| oo3; 毎週の火曜日 |
[03 Jun 2008|01:36pm] |
On Tuesdays I always volunteer at the Japanese class at my old high school. It's fun for the most part as I get to practise my Japanese, and talking with the other volunteer Mamiko-san and the other Japanese students in the class Ikue and Mari (they say they learn more English helping out their classmates than they do in ESL class!) and of course... seeing Rosen-sensei, who thinks of me like a daughter. I guess I have a good impression on teachers from East Asia, hee. I've known her for eight years... wow. How time flies! 先生は私のことを好くしてるね！
Anyway, I really do enjoy my time there and I'm very sad that next week is the last week of class. It's a pity there isn't anything I can do this summer. I'm debating putting up an ad on Craigslist enlisting myself as a Japanese tutor. I'd do Chinese also, but I worry my tones would potentially screw up someone else (my vocabulary = fantastic; my tones = not so much). I think volunteering is a lot of fun, and in a way, I enjoy it more than actually working. I don't like to think of time as actually valuable, you know? There's a saying by Confucius that goes, "It is not easy to find someone who can study for three years without thinking about earning a salary".
I invited Mamiko-san to lunch next week after class (I also invited Sensei, but Sensei is too busy with school and final exams). I hope she and I can remain in contact after I leave for Shanghai in August. Her husband also is fond of me, and they loaned me a DVD of a Zen Temple his great-great-grandfather was the senior priest of! O.O Since I'm so interested in philosophy, they thought I'd enjoy it as it speaks much of Zen philosophy. It doesn't have English subtitles, but that's fine. I don't need them, and if I don't understand something, I can ask Mamiko or Rosen-sensei later.
Speaking of lunch, I'm waiting for Steph to call. I always get hungry for Japanese food after volunteering, hee! We're going to go to ふみ for lunch. It's such a nice restaurant; not many non-Japanese go there and since I look white to most Asians, they were surprised when I came in. What really surprised me was how authentic it was...
They had NHK on the TV, and it was live broadcast from Japan! So funny to be eating dinner and seeing 「おはよう日本」on the TV. What's more was the strips of paper had items from the menu on the wall- just like in Japan! I forgot I was in Michigan and not Japan while I was in there, and I don't get that feeling very often from Japanese restaurants, even very authentic ones like あじしん.
Oh, Steph's here! Time for lunch~
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