A week in my life in Numbers (Jan 17-21)

Might be interesting... who knows!  It has to be more interesting than reading my usual train of thought blog entries. Interpret as you will.

MONDAY:
0 = classes I had today
2 = oreos I ate for breakfast
7 = days since I have been able to shower in my own apartment
4 = days until the kanken (kanji test...the one that kids here take to test their kanji abilities... I am taking the same level as elementary 3rd graders)
7 = consecutive days of snow
127 = my guess at how much snow has accumulated so far in 2011 (in cm)
15 = Kamen Rider Agito episodes I watched after school  (Kamen Rider = Masked Rider...so its a guy who can transform into a hero and he rides around and saves the day.  Kamen Rider has been on TV in Japan since the 70s, but I am working my way through the heisei era series, so ones from 1989~)
2 = times I shoveled snow today
2 = times I fell asleep at school today
5 = oreos I ate for dinner
3 = practice kanji tests I took today
1.77245 = the square root of pi

TUESDAY:
9 = hours of sleep I got last night (I am still tired)
3 = cups of coffee I had this morning
1 = classes I had today
1 = consecutive days with NO snow
3 = days until the kanken
2 = careless mistakes I made on the practice kanji test I took today.
15 = minutes it took me to get to school today due (usually its 5)
5 = minutes late I was to school (grr)
4 = times 3rd year boys fell on the floor and piled on top of each other trying to get a pen as we played a game similar to "spoons"
1 = days since I have had a working shower in my apartment (!!!!!)
1 = people who showed up unexpected this morning to fix the shower but had to be rescheduled because of the whole "unexpected" thing.
1 = times I heard my Vice Principal transfer a call to the nurse and tell her "It is a call from the flu."
3 = drips of curry I found on my pants after lunch... LAME
17 = days until I have to make a very important decision
1 = bits of good news I received that will greatly influence said decision
3 = granny squares I finished crocheting today
0 = snow accumulation for today (thank GOD)
61 = year I was born in the Showa Era (funny Japan calendar and way of keeping track of time... )

WEDNESDAY:
2 = days until the kanken
2 = number of cups of water I carried downstairs to try to unfreeze the cover to my water switch.  No success... I will admit easy defeat but I was running late...again.
2 = days until the Kamen Rider W movie is out on DVD!!!!!!!!!!!
2 = classes I had today.
1= classes taught alone today
2＝glue sticks I finished while making my board game
1 = number of teachers who asked me to send something from ebay to my house in the US and then to Japan to avoid the import tax.  Does that work?
24 = students wearing masks during English class today (out of 26)
2 = times I apologized to the teacher who sits next to me for hitting him with my drawer. If he sat up straight and had his left elbow on his own desk, this could be easily avoided.
3 = number of worthless 3rd year boys who clean the teachers' room with me every day... and are bad at it.
4 = typos I found on my board game.  :(
0 = consecutive days without snow.
23 = current year in the Japanese calendar.  it is Heisei 23.

THURSDAY:
1 = days until the kanken
1 = days until the Kamen Rider W movie is out on DVD!!!  (I have been waiting and waiting!)
4 = classes I taught today (it was a busy day)
1 = students who gave me a present today :)
2 = cakes I received for helping the one teacher with his ebay stuff.
0 = consecutive days without snow
3 = number of scrabble tiles that were returned to me at the end of the day... I wonder which set they go with... and I am too lazy to find out.
1 = teachers I surprised when I asked if he knew that the Board of Education was coming next week to observe my teaching and that I chose his class to do the lesson with.  He was REALLY surprised.
3 = times I tripped myself up while sorting cards.  I made sets of cards that deliberately have mistakes.  The students will have to make sets (i.e. bad, worse, worst) but I made a 4th card for each adjective to try to trick them.  As I was sorting, the more I looked at badder, the correcter ;)  it seemed.
4 = cm of snow on my car when I left school.  Not bad, considering it snowed ALL day.  Really wet snow.


FRIDAY:
0 = days until the kanken  (yikes!)
1 = questions I messed up for sure on the kanken
1 = blog entries I wrote this week
3 = classes I had today.
1 = Kamen Rider W DVDs I bought today!
2 = stores I had to go to to find Kamen Rider! 
8 = cloves of garlic I ate with dinner (yakiniku)
2 = desserts I had  (tee hee)
1 = kanji books I bought to start studying for the next level of the kanji test.


Ok.. that is all I have.

My students are all so artistically talented. It is unfair...

We were teaching my 3rd years relative pronouns (that, which, who) and I was told to think of an activity to practice.  Anything was fine, they said.  So, I thought of a sort of fun activity that is listening practice.  I will admit the sentences are a bit odd, as in perhaps we would not say them in normal speech, but it worked, and it still tested their listening.  I said some sentences, and the students had to listen and draw a picture!  First the sentences, then the incredible artwork!

1.  There is a lake that is in the middle of a park.
2.  There are five trees that are by the lake.
3.  There is a girl who is sitting under a tree.
4.  There is a man who is swimming in the lake.
5.  There is a table that is by the lake.
6.  There is a cake that is on the table.
7.  There are two ants that are eating the cake.
8.  There are four flowers that are under the table.
9.  There is a boy who is riding his bike by the table.
10.  There is a giraffe that is listening to music by the lake.
11.  There is a woman who is eating ice cream by the giraffe.
12.  There are two monkeys that are playing soccer.

Ok, those were the sentences.  Here are some randomly selected results:

Christmas fishing!

YEP!  I went fishing for Christmas last year.  Crystal got invited to go by one of her teachers and he said she could bring friends, so I got to go, too!  Thank goodness because otherwise, who knows what I would have done on Christmas.  We went to Nojiriko, which is a lake about a half hour north of where we live.  I think it might even be in Niigata prefecture rather than Nagano, but I am not sure.  In other news, it snowed the whole day up by the lake, but not in Iiyama.  Odd...Anyway... pictures tell it best again.

The boats. 

Inside the boat.  Things to notice: heaters and holes in the floor.

Holes in the floor.  This is how we fished!  And the rest of the floor was tatami mats, which are the straw mats that are used inside houses.  No shoes on tatami.

Equipment we borrowed from Crystal's awesome teacher.  Poles, bait. colanders with ice and weights.

Size comparison.  What size fish do you think we were going for?!

The bait... pink grubs.  ew

Did I mention ew?  This is the awesome teacher baiting my hooks for me.  I learned to do it by the end:

Here is me baiting the hooks for myself.  Why was it so gross?!  Because (a) the grubs wiggle in your fingers, as shown in this picture...

..and because (b) after they were on the hooks, you had to cut them in half so they would be oozing and attract the fish.  Look closely at my face and you can see the disgust.  ew ew ew

My first catch!  The fish were TINY!  Like 5 to 8cm.  My first reaction to catching it "awww, its cute!~" which got a nice reaction from everyone on the boat.  Also, I do not like to touch fish, so the teacher or Crystal had to take them off the hooks for me after I caught them.

Pretty winter scenes.  That is another boat like the one we were on.

Fish on a hook.  Tiny, right?

Some fish I caught!

my "saigo no saigo" catch.  Meaning very last just as the boat was ready to head back.  I caught 3 on one line!!  But then one of them fell off a hook... you can see it on the floor.

Here is the jumper.  He even managed to "stand up" on his own!  Talented little guy!

Crystal and I put our fish together into one colander!  We got between 60 and 70 together.  We were so proud until we discovered that other teachers had caught over 100 themselves.  lol.  Also, we did not know what to do with the fish, so we gave them away.

One last shot from shore before we headed back.  It snowed a lot that day.

Another awesome Japan thing.

Round 1!!  Round 1 is a...hmm... how to describe it...it is like Chuck E Cheese for adults, only  better.  Things you can do at Round 1:
fishing
roller skating
karaoke
pool
games
basketball
batting
curling
archery
mini motor bike racing
bull riding
UFO catchers
darts
volleyball
soccer
bowling
read manga
massage chair
etc. etc. etc.

So pretty much, you go in and you can stay for a certain amount of time, and everything (except real bowling and of course you have to pay to try UFO catchers) is included.  Insane!  The karaoke is 20 minutes in a room, which is quite perfect.  Enough description!  How about I show pictures?!

UFO catchers galore!

skating rink and you can see air hockey

Upstairs is the sportsy part.  Soccer, basketball, tennis, volleyball, archery, curling, etc.

They have a mini-manga library.  You can take a book and go sit in a massage chair for 20 minutes and read!

Fishing.  There is just a small pool full of fish.  I caught one!  I never catch fish!  Of course, in usual unlucky Elissa fashion, the hook would not come out, even when the employee tried, so the fish got to return to his friends with a new lip piercing!

Yeah, mini-motor bike races!  You bet!

Bowling shoes!  Rental machines.  You just push the button for the right size and they come out.

They shoes are snapped together!  Maybe I should put snaps on all my shoes so they stay in pairs...