Bonding with the Kids

So now that I have been here long enough to have met many of the kids repeatedly, I think they are more comfortable talking to me, even if I don’t know what they are saying, lol. At the festival in town a few weeks ago a few of my junior high students were there and they came running up to me and tried talking to me, but it ended up being short because we all didn’t really know how to say anything other than the simple things that they learn in class. And I guess as you get older it gets harder to just talk to someone even if they don’t understand, which is what a lot of the elementary students do with me all the time. Not to say that I don’t understand anything of what they are saying, I understand a lot more these days, but still. Anyway, while I was at the elementary school closest to my house the other day, I was visiting the 1st graders, and they pulled me outside to play with them between classes. We played a game called Daruma-san ga koronda (Daruma-san fell down), which luckily I already knew how to play. The game that is most like it in America is Red Light Green Light, except I have to say, the Japanese version is a little more fun with its variations. Then we went inside and I did my next class, and then they all converged on me with their notebooks and all wanted me to sign their stuff and were shoving hands in my face to sign there as well, lol. Then they just wanted me to write random words in English , like America, and Happy Birthday, and stuff. When I was about to leave, a little boy ran up to me and handed me a little ripped paper and was like, it’s a letter to you! And then ran off. So I put it in my bag and left, and then when I got back to the office I read it. It essentially said his name, Kakeru Nakao, and that it was ok if I wanted to go to his house, and that I should also come again to his school. Lol. It was the nicest thing ever. There are a lot of students at that school and I always end up going away with something like some stationary, a phone charm, some origami, or something, but this was by far the best (not that I didn’t wholly appreciate the others). Anyway, at my junior high this past Wednesday, in one of my classes they had to come up and do a conversation with me and I had to ask what certain people were doing in this one picture, and the three times that this one girl, Karin, came up, I asked about the same person every time. “Emi is buying an ice cream.” Lol. So when she said it the third time, I looked up and realized, and I mentioned something about it, and we both laughed. I guess she was excited about our little moment because she told the teacher about it after class and he mentioned it to me that she said “Buri-chan (what they call me) and I laughed together.” And I had a conversation about what boys this one group of girls liked, “nice, cool, etc” and then they did this weird thing where they all sat on each other and wanted me to be the person sitting on top of all of them, lol. I don’t know why. Today I went to the 6th grade at the local elementary school and taught about Christmas in America. Then we played a bunch of games with Christmas related themes. After which a few girls stayed after and were talking to me, asking questions, and one girl kept trying to tickle me so a small war broke out. And on my way out of the school a little 1st or 2nd grader (I don’t remember what grade she actually was in) saw me, put her hand up to her mouth in surprise, and ran all excitedly toward me to give me a high five. And once she slapped my hand she just kept running, lol. Little weirdo, lol. Anyway, those are my stories of my small bonding times with some of my students. I hope more come, and that I’m not too foreign or intimidating for more students to talk to me. Gotta love it.