Sept. 7^th

Today was a very simple day. I arrived at my first school, and…everyone welcomed me. I didn’t really teach today, but they wanted me to do a self introduction, which involved my name, my height, my age, hometown, my hobbies, my likes and dislikes, and stuff…very easy. The kids were absolutely amazed by everything about me. Especially when I’d move around. To them, I couldn’t possibly be real. They were thinking, ‘People don’t grow that big. Hair doesn’t do that. Skin doesn’t stay that dark. Clothes don’t come in those sizes.’ I was a giant imaginary friend, and they loved it.

I’d show a few pictures as well, just to mess with them and give them all the wrong perceptions of my existence. Ya know…like…all of Florida looks like the Keys. All my friends are silly. My hair is magical and takes on many forms. Stuff like that. They particularly enjoyed pictures of my roommate’s kitten, Stormy (yes, I know…we’ve been over this many times. The naming thing was a coincidence, we swear). One picture of that little gray furball resulted in high-pitched exclamations of “KAWAII!!!” which is basically…”cute”, in Japanese.

I made a few mistakes, though. The first was that when I said “It never snows in Florida”, I somehow slipped up and said “Crap never falls from the skies in Florida.” The kids froze. The teacher corrected me. I played it off like I got the verb forms mixed up. Another mistake was actually answering the question, “Do you have a girlfriend?” Yeah, after that was said, the teacher in the room with me, a woman, of course, seemed…a lot more interested in what I had to say. And the final mistake wasn’t realized until later on in the day.

Remember yesterday, I had no problem with natto. But, the kids asked me, “What food don’t you like?” and I had to come up with something they’d understand, and no Japanese person seems to know what cilantro is. So, I said the first weirdish tasting thing that came to mind.

“Natto.”

Harmless enough, right? Wrong. Within one hour the whole school thought I hated natto…and knew I didn’t have a girlfriend. One of the coaches made sure to show me every female teacher who was single. People were telling me that they would never serve me natto as parties they were going to invite me to. It was crazy. But then, I remembered…I told Natto-sensei that I liked natto. And the way word was spreading, oh, it’d get back to him, really, really fast, and then the coolest dude at the BoE would think I was a total liar.

I hopped on the internet as quickly as I could as e-mailed Atsuko, telling her the truth, and explaining that I didn’t want Natto-sensei to think I lied to him. She promptly e-mailed me back with laughter in her text, and told me she’d handle it. …I do hope it works.

But hey, lunch was fun and so was the rest of the day, so…as long as the natto doesn’t completely screw me over, I’m in the clear, right? …Right…