From the mouths of babes -and- A meal fit for a sumo

Yesterday during 7th period, one of my 7th graders made the comment to me, "Senorita Pair, are you going to be OK in Japan with your limited knowledge of the Japanese language?" This really cracked me up; I told her that yes, I should be OK since many people in Japan speak English and since we would have a translator with our group. This inspired a short class-wide discussion on why I should bother learning any Japanese at all if people there spoke English (the very root of the problem with our mono-lingual society and part of the reason I became a FL teacher).

Last night's dinner was very fun. Sandie Camp (our district's Japanese teacher) brought Carrie Harrington (our foreign language program director- a woman for whom I have the utmost respect) along to dinner. We were there talking and eating and laughing for 2 1/2 hours. It turns out I might have slightly more of a clue on the food thing than I had once thought. Upon receiving our giant picture-filled menus, Sandie asked me what I'd tried before/what I liked. I was familiar with most of the appetizers and the sushi menu, it was the main entrees/noodle dishes which were newest to me. I wound up ordering some sort of crazy Udon bowl with beef, chicken, and all sorts of goodies in it, along with some yellowtail. Carrie and Sandie shared their crab puffs, gyoza, and edamame. I was way stuffed (and my POINTS were out the window) by the time all was said and done.

Sandie gave me a lot of ideas on places to visit and some much-needed language pointers as well. She's sending me more books via school mail. They were so excited about my trip and made me feel like I was doing some good preparation; that's always nice.