Why Tokyo Rules, Part 342

Guys like this really add to the ambiance.

パンプキンづくり

The fifth and sixth graders helped me make a jack-o-lantern today. They chose a design by a girl in the 4th grade (which at my school means she gets to take it home after Halloween).

The first grade boys were impressed. Pirates are popular these days.

News you may not have seen in the NYT

The largest English conversation school in Japan is in the midst of a rather spectacular collapse. The chain of schools, called NOVA, employs over 5,000 foreigners in Japan and is notorious in the local English-speaking community for being a lousy place to work. The average teacher stays for 8 months, which I think says more than I could. Anyway, the firm was slapped down by the the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) for some shady business practices in the spring. The ruling included a six-month ban on signing lucrative long-term contracts with students.

The company staggered along for a few months, but starting last month people started getting paid late (not at all in the case of some middle managers), evicted from company housing (even though the company had been deducting rent from paychecks and supposedly passing it along to landlords), and branches of the school started closing down. Things took a marked turn for the worse this week when teachers were not paid as scheduled on Monday, and the CEO sent out a fax saying they'd try to scrape together the cash for salaries by "around the 25th".

We've known a few NOVA instructors over the years, and this isn't a fun time for any of them.

The frustration exhibited in this video is pretty standard:



The bunny ("usagi" in Japanese) is the company mascot, if you were wondering. Oh, and Nozomu Sahashi is the CEO.

Sam's sick again

Sam and I were talking last night and I noted, with some amusement, that though I studied German for seven years I don't think I ever learned the word for "bronchitis", though I sure as hell know the word in Japanese (気管支炎 - ki-kan-shi-en, if you were wondering).

She's been sent home from work three days in a row now, and went to the doctor yesterday to get the bad news. Hopefully this doesn't mark the beginning of "bronchitis season" like we've had the last few years.

Video Project Finale

The final segment, starring the whole class, with the first grade making a short group cameo as a group of preschool students on a field strip.

Video Project, Part 2

In this installment, Godzilla shows up and attacks the good people at Monster Circus. After ensuring the safety of injured guests, Yoshihiro takes Godzilla out.

the end of a posting drought (hopefully)

I've been busy since the undoukai (I feel compelled to note, that sentence is essentially how we speak at this point. When we move home the random inclusion of Japanese nouns and verbs in our English speech is sure to cause endless amusement with prospective employers.), and Sam's still nursing that injured elbow and cursing Japanese medicine under her breath.

Anyway, here's what I was working on (the first part of it at any rate). My 5th and 6th graders pooled their collective knowledge of the English language (and asked many questions of me) and wrote the scripts for three short plays back before the summer break. I helped with things that were just too hard for 11 year-olds to translate. I also did the video editing after the fact, though they took care of set design and stage directions. I'm quite proud of them, all in all.

Like I said, here's part one. There are two more.