Back to the grindstone

Today was my first real day back. I worked Sunday, but that was only one day out of 11, so it didn't really count. I guess it is a good thing that I was able to only work one day out of 11 and still get my full pay while using only one of my holidays. It can be good to you sometimes, can this company.

Anyway. Today I had a kid take a crayon and start drawing all over his face with it, and I took it off him, which caused him to cry and blubber down his face, which I then had to mop up with a tissue. Ordinarily I would get angry, but to be honest it just made me realise how little chance I really have of actually teaching some of my students any English whatsoever. He was blubbing down his face while I tried to make him say "I washed my face." He didn't. I did. It made me laugh a little.

I just played an English language game with my adult students, which involved inserting the word "blah" where a noun should be while shopping. For example: "Excuse me. I want to buy a blah." "What do you mean?." "I need to write a letter, so I want to buy a blah." This was supposed to allow them to practice describing and guessing things in English, but unfortunately I forgot that the Japanese pronunciation of L is somewhere nearer to R, meaning that one of my student's declared that she was "trying to communicate with people in another country, so I need to buy a bra." It was hard not to laugh out loud.

So....in conclusion, work is up and down. It's nice that after 10 months it is still as unpredictable as ever, which is no surprise when your student's average age is 10.