Haikus at Yokohama College of Commerce

I think teaching Japanese students how to write haikus in English is a little bit like teaching Americans how to compose a sonnet in Japanese. Mixed, mangled, and amazing. Here's what some of my students came up with:

"baked sweet potato
autumnal tints beautiful
looking in the park"

"Yoshimasa stands
beside blooms the sunflower
sunflower higher than he"

I told them that they might focus on traditional themes like the four seasons (to keep them from just staring at the page and claiming that they couldn't come up with any ideas) - but of course some were a lot more creative.

"the snowman is cold
he plays soccer very hard
snowman is water"

And my favorite:

"YES WE CAN for change
barak hussein obama
snowboarding is great"

That's what's hip right now at my school, in a nutshell - Obama and snowboarding.

More updates to come soon - I promise! School has been super busy lately, but I'll have more free time in the next couple weeks I think.

winter vacation

So much time has past since a picture update! So here we go -->

My very good friend Hanna came to visit me over winter break from Korea, and we went all sorts of places together.

Christmas party at Ross's house! Sarah and Ross really know how to get a good ol stew going. Also, there was silly string.



I attacked Carrie on the balcony with fake snow. It's the Christmas spirit!



Hanna and I went to Hakone, a resort town south of Yokohama where you can get a great view of Mt. Fuji. The day we went, it was stunning.



Fun in Yoyogi Park ! The days were sunny and gorgeous, and we just ran around outside and climbed trees.



Extreme closeup!! :-D



As always, Japan has been informative. This vacation, I learned how to wash my bottom. Look closely, there's actually a button that plays a flushing sound through the - yes, you guessed it - the toilet's speakers. Mind you, this has nothing to do with the actual flushing of a toilet. It's just the sound. For atmosphere?



Well that's about all the learning I can take - it's time to get back in the classroom and start teaching. Only a couple more weeks left in the term, finals are next week, then I'll be teaching a make-up class for a couple of weeks, and then back to America on March 2nd!