Cups of Sugar, Kids, and the First Day of School

Two mornings ago, a random woman came to my door. As she introduced herself to me, I naively assumed that she was one of my neighbors dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar or something. However, now that I think about it, I should have realized that this could not possibly be the case, since a) packages of sugar here are so small and expensive that I could not possibly afford to give anyone a whole cup of sugar, and b) my neighbors are obviously scared to death of running into a foreigner on the stairs and being forced to speak English.

Anyway, thinking that this woman was my neighbor, I chatted with her in Japanese for a couple minutes. Then, after a bit, she asked me, "Do you read the Bible?" and I realized that I had made a dreadful mistake -- I had revealed to a Jehovah's Witness missionary* that I can speak Japanese.

I tried to tell the missionary that I already have a Bible, most of my family is Christian, and all that jazz, but she wouldn't take the hint. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to shut the door in her face, so I endured several more minutes of her spiel, and finally, just when I was beginning to lose all hope of ever getting rid of her, she left.

I assumed that I had convinced her that I'm not a heathen, but unfortunately, she still seems to have her doubts. According to the note that I found in my mailbox tonight, it appears that she came by to visit me again this morning, but sadly, I was at work. She did, however, leave me with a bible verse written in English:

"For the living are conscious that they will die, but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten." Ecclesiastes 9:5

Quite an uplifting little passage. Perhaps I'm missing something, but if I were going to convert someone to Christianity, this is not the bible verse I would pick....

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At my private lesson with the W kids tonight, the oldest girl wanted to show me her impression of some actress in a Japanese TV commercial. After she finished, she asked me what I thought, and I told her that I thought she was very funny. Then, she smiled back at me innocently and said, "You b*tch!"

I'm pretty sure that she had no idea what she was saying, but it was still a bit shocking. I wonder what the previous teachers were saying in front of these kids....

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Since today was the first day of the semester at my college, I am now officially a Lecturer of Medical English at Ehime University. I can tell that it is going to be an interesting semester. I am in charge of two classes: the mandatory beginners' class, and the optional advanced class. The students in the advanced class are all very gung ho about learning English, so that class should be fun, but the beginning class looks to be a bit more challenging. Since all second year students have to take the beginners' class, some of them are much more enthusiastic than others. As you might expect, the students who sit in the front row are super motivated. They look up at me with bright eager eyes in a way that makes me feel glad to have chosen this noble profession. The only problem is that even though they look as if they are hanging on my every word, they never speak. Ever. Then there's the students in the middle rows, who seem a bit less enthused, but still seem to be paying attention. And finally, there's the back row kids, who look completely uninterested and sleepy, or perhaps too cool for English class.

After I was introduced to the class by the head of our department, I was on my own, speaking to this huge lecture hall full of people. Now, normally I'm fairly comfortable doing public speaking, especially in my native language, but this was a bit different. With the exception of a few people in the front row, no one moved a muscle the entire time I was speaking. I am sure that I could have told them they will be expected to read 500 pages of Dostoevsky every night and they wouldn't have flinched. Every thirty seconds, I would stop and ask, "Do you understand? Any questions??" and no one would say anything, so for awhile, I wondered if they were still alive. It was excellent. Fortunately, I did manage to make them laugh a couple times, so I think there is hope. And we played bingo. They really liked that. I think we shall play bingo every day from now on, because they will speak someday, I swear.

*Don't get me wrong -- I am sure that Jehovah's Witnesses are perfectly wonderful people. I just find the whole door-to-door thing to be a little creepy. The next time I need someone to save my soul, I'll ask, ok?