Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Read 6

You can skip this first paragraph if you don't care about taking pictures. I noticed that when I would view my pictures with the Windows Picture viewer that I would have to rotate every picture that I took long wise. Then moving on to the next photo it would always save. I couldn't really figure out what it was saving each time I did this so I decided to look it up. Low and behold that when Windows rotates a picture it changes the image properties and has to reprocess the image. This results in a degraded quality photo. Maybe if you don't care that much you would never notice but I could tell something seemed a bit off on some pictures. From now on I have a program that will rotate any images without changing the properties or image quality. I'm glad I realized this now and not later on. It is for this reason that I still haven't put those valley pictures up. I had to go back through and correct my mistakes.

If you chose to skip the first paragraph here you go. Today had its share of interesting tidbits. I spent the morning sitting around pondering what I was going to do for my lessons on Thursday. I even managed to get a few things done. Usually my mind is in a billion different places during the day. I have so many random things on my mind. Take the following for example.

You know how everyone thinks by common sense that cold weather makes the body fall gravely ill? I can tell you for a fact this is not true. Argue with me all you want but YOU probably didn't take the time to actually look it up or research it. I'm sure if you ask most doctors they would say the same thing except for Japanese doctors at least. I'm not surprised that Japanese people believe this myth because the doctors here recommend gargling to prevent colds. All I know is that for my deficiency of gargling, in the past, others got sick more often. I don't even try to argue with people though because this myth (cold weather makes you sick) has been perpetuated through all societies for who knows how long. It is most uncommon to meet someone who thinks opposite of this such as myself. I would like to see how this belief changes or is the same depending on where in the world a person is. Interesting or not, I don't know. It never hurts to have many options in life right?

The second year students were pretty interesting today. Actually, they are usually like that. Sometimes to the point of being frustrated and irritated by their behavior. During cleaning time the group who is on the first floor rotation for the week was being lazy. They ended up trying to make me sweep the floor with damp rags. I obliged one of the students and did the hall way while they stood around. One of the boys in this group of students can be a little brat. I'm usually trying to diffuse his comments whether in Japanese or English. At the end of cleaning time the principal came over to ask us if we had cleaned everything well. I could see on all their faces that they knew they had been sticks in the mud. That is probably why one of the girls was laughing.

Carrying on from cleaning time we had English class with the second year students. Before we jumped into the amazingness and fun that is English the students wanted to ask me some questions. The teacher asked if this would be alright and I said sure. It was a little suspicious though. The teacher wrote the number six on the blackboard in a slow decrepit manner. It's as if you could see the shame dripping off the back of her body. Next, the students asked me to say the number six. Before it was even drawn I knew what they had up their sleeves. To buy myself some time I told them it was 'roku' in Japanese which is the number six. After I said that I laughed at the whole class and they were like NOOOOOOOOO. I hesitated for a few brief moments wondering what the response would be after I said six out loud. So to the best of my ability I tried to enunciate the number six as best as possible. The ensuing result was a flutter of laughter and snickering because if you didn't know, saying six sounds like the Japanese pronunciation for sex. We probably should have stopped before even doing this but for some reason my teacher let it continue. All I can say is that the hormones in the second year students and really all the students could take a healthy dose of elephant tranquilizer.

At the end of the class the students wanted me to write kanji. This was basically an opportunity for me to show off and gain popularity points with the students. I can say I did well because I heard many 'sugois' and 'ehhhhhhhhs'.

In the supplemental English period for the third year students one girl and a boy kept calling each other 'eroi' which loosely means something like erotic or sexual. Maybe not so literal. At one point they asked if I knew what some plant or something was. The girl tried to draw it but it didn't become any clearer what it was. My teacher proceeded to draw an example but much to everyone's surprise it turned into a great representation of a phallus. Talk about bad timing. The students were shocked and couldn't stop laughing. Granted there were only about six or seven in the classroom it was hilarious. My teacher quickly erased it trying to hide the embarrassment sweating off her brow. For the life of me, though, I can't figure out why that one girl then proceeded to draw a condom on the blackboard. That is okay. I don't want to know.


ps. I had to come back and update this because as I was studying I came across a sentence that said when you come in from the cold during winter you should gargle to prevent colds. Talk about timing.

3 comments:

egli said...

Ellen has posted in her blog that people in Mexico think you shouldn't drink things that are chilled. Guess it's a persistent belief world-wide! http://mexicomercy.blogspot.com/2010/03/under-my-skin.html

blaine said...

thanks for the comment mark!

the people in Chili are similar. they kept telling alli to put more clothes on her daughter when we were out shopping. just random people too.

as i studied a different text book last night there was a sample dialogue about a guy not wearing a coat and getting sick. it's like everything showed up all at once.

egli said...

You are welcome.

Speaking of Eliana, your picture with her from the Berkholder newsletter a couple months back was the cutest thing ever.

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