Entries this day: Kill_Bill_tape Work Zzzz

Kill Bill tape

10:03pm JST Sunday 18 April 2004

Aw man. When I got home this AM around 7:30, I found the Kill Bill tape had been removed from the TV room. The tape is due today in Nakameguro, and I wrote a note on the board like, "Who has the Kill Bill tape? Please put it by room 20. It's due today in Nakameguro Tsutaya" (I specified this last part so they would know not to take the initiative and return the tape to our local Tsutaya)

Went to sleep for 3.5 hours, woke up and a couple people were awake, but none knew the location of the tape.

Went to work, came back home, and found the tape returned, but without its plastic sleeve, and not rewound! Oh jeez come on guys! I think you can take more responsibility than that. (And rest assured knowing there was no note nor a couple hundred yen to pay the late charges.)

Yarg.

So I'm noticing that I've projected my personal level of integrity on others and I assume there were no extenuating circumstances; maybe returning the tape to my room was the absolute best they could do. I dunno.

yarg even so.

Work

10:11pm JST Sunday 18 April 2004

Had two great lessons at work. First great lesson was my first lesson of the day. Noriko, 45 year old housewife who tries so hard to get this stuff. For the past 8 lessons, she has been working on the first part of page 1 of book 1.

I saw the notes from the first time I worked on this lesson with her, and I noted that I had gone well beyond her current abilities. Today, I think she may understand it; I translated the sentences and wrote directions and notes in Japanese to help her understand the classroom instructions.

Stuff like, "say _____" and "ask me" is beyond her understanding. Everything I say she repeats.

So we started today with a question that she kinda knew how to answer.

me: "Who is he?" (pointing to a character labeled Antonio in the book)

she: "Who is he Antonio."

- - - -

During the lesson, I learned that I was going way over her head even by gesturing to myself, "who is he?" and then gesturing to her, "He is Antonio."

She took that to mean insert her name for Antonio's name, with the following result:

me: "Who is he?" (pointing to a character labeled Antonio in the book)

she: "Who is he Noriko."

- - - -

Okay okay, let's take a step back here.

I translated the questions and the answers to Japanese, and labeled who should say what in the resulting coversation:

»ä "Who is he?" ¤À¤ì¡¡¤Ç¤¹¡¡¤«¡£

¤Î "He is Antonio."¡¡¤À¤ì¡¡¤Ï¡¡¥¢¥ó¥È¥Ë¥ª¡¡¤Ç¤¹¡£

- - - -

Lots of high fives as she got that down, and then we bumped it up a notch:

»ä "Is he Niko?" ¤À¤ì¡¡¤Ï¡¡¥Ë¥³¡¡¤Ç¤¹¡¡¤«¡£

¤Î "No he isn't."¡¡¤Á¤¬¤¤¤Þ¤¹¡£(*)

»ä "Who is he?" ¤À¤ì¡¡¤Ç¤¹¡¡¤«¡£

¤Î "He is Antonio."¡¡¤À¤ì¡¡¤Ï¡¡¥¢¥ó¥È¥Ë¥ª¡¡¤Ç¤¹¡£

(*) Noriko translated this one; I think that's what she wrote.

She got this, and could sometimes get the addition of gender. "Who is she?" "He is Annette."

That took nearly the entire 40 minutes. Awesome lesson, and she told me in Japanese that I am a good teacher. Awww my heart just melted. I'm so glad.

- - - -

The other awesome lesson was with a woman who was officially in book 3, but the "homework" she wanted help with was *SUPER* difficult! She had been asked by her boss to translate from English to Japanese an analysis done by a lawfirm (?) regarding the recent nomination of a chair and vice chair to a Manufacturing Council as part of the United States Department of Commerce, and how this newly proposed council is different (and hastily thrown together) than the originally planned council as proposed in January 2003.

It took me a few readings to understand everything; I was really glad to be able to explain everything to her, including with drawings to represent the originally proposed council and the newly created one and how congress' worries of overseeing the new council were mitigated by incorporating part of the original proposal.

Really happy to have had such good lessons.

Zzzz

10:35pm JST Sunday 18 April 2004

Really tired now; bedtime is.