Keeping It Real

Inspired by the the run up to the playoffs and Clay Buchholz' no hitter the other day, I've decided to step up my propaganda campaign to tarnish, if not fully expunge from Japan, the Yankee name. Thus, anyone who comes to my office, student or Yankee loving coworker, is now greeted by this barrage of Red Sox pride. Front and center is the Sox logo, canopied by a 'no Yankees' sign, and through the glass one can see a Sports Illustrated cover featuring the man himself, Daisuke Matsuzaka. A little much? Probably, but you haven't seen what I'm up against here. I had to kick a kid out of class today for wearing a Yankee's hat. Though I am proud to report that many of the old men at my gym are replacing their marijuana leaf t-shirts for Red Sox shwag.

On the first day of classes I make the students stand up and introduce themselves by telling the class and me their name, home town, and hobby. I lead off, usually dropping in the fact that I am a Red Sox fan and therefore detest the Yankees. Then I ask who likes the Yankees. Inevitably some student sheepishly, or proudly, raises his or her hand, and I proceed to half jokingly tell them that their grade in the class is now compromised. Of course it's all in good fun, and a lot of the students are baseball fans, so we often talk baseball. Sort of. Since they can't speak English all that well, and I'm not much better with Japanese, it's not much of a conversation, but we try.

Into the second week of classes now and things are going well. I'm finding that the longer I work at this school the harder it is to remember my students' names. The first semester I worked here I had everyone's (about 150 students) name down about halfway through. Last semester I don't think I ever got to the point where I remembered everyone's name, though I can still remember the majority of students' names from the first semester. Odd. This term I have about 170 students and things are not looking good for me and their names.

I'm looking forward to the end of the week which is shaping up to be a karaoke night on Friday. I didn't used to like karaoke, as I've mentioned before, but recently I've been yearning to get into the booth. So the anticipation will fester and build during the week and with any luck there will be some entertaining/incriminating pictures when all is said and done.

OK, that's all the non-news from Japan. Enjoy your Labor Day all you Americans.