Feb 7, 2008 9:30pm – Early to Bed

I think I am getting more used to the work at the daycare. I was not nearly as tired and as a result was in a much better mood for the kids. Today I got to teach the kids some of the finer points of American pokemon. By that I mean that I got to have names of various pokemon shouted out followed by the question “do you know what this one is?” Half of the time the answer was “yes”, and the other half “no”. It is exactly proportional to the names pokemon that are the same in both languages. After lunch we watched “Pikachu’s Summer Vacation” together, and every time a new pokemon appeared on screen, I was told to tell everyone what the name was in English. This quickly turned into me saying the names in Japanese-english because they had no idea what I was talking about otherwise. I also got to teach them the days of the week and months in the year. It was interesting to say the least.

At the Gaku-en I first did more calligraphy. I have learned that I draw my lines really straight which gives my characters no detail or depth. Luckily the other sensei’s are there to help me. When the other kids arrived I got to start work on my very own dinosaur. I don’t know the name of the think I am making, but it appeared in a dinosaur book so it must be legitimate. When it started snowing most of the kids headed outside to the sledding hill again. I went down the hill with a few of the kids before quickly finding myself the target of many, many snowballs. A group of about 7 girls all started following me, throwing snow at me, and screaming really loud when I retaliated. I showed a couple of them who was boss by dragging them into the snow with me.

Back inside I got to play freeze tag with the same group of girls. I found out that kids run really fast for their age. The only reason I could catch them was the fact that I have much longer arms then they do. We played in the gym until it was time for them to go home. Once most of the kids had left, I got to be the “human car”. Hauling kids around on my shoulders and back running all over inside the building. Finally, I got to have my chance at that unicycle again. I have pretty much decided that I will learn to ride it before the month is up. When people ask me “Hey how was Niigata?” I can respond with “Well I learned to ride a unicycle!”

Tomorrow it looks like we are going skiing with the kids. I need to wake up much earlier than normal, but I am sure it will be worth it.