Odds and Ends

-- Typhoon number 13 hit Japan this weekend, so unfortunately I had to cancel my plans to see my dad's aunt in Kyushu. It sounds like they had some pretty heavy rain in her town, but she's okay. (In other places, trains flipped over and roofs caved in, I guess.) The typhoon was also supposed to hit Ehime this morning, but it must have missed because the weather today was probably as beautiful as I've seen it while I've been here.


-- My 100 Yen shop (the equivalent of a dollar store) is named Silk. I guess I must live in a pretty swanky part of town.


-- I had mochi (rice ball) pizza for the first time last week. It was quite sticky, but the mix of rice, crust, cheese and bacon was strangely satisfying. They also put corn on their pizza here, and everyone is shocked when I tell them that Americans don't.


-- According to a TV show last night, humans are instinctively programmed to like shiny things. Therefore, to make a good first impression on someone, you should try to accentuate the shiniest parts of your face: your eyes and teeth. To me, the most logical way to accomplish this would be to smile as you introduce yourself. But according to the experts on the show, people actually need to do facial exercises in order to improve their facial expressions and range of motion.

I doubt this show was broadcast in the US, so I figured perhaps I should pass along the facial exercises to you so that you too can make friends and influence people. Here they are:

1) To improve the flexibility your mouth area, hold a pair of chopsticks between your teeth and alternate between saying "oo" and "ee." If you're confused, see the model below. (And yes, the people on the TV show were sitting in the studio doing this. It was quite entertaining.)


2) To improve your eye area, close your eyes as tightly as possible for three seconds, then open them as quickly as you can and hold them open for three seconds. Repeat.


Apparently, if you do these simple exercises for just a few minutes every day, it will make all the difference in the world in your social life. Actually, I think it's already working for me. I tried the exercises last night, and this morning when I went to grocery store, all sorts of people were staring at me. I can only assume it was because of my beautiful eyes. *


-- The cookies here must be the smallest ones in the world. At first I was fooled by the large, luscious looking cookies in the pictures on the side of the packages in the grocery store, but now I've realized that there must be some kind of federal law against selling cookies more than an inch or two in diameter. (Perhaps if the cookies were any bigger, they would be so large after they were individually wrapped that the package wouldn't fit in a shopping cart???) Anyway, yesterday I searched high and low across Matsuyama for oatmeal and unsweetened cocoa, and today I succeeded in making the most expensive batch of no-bake cookies in the history of the world. The jury is still out on whether they actually taste good since they are still cooling in the fridge, but at least they're big. :)


-- I've now met all of my private lesson students. Since I'll be spending a lot of time with them and they're sure to come up in future posts, here's a quick run-down of some of my more interesting pupils.

Mrs. N: A really nice middle-aged lady who told me she was very nervous about working with a new teacher. However, according to my boss, Mrs. N liked me so much that she left our first lesson in a state of euphoria and forgot to pay me. Sweet. :)

Dr. M: This is the guy from a previous post who wanted to practice listening to men with southern accents. I had him listen to a singer with a southern accent and he seemed fascinated, so next week, he's asked that we focus on Boston accents. Hopefully I can figure out what a Boston accent is by then...

Mrs. K: Last year's teachers wrote profiles about each of the students, and Mrs. K's profile wasn't too flattering, so I was kind of dreading her lesson. (Apparently, she's rich, manipulative and therefore a pain in the neck to deal with. Also, she does freaky things like memorizing the birthdays of everyone in your family and reciting them back to you...) Once I got to the lesson, she sat me down and started asking me a very long list of questions. It felt sort of like an interrogation, but since she was asking me the questions in English I let her keep going. By the time she got around to asking me about my birthday, I was feeling quite nervous, but luckily she stopped there and I was able to actually start the lesson. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that she's not so bad - maybe just a bit lonely - so hopefully I'll have more luck with her than the teachers before me.

Mrs. M and the Health Support Center Group: Mrs. M's profile is also pretty scary, and this time I would have to agree. There are six people in the class and Mrs. M has much better English than anyone else. She knows this and likes to explain things to the rest of the class very loudly in Japanese. The only problem is that I can understand her and half the time, she's explaining things wrong, but when I try to correct her or ask her to do something, she's really rude. At our first lesson, she started talking in Japanese about a movie she'd seen recently, so I asked her very nicely if she could explain the movie in English instead. She gave me a seething glare and then continued to talk about the movie in Japanese. I think I ended up interrupting her (very politely) three times and she finally switched to English. ewww...I don't think I like her very much.

The Ws and the Ks: I teach two lessons with kids, and both groups are very cute and well-behaved. Also, their parents are incredibly generous. Even though they're paying me to teach the lessons, they also give me presents everytime I come over. So far, I've received a box of figs, five Japanese pears, a really good piece of chocolate cake, and a cream puff. I don't know why they give all this stuff to me, but I love them.



* I would like to think that it was not due to the fact that I'm reasonably tall and white. Just humor me on this one. And try the exercises. All the cool people are doing them.