Excuse me while I do a VICTORY DANCE

*victory dance*

So today I taught my class, and it was EPIC. Have I mentioned before that I love teaching? I love teaching. So much. Today reminded me how much I miss TA-ing Japanese. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to TA-ing in grad school.

For the sake of anyone who hasn't read/seen Durarara!!, I've turned some of the text the same color as the background to hide spoilers. If you don't want spoilers, don't highlight the text. (This means you, family. And you, friends who I am going to tie to a sofa and make you watch Durarara!! You know who you are. Opal, you can look at all of this, obviously.)

I was kind of worried this morning, 'cause I came into class and one of the other students immediately came up to me to complain.

Student: Hey, I read your reading, and I didn't understand it at all.

Me: What? Um, what do you mean by "at all"?

Student: I was so lost. I had no idea what was going on.

Me: I...I didn't think it was that hard to understand, but maybe I just have a lot of practice reading light novels...?

Another student: Yeah, the first read through I had no idea what was going on, but the second time around I think I sort of got it.

And yet another student: Yeah, the same thing happened to me.

Me: D':

(I probably made exactly that face too.)

In any case, fearing that I was going to have a class full of people who wouldn't understand anything I was saying, I started off the class by explaining what a light novel is (essentially a slightly-shorter-than-usual novel targeting middle and high school students (although it can be enjoyed by people of all ages) usually with illustrations) and then explaining a little bit about Durarara!! (it's a story concerning a bunch of different people who live in Ikebukuro, and at all the end of the story all the storylines converge). And then we dove straight into the 内容質問 (content questions).*

And it turned out that people actually did pretty much understand everything that had happened, so that was good. Some people were a little bit unclear on what had happened when Seiji went down to the convenience store (someone thought that the stalker was standing in front of his door, and couldn't understand how he could walk right past her without noticing), but other than that, it seemed like pretty much everyone understood the general storyline.

So then I asked about the characters' speaking patterns, and how they differed, and how those speaking patterns showed the characters' personalities. Basically, what everyone came up with was that Seiji is rude, curt, and manly and the stalker girl is polite and overzealous.

Guy: Basically, she's a manga girl.

Me: A manga girl? Can you explain what you mean by that?

Guy: You know, the ideal girl in manga. She's cute and with a high voice...

Me: And a stalker?

Guy: .......well, okay, maybe she's like a manga girl. But not.

An important part of the section we were reading involves Seiji (the narrator) mentioning something that his stalker isn't allowed to see, so I asked everyone what they thought it was. The list went something like this:

Illegal drugs

Women's clothing (he likes crossdressing!)

A Superman costume

Some sort of weird clothing

A corpse

Really bad porn

Me: Really bad porn?

Girl: Yeah, I mean, maybe? Maybe he has really bad porn?

Guy: But isn't that what pretty much all high schoolers have? Why would that be particularly bad to see?

Girl: Maybe it's really weird porn. Like...REALLY WEIRD.

Other girl: OH HO HO! *wiggly eyebrows*

And then

Guy: I don't get it. I mean, it's obvious that this story is going to end with the guy finally falling in love with his stalker.

Me: UM, I HAVE TO CORRECT YOU ON THAT. Lemme show you the illustration of what occurs directly after this.

So then I passed around the illustration of Seiji calmly eating ramen while spattered in blood with his sister's subordinates carrying a body bag out of the apartment.

Suddenly, the list of possible "things she's not allowed to see" turned into this:

A corpse

A lot of corpses (he's secretly a serial killer)

A cut up corpse (he works for the yakuza, disposing of bodies by cutting them up and throwing them in dumpsters)

His girlfriend's corpse (he's a necrophiliac; I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THIS CAME FROM)

Anyway, the discussion was getting increasingly heated. One of the girls pointed out that Seiji uses words that start with the kanji 警 throughout the chapter (警告、警笛、警報) in bad situations, and maybe since 警察 (police) starts with the same kanji, it means that he's scared of the police, so it means that whatever he's hiding is something he's scared of the police seeing. (She also pointed out that early in the prologue he threatens to call the police on the stalker...but never does. It was a really good point. I applaud her for her reading comprehension.) And then my sensei (who was supposed to just be observing) joined in the discussion, and everyone was trying to figure out what it was that he was hiding.

Guy: So what is it? What is it that he's hiding?

Me: Well, actually, I have the clip of the anime that shows this little bit, and the "thing that she's not supposed to see" shows up in it, so I thought that I would show it at the end of class.

Everyone: SHOW IT NOW.

Me: But we still have some time left...

Everyone: NOW. STOP BULLYING US.

So while everyone else was running around turning off lights and closing curtains, I pulled up the clip (turned out to be in episode 12, Opal, not 9) and set it up. And everyone (including my sensei) crowded together to watch. (And it was really dark, and people were going, "I'm scared! This is a really scary atmosphere!) And when "the thing that she isn't allowed to see" showed up, someone in the class actually screamed. (Spoilers: "IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE HER! AUGH, IT REALLY IS A CORPSE!") And then Seiji smushed his stalker's head into the wall and the clip ended.

Everyone: WHAT? NO, WE HAVE TO WATCH THE REST.

Me: Guys, we don't have time to watch the rest.

Everyone: WHAT? NO, YOU SUCK. C'MON.

Me: Seriously, you guys, we don't have time. But your perception of the characters changed, right? Did you think the same thing about them at the beginning of the story as at the end? What about after you saw the anime?

And then everyone pretty much agreed that they hadn't understood the atmosphere at all just by reading it, and that once they saw the anime they all had to agree that Seiji was a freaky boy. (Spoilers: And then people started theorizing that Seiji was actually a serial killer who dated girls and then chopped off their heads. PFFT.)

And people kept discussing it through break. (It made me proud.) And then during our grammar class, whenever the teacher asked for an example sentence, people were making example sentences about Durarara!!

Sensei: Okay, guys, I get that grammar isn't as interesting as the previous class. BUT SERIOUSLY. FOCUS.

MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

After the class, one of my classmates asked if I was planning on becoming a professor. I said that there was a possibility that I would become a professor. He said, "Good. You'd make a good professor."

(Also, my sensei said I did a really good job and it was a really interesting class. YES. WHOO.)

And then I got to grade six papers. It was pretty awesome. It was interesting to see the different levels of reading comprehension in the class, 'cause it was obvious that some people understood what was going on, and some people really didn't. It's weird, but I guess I have pretty good reading comprehension compared to most people, despite my stuttering and difficulty forming coherent sentences.

Anyway, after that we had our meeting with our residential director and everyone failed at speaking English, and then I went home.

And I had a really interesting conversation over dinner with my host mom and my little host brother about the subjects that are taught in elementary school.

Host mom: Oh, yeah, and they also have a class on 保健 (hoken).

Me: 保険 (hoken)? Like...健康保険 (kenkou hoken; life insurance)?

HM: No, no, like...where do babies come from? And if you're a girl, you learn about girl things.

Me: What? Seriously? In elementary school?

So then my little host brother ran to get his textbook, and sure enough, there were illustrations explaining how sex worked and how babies grow in the uterus and also what will happen to you if you don't get enough sleep.

HM: You don't have this kind of class in the U.S.?

Me: No, we have them, but I think they're usually in middle school or high school.

HM: What? That's so late!

Me: Yeah, it probably is a little bit late.

HM: What, don't people want to talk about sex?

Me: Um, no, it's just not...um...polite? To talk about it? And it makes some people embarrassed, so they don't want to talk to their kids about it.

HM: That seems like a really bad idea.

Me: Um, yes. That's probably true.

And that was how I wound up talking about sex with my host mom. Excuse me while I pound my head on my desk.

Oh, but before that, I asked why soumen is a traditional dish for Tanabata**, and she gave me the handout that my host brother's school sent all the parents, and aside from five or six words that I could pretty much guess the meaning from by looking at the kanji, I was able to read and understand all of it! Can I be proud for a moment?

Okay, moment's over. Back to business as usual.

In any case, I have to give a news presentation tomorrow and also turn in the second draft of my essay on top of regular classes, so I'm going to stop typing here and bid all of you a good night!

G'night! おやすみなさい！

いか先生

*Summary of the section we read in class for anyone who isn't a Durarara!! fangirl like me:

Seiji is in his house while a stalker girl is banging on the door and trying to break in. Seiji threatens to call the police and the stalker girl finally leaves. While Seiji goes down to the convenience story to buy toothpaste and a magazine, the stalker girl breaks in. Seiji walks in on her and quickly realizes, because of her state of complete shock, that she's seen "the thing she's not allowed to see." Instead of reacting like most people would and freaking out, he starts repeating "it's fine" over and over and over.

**See previous blog post for explanation. I am too tired and lazy to retype it. Also, it was Tanabata today.

By the way, I think I deserve a medal, 'cause I just taught myself basic html, 'cause there's no way to select a font color that perfectly matches the background of this blog. So instead of being sensible and giving up, I went into the website coding and stared at it until I understood what was going on and made the text invisible.

Probably not impressive at all if you know anything about computers, but I don't really, so HEY. GO ME.