Rice Field of Peace

So the meeting with the teacher I work with finally happened today. I've been waiting to spend some more time talking with her. I'm not sure what the deal was yesterday with my supervisor telling me to go over there but like I mentioned it was all for the better.

The English teacher is an interesting lady to say the least. Some of the things I heard today made me laugh so hard because of their sheer absurdity. At the same time I felt like she was putting me to sleep half the time. That's only because it's summer vacation and everyone feels a bit sluggish. Or it might just be her cat power. Lachlan pointed out in the note she left for me that she was always covered in cat hair. Well this did not prove to be wrong. She was really covered in a heavy coating of cat hair. Her pants were also scratch up and had little holes everywhere. If that wasn't to top everything off, her arms are covered in scratches. Anyway, she told me off the bat she liked cats and had several. If you call 16 cats several than I'm not sure what you call a lot.

Her English was obviously pretty rusty because she probably hasn't had to speak to anyone for a few weeks now. It's nothing to brag about but we can communicate just fine. She can probably read English ten times better than speaking for all I know. She made sure to look up the Japanese word for puberty and told me that the boys and girls were very interested in each other. She also told me to watch for strange questions and the students trying to touch me. From what I understand, though, even if kids do such things there isn't much of a punishment, if any. Most likely the latter.

We spent the next hour, or I should say I spent the next hour, answering questions about America out of a quiz book. We are talking pretty random topics ranging from state size to who was the most famous oil baron. The best part is that I could answer almost all of the questions correctly either from prior knowledge or guessing (there were some multiple choice questions). Needless to say my teacher was so impressed that I knew so many random things about America. I'll take that serving of pride for the day.

The rest of the time we talked about anything and everything. We ate cup noodles together at lunch time and after that sat in the teacher room exploring the facets of our lives. It wasn't that the conversation was mind numbing, it was the speed at which she talked. A, She is either just so relaxed and removed from reality, or B, is slamming some pretty hard tranquilizers that she probably stole from the animal hospital when she had an appointment for one her cats. I'll just leave it a mystery to make it all the more interesting. Speaking of those cats again, out of nowhere she told me and the secretary that she is MARRIED to her cats. I'm just glad she loves her cats so much. She would probably make a good mother but maybe that isn't going to happen. Before I left for the day I asked her what she was doing this weekend. She replied, "Staying at home. I like home." I give her a lot of credit for wearing the cat lady badge on her arm. Well more like a painted sandwich board sign on her. Honestly this a healthy dose of endearment for her. I'm going to enjoy working with her. How can you not love a lady who says, "Oooomoooshiroooi" as if there wasn't a care in the world.