Zeph's Corner

Several weeks ago, I asked Claire if I could write one of our blog entries. Given how wonderful and generous she is, her reply of "yes" was rather unsurprising. But, as some of you may know, I was born a procrastinator and for the last two weeks I've been constantly reminded that I need to write a blog entry because, as Claire put it, "MY BLOG HAS FOLLOWERS". Today the situation escalated in the Scotti household when Claire vowed not to make dinner til the entry is finished.


The Makoto Incident, etc.
Children are strange, and I have the feeling that this is a universal (and not just Japanese) thing. This is what has stuck out to me the most in the last month or so. What exactly must be going through your 6 year old head when you decide that Zeph-sensei's classroom is the place to expose your "no-no secret place"? For those of you who didn't hear, my student Makoto pulled down his pants, started jumping up and down, and screamed "chinko! chinko" (translation: weeny! weeny!). This was perhaps the most revealing incident that happened in my classroom in the last few weeks, but not the only one. There is also a five year old boy named Komei. Every Tuesday he enters my classroom and grabs a bin full of small stuffed animals (or plastic fruit or whatever) and deliberately throws them across the room, all the while laughing hysterically as if he were the reincarnation of The Night Stalker-if Ramirez is still alive, then this phenomenon is even more troubling. Does little Komei help Zeph pick up these toys? Nooooo, despite the fact that he most certainly knows I'm not nearly as limber as I used to be. Lastly, there is Shoma. Shoma is one of my favorite students. He is my lone student on Saturdays; he is also 6 years old. Last Saturday I was teaching Shoma animal names and some action words. So, I would say things like: "Shoma, throw me the cow" or "catch the cow". One time, after giving the latter command, Shoma caught the cow and then I heard a "mooo"; that's right, his butt decided to participate in the English lesson. Indeed, this happened three or four times. After having ignored it a couple times, I finally asked him in Japanese "Shoma, what was that?" This sent him to floor laughing really hard, which (predictably) caused him to indulge his flatulence even more. For those of you who are wondering, and you know who you are, they were short and exceedingly violent bursts of air, much like the sound of quickly letting a little air out of a very full balloon. So, I had to end the day by teaching Shoma the word "fart".

Settling In
Indeed, we are settling in. We are becoming locals. In fact, we were eating at one of the restaurants in town (Grazie Gardens, where they have decent wood-fire ovens and, therefore, decent pizzas-especially the cheese pizza and the four cheese pizza with gorgonzola and honey) and a Japanese woman couldn't figure out how to get the drink machine to deliver water. So, I had to show her; I'm fairly certain that she was humiliated. We've gotten used to shopping at the supermarket; Claire bought a suit at the department store (BTW, she had a successful interview with K&M modeling agency in Tokyo, but I'll let her share that with you). Claire and I took a drive for about three hours yesterday, just exploring the countryside, and we found a movie theater and Sweet Factory (yes, the same one from back home).

Also, I got my work visa processed which was important. Unfortunately, getting Claire the appropriate visa has been frustrating and more difficult. In order to celebrate our half-victory (and a certain tradition that I share with Ryan Smith) we ate dinner at Outback Steakhouse of all places. A taste of home is nice. A taste of steak is even better, but Outback did not make the cut for eat of the week:

Eat of the Week: I took Claire to Chichibu's most famous soba restaurant. We enjoyed handmade soba (noodles made from just buckwheat flour and water) served chilled and accompanied with a tasty dipping sauce, and a variety of tempura (a big old succulent shrimp, pumpkin,a single shiso leaf-interesting, and a green pepper). It was really good. So, you dip your noodles in the sauce and then eat the noodles. When the noodles are gone, they bring you a pot of the water that the noodles were cooked in, which your pour into the cup containing the dipping sauce. You finish your meal drinking that delightful concoction.

Claire, my dear, you can now cook dinner.
Z