Draw Fours and Red Threes

In the weeks coming up to our arrival in Japan I began to be more and more nervous about teaching. I wasn't a bit worried about everyday life in Japan. Mary Ellen and I are both adventurous people and when all else fails I can make her laugh. The ironic part of it all is that the few challenges we have had have been mostly tied up in the cultural differences that we collide with at the most unexpected times. Teaching however has been amazing. I love my kids. The younger ones are adorable.

I took our camera to class one day to get some pictures. The pictures are two of the twenty-three classes I teach every week. The girls all have so much bling on their pens it makes me laugh. As they write I can hear the "clack clack" of the huge plastic cartoon figurines crashing around on the end of their pencils. They all have great pens and pencils and they seem to like it when I check out what they have in their pencil cases. The other picture is of two little sisters who make my heart smile. They were so shy when I first arived that they wouldn't talk, make eye contact or sometimes even breath I think. Now they are crazy. They steal each other's stuff when the the other looks away and fall of their chairs they laugh so hard. They are not out of control, just a lot of fun. Right before I took this picture they had put the puppets on their heads like Davy Crockett hats. They refused to do it again when they realized I was going to take their picture but maybe you can imagine.

At the end of class I usually play a few games of UNO with the kids and have them speak English so we can count it as learning. Mostly it's just fun for both of us and I guess that it's ok to have fun in class sometimes. There is some universal law however that states that the cuter and sweeter a student is, the more draw-fours will end up in my hand each game. I'm not exaggerating, the last game I played with a student who is even cuter, sweeter and more soft-spoken, if that's possible, then these two girls, I had four draw fours and two draw twos, in the right color, in my hand at one time. I was like "oh shoot I have to draw again." I could have won the game in one move though I had six cards in my hand...I just couldn't do it. So I kept drawing, and drawing, and drawing. I might still be drawing but class finally ended and we had to cut the game short. However, when I have a class with a kid I'd like to drop a couple draw-fours on I, of course, end up with red threes.