Unclean! Unclean!

Yesterday was really quite cushy. (Which is lucky, since I still feel a little out of sorts from the illness that hit on the Philosopher's Path--yet more evidence that philosophy is bad for the health.) In the morning had some impromptu training in some school out in the boonies about 40 or 50 minutes west of Shinjuku. (I mean, boonies in terms of the Tokyo area. In terms of back home, well, it kind of makes Metropolis look like a vegetable stand.) After that I had to ride the train back into the city, and when I got back to my usual school I discovered that someone had made a scheduling error in my favour, with the result that I spent some time working hard for my money, at Starbucks, reading a paper on Hegel and slowly sipping a Matcha Cream Frappucino.

(The Matcha Cream Frap is not of this world. It has been blessed by the patron Saint of Tastebuds. Its ingredients are pure joy and delight. The recipe was painstakingly crafted by the Gods after they'd had enough of that tired old Nectar crap. For those of you who lack access to this beverage, be thankful that you do not truly know what it is that you're missing.)

I got back, and spent about an hour and a half helping a student do some translating--as in, this student works professionally as a translator, and sometimes comes in to check a few things. (She told me she'd requested my help in particular; no doubt she'd been impressed by my black belt in pedantry.) This was great fun, because the material undergoing translation was a History Channel special on "Barbarians". I wish every day at work could involve in-depth discussions regarding the precise manner in which the Mongols piled up the heads of their defeated foes.

So, anyway, that was about it for the day.

Today I was back teaching 2 year-olds. And it actually went OK this time. I spent the whole lesson actually leading them through activities, as opposed to looking on impotently as my supposed students run around wildly on the opposite end of the room.

That should have been the hardest part of the day. Having cleared that obstacle, it should have been clear sailing from then on in.

But.

After working in the daycare center, I have to do a couple of lessons back at my normal school. Today one of those lessons was a man-to-man kids class ("man-to-man" means "1 on 1", even if the teacher is female, and even if the student is female and/or 3 years old). Two unfortunate things happened during this lesson.

1. The child sneezed. Mightily. Thereby producing a handful of mucus. Yes, handful--I'm talking about a sizable quantity of mucus here. I was prepared, however: I had a pack of advertisement-tissues in my suit jacket. So I reached into the pocket, got the tissues, and just as I was about to offer them to the kid, he reached out and wiped his hand (full of mucus, remember) right down the front of the jacket.

I'm always so jolly during kids lessons, but I must have made a pretty good mad face right about then. I got him to say sorry without having to repeat myself, and he was subdued for almost an entire minute.

2. This kid hates the cards we use in lessons. So... well, let's cut to the chase. He put the cards down his pants and held them against his crotch, OK?