Coke Birthday (Supposedly)

My day has not been terribly exciting. I went back to school today for another Japanese lesson. It has been a while and it showed slightly as I cannot form a single coherent sentence anymore! I hope that it will come back quickly, what little I had in the first place. There were only four of us in class this morning: Drum, Ciarán, Rushen, and I. Brendan cannot come this week, as he has to cover for another teacher, about which he is unhappy. The others are back on Wednesday, so it should be small classes until at least Thursday. After that, we will see who comes back to class this week!

I had lunch and then came home on the bus. I pottered about on my computer, trying to convert a kanji-learning program that I found so that it runs properly on my computer. It involves dismantling the original, and then recoding it. It is quite a fun project. I do not recall being this motivated about programming for a long time. I have it working now, though, and it seems useful. There are still some loose ends to tie up, but knowing me, I will never get around to them as it works well enough as it is. It remembers your progress and progressively introduces you to new kanji when it thinks you have mastered all the preceding ones. I will probably try to match up its kanji files with the ones that we learn from our book. Currently, I do not know quite a few readings, though maybe learning them now will be more rewarding in the future. I doubt it somehow!

I had Linden Hall this afternoon, as well. I got ready to leave, and went downstairs, only to wander why I was going so early. I had been looking at the wrong side of the timetable and I was an hour premature for the bus. I made it in the end, though, and on time. I went into the international office to photocopy some sheets for the vague class I had planned, but then when I am teaching with Brendan, we never do what I plan. Instead, we played “Super Simon Says” for 45 minutes, which the kids seemed to enjoy. The tasks became immensely complicated, though, with things like “Super Simon says ‘run to your locker and then come back.’” At the end, we had them split into two teams and form shapes that we said. We began with “A” and “Z”, but then moved onto “bus” and even “happiness”! The final game was the “Socks” game, where you take your socks half off, and have to try to remove other people’s socks without losing your own. It was quite a violent game and I was surprised that there were not many injuries. They were playing for sweets, as well! Somehow, Louis lost a sock in the process, too, and nobody had an extra one, so I do not know where that went. I will let Brendan take any blame coming!