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December 13, 2005
double take
huh?
i just had the absolute weirdest conversation with my japanese teachers.
they wanted me to lower my kids grades so they fall into the school's regulation of keeping the average between 5 and 6; think of it like the us system, except that instead of out of 100, they base it out of 10, so move that ol decimal over and you got it. btw, passing here is a 3, i think the us should learn something from this hehe. shoot, this is really frustrating because my students averaged about a 70% on my final, but they said `yeah that's too high.` ...what?
but i can't believe they asked me to do that. yeah there are kids that are little punks, but i'm not going ot lower any of their scores because of it (though incredibly tempting). it comes across like this:
fred: hey bob, yeah, your kids are doing too well in schol.
bob: yeah isn't that great?
f: yeaaaaaah, no we can't have any of that. doing well in school? that's unheard of!
b: ...uh...huh? why?
f: yeaaaah...
b: ...that doesn't answer my question.
f: yeaaaah...
b: ...
and then they brought up that companies don't want kids to excel in english over other subjects? i, what, huh? what the hell does that have to do with anything? so they're good at english, that's like a bonus imo. some of my kids are damn good at english, and i'm not going to sell them short because of it! what kind of a teacher is that?
isn't it the better the kids do, the better off everyone is? does something not add up here, or is it just me...?
Posted by Jeff at 05:38 PM | Comments (2)
December 12, 2005
done!
finished my kids' grading heh. and taiwan in a week! woohoo!
Posted by Jeff at 03:27 PM | Comments (2)
December 10, 2005
damn opposite day!
ok, i'm grading the finals for my students this weekend. and to be honest, it wouldn't be so bad except for one thing; circle = right, and check = wrong.
now maybe it's me, but when something is wrong, you circle where it's wrong, i.e. an answer right? and if it's right, you check it as if they got the point.
needless to say my student's papers are looking kind of sloppy...
maybe i'll give them a few bonus points ;P.
Posted by Jeff at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2005
you are handsome guy!
you're damn right i am. /thumbsup.
this was found in the bathroom at fujikyu highland. at the end of each term, the students get to go on a class trip so to speak, and so this year they decided to go to fujikyu.
just ignoring the fact that it's about 32 degrees outside, and my kids are wearing skirts... and they dress kind of, questionably. and some of them look like clowns... which is apparently popular atm.
/shrug.
anyways, check out fujiyama, and dodonpa (the top two on the left side)! i went on fujiyama once - reminds me a lot of goliath in magic mountain - and dodonpa 3 times - because it's like superman except faster i think. fun as hell, except japanese roller coasters are kind of dodgey, why? well though they say there's a minimum height requirement, they don't seem to have a max height requirement, and so some of those girders on fujiyama made me duck a few times... paranoia, maybe, but remember!
you are handsome guy!
Posted by Jeff at 05:33 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2005
finals week
well... not for me, for my kids heh. i just sit on my butt and do this all day.
so for my final exam, i wrote three sections.
1. listening/dictation.
2. multiple choice
3. true/false
and a bonus question:
what is the name of jeff's hometown?
and i have to say the results i've seen have given me a few chuckles;
1. korea
2. china
3. jeff's house?
4. jeffrey
5. jeffery
6. singapore
7. i don't know
8. canada
9. brazil
not that i expected any of my kids to get this...
Posted by Jeff at 02:06 PM | Comments (4)
December 05, 2005
prepare for mass updates..
... really.
the second years are all off on their school trip to nagasaki, himeji, and oosaka, in addition the rest of the school is taking finals... therefore, i have tons of free time at work. i am over a month behind in journal entries, and will do my best to remember everything.
here we go!
Posted by Jeff at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2005
jomo
read it in spanish.
hahahahaha. (it was the name of a gas station in gotenba.)
today doug and i headed towards gotenba, where, apparently the only outlets in japan are(people come from all over the country). and there's just one rather interesting fact:
this outlet is run by the same people who run the gilroy outlets back home.
so why have an outlet store in the middle-of-nowhere, japan?
no idea.
not that we were complaining, but, doug and i managed to get a productive day out of it. the nice thing about this place is that there are us stores in addition to stores most of us have never heard of (jp stores). for example i saw one store that caught my eye; sony plaza. now what goodies could you possibly imagine that you would be able to find in a store such as this? the ps3? all the lastest and greatest gadgets that sony has ever graced the face of the earth with?
oh no. even better than that in my opinion. sony plaza is a supermarket for american products. that's right. i bought my bottle of shout there damn it. i don't care that it cost 7 bucks, if you can find shout anywhere else in ALL of japan, please let me know. till then, me and my bottle of shout are going to do some laundry.
that's right. and you're not invited.
so nieh.
Posted by Jeff at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2005
coincidence?
it's funny how laundry and video games are two amazing complimentry tasks that you can do at the same time.
coincidence?
i think not.
Posted by Jeff at 02:22 PM | Comments (1)