is in lbs, I am afraid to look. Well, starting five minutes ago, I am on a diet. That was my pm weigh in and I will do it again Jan 1st - pm.