Teaching in Japan: So today is Undoukai, which all the teachers keep affectionately calling "Supootsu Hestibaru" (Sports Festival) because they're trying to communicate with me in English. It's a little annoying because I actually know the term Undoukai, so sentences generally end up sounding like naninaninaninaninaninaninaniSPORTSFESTIVALnaninaninanimasuka?! or naninaninaninaninaniUNDOUKAInaninaninaninanimasuka?! either way, but at least if they had used Undoukai I would have gotten little credit for knowing at least -one- word.
It's not really that bad... My Japanese is fairly passable, but the speed at which they talk is still a bit daunting. Still, when they say it in Japanese once at full speed and I don't immediately get it, 90% of them give up or immediately start trying to say it in English (usually with confusing results...). Improvement is happening though! It's too bad no one in Japan actually talks like an anime character, I might understand more often...
>.>;;
Undoukai! It's like Field Day for those who don't know. Since I work at a particularly small school and due to my genetic advantage of having been born larger than any Japanese person could hope to be, I also will be participating in a number of extra events for adults (parents, teachers, some grandparents!). This is because the school is so small that -all- of the students participate in -every- event. Seriously, 51 total students and all of them are competing all day long, with their only breaks being when the adults go out on the field and do some relays or whatnot.
Still, it doesn't feel like much of a competition for me since my rivals will be all be around 40 or older. Ah, the aging population of Japan...
-Djinn
