Ugh--today we had to have Wednesday classes on Saturday.
And it was around 30 degrees today (though luckily not humid). But it was fun to meet the first-year English majors a second time this week. Japanese university classes are 90 minutes once per week, so I always feel a bit disappointed and let down when one class I like finishes, because it's going to take so long (one whole week) to meet again. And I really like this class. Anyway, the best part of today came when I was trying to explain rhyme to them, and then end rhyme, and then showed the lyrics for "Let It Go" on the screen, and pointed out the end rhyme patterns stanza by stanza, etc., and then decided on a whim to ask them to all sing the first half of the song or so. We had "warmed up" by singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and repeating various rhymes, and I'd had a great time playing a nursery school teacher with them as my infants learning about rhyme, so I thought, Why not? And they sang it so well! It was as if we'd been all practicing it like some giant chorus club (there were at least 90 students in the room, about 60 girls), and their sweet voices singing in harmonious unison were thrilling. At one point I got so excited that I was doing the Elsa gestures for making snow and ice shoot out of my hands! And I tried telling them that not only did the song have cool lyrics about girl power and being yourself no matter what other people think and a catchy tune, but it also has lots of rich rhymes (end and internal) and consonance and assonance, etc. I don't know if they'll remember anything I told them about rhyme etc., but we had a high time indeed.
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Yikes, I have to control my temper!
Last Wednesday during my Introduction to American Culture and Literature class, things were going OK, really, as we had gone through the seven Native American songs on the handout, and I was playing excerpts from some Youtube videos of Indian songs to demonstrate to the first year students what they sounded like sung in Native American languages (to contrast with what they sounded like when we read the English translations out loud together on the handout), when I noticed several students chattering away to each other without paying attention fully to the video playing on the big screen, so... Instead of warning them to be quiet and listen, etc., I just shouted out in incorrect Japanese, "Shizukani shiroiyo!" (Shut the fuck up). It had the intended effect, I guess, in that the class was silent and focused on the screen for the last minute of the video and my closing remarks to end the class, but, Jeez, I really immediately regretted doing that and had a hard time understanding my sudden anger, or processing it, let alone forgiving it. I had about ten minutes earlier noticed a boy reading a textbook for another English class while I was walking around the room explaining one of the Indian songs, so I had confiscated it for the duration of the class, and that irked me, because I had explained to them before that I didn't want them doing that kind of thing during our class, but still... It wasn't because the Warriors had lost game 4 of their playoff series to the Rockets, was it? Hmm... ANYWAY, I am looking forward to behaving rationally in the next class and hope I didn't traumatize the kids! And everything else last week was fine and fun (that is, all my other classes for university students and graduate school students went well and were interesting and rewarding to me--and I didn't lose my temper!). |
Jefferson Peters (JP)
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December 2023
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