(no subject)

[fenlings]

After I finished a lesson the other day, this boy stuck his English book through the window to the hallway with a marker, saying "Sein!" So I autographed his English book, somewhat bemusedly. Then I guess other people got ideas from that because the next break two more boys came to the teachers' room and I autographed their books too. Weird.

Dear people who walk into the teachers' room calling, "Sensei!": Stop that immediately. Yeah. Really not helping.

Wow everyone here is *really obsessed* with eraser crumbs. Seriously. I never even noticed what happened to my eraser crumbs after I used the eraser. Like who cares! The kids aren't supposed to even use pencils in the Language Lab so that there will be no temptation to erase.

Argh, I'm feeling the lack of central heat yo. I keep the space heater on in my bedroom and just hole up there. But that means the rest of my apartment is cold, so that doesn't really encourage me to get off the computer and leave the bedroom for, oh, food. But I think I'm allergic to the dust in the heater or something. Ick. At school, the hallways are freezing and frequently the windows are open. They broke out the big heaters that sit on the floor today. Kerosene I think? But the break room is right behind me, and all the smoking makes me not able to breathe. And then they open the window to air it out and blast me with cold air. My life is so hard. Woe.

I like the Nara dialect form of verb stem + はる (う verb, pretty much only used in casual form that I've heard). But I want to know where it comes from. Gah. Must...have...etymology...

So this sannensei girl comes up to me before class starts. She wraps her towel around her head so that it's like a babushka head covering, only covering her nose and mouth as well. Then she looks at me impishly and intones, "Ninja." and darts away... So. Funny.

There is this one sannensei couple in Kashiba Chuu. They are the only people I've seen actually displaying the signs of dating. They are both similar in that they are loud and lively, participating in class, but lazy, so that they often don't know the right answer. I guess this might have been after gym so they were helping each other get undressed. It was scandalous. I couldn't believe it. He was walking around with no shirt for awhile. Lots of boys just like unzip and lower their pants to tuck things in better because they're wearing gym shorts underneath. But it still looks funny. So then this couple sat facing each other with her legs hooked over his hips. Heh. I told the teacher it was like being back in the US.

When I was helping students practice for the speech contest, there was this one boy who wrote his own speech. Which you know, YAY GO HIM. Because after 30 renditions of "The Emerald Lizard," you start not being able to tell the kids apart. But when people write their own speeches, there are often mistakes I have to correct and it's a pain. His was short, but not that bad. He actually ended up winning the ichinensei category, even though I think I put him second or third, but the other judge liked him. So his speech was entitled, "The Gate to the World." It was about him conversing with foreigners at the Gates of Todaiji. And English was the metaphorical gate to the world. But every time he said the title, he combined the T's so that it sounded like "The Gay to the World." Every time. I would fix it and then he would go back to his own way. So at the speech contest, he solemnly informed us that English was the Gay to the World. Foreigners turn everyone gay! OMG watch out!

At Nishi, I was walking up the stairs near this groups of girls, when they turned to me and started saying:

-かわいい！
-かわいい、ね。かわいすぎる！
-うん、食べたい！

I just laughed and nodded. Apparently I make Japanese schoolgirls want to eat my face. Go me?

Wow it just occured to me that I either use fandom code or Japanese in my lj entries. Hah, I'm so elitist. But I don't really use that much Japanese here - in my head, these entries use much more Japanese. But I make an effort to translate for all the non-Japanese-speaking RL people who are stalking my lj. ::waves::


Go put your name in this slogan generator. It's awesome! It's like instant Engrish!




It's fun with denshijisho time!

加硫する（かりゅうする）＝to vulcanize. I know this has something to do with industrial materials, but in my head, the first place I go is me with a ray gun that turns people into Spock. And let me tell you, that is a happy place.

ボイハント＝boyhunt.
Ex:女の子たちはディスコへボイハントに出かけた。
The girls went out to a disco on a boyhunt.
Does this make anyone else think of that "Bearhunt" book we all clapped along with in elementary school?

The denshijisho had this as an example:
"Many people lost their homes to the pyroclastic flow."
I'm not sure what this means, exactly? But it sounds really cool. It could be the new "tubular!" "Pyroclastic!"

I have to say, "Dustbin lorry" is *such* a more attractive term than "garbage truck."

In the entry for "aborigine," the denshijisho gives the PC suggestion, "dark-skinned inhabitant." Man. That one just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Hah, especially in the adjectival form.

One of my students asked about "No." I told them it came from the Latin "Numero." (And then he had never heard of Latin. Even in Japnanese, WTF.) That's ultimately true. But I always want to trace the exact etymology, and on this word I am continually THWARTED.

My denshijisho says that it comes straight from Latin "numero."

Dictionary.com says:

\Nu"me*ro\, n. [It., or F. num['e]ro; both fr. L. numerus number.] Number; -- often abbrev. No.

So I want to trace the path from "numerus" to "numero" (ablative? what? Was it ordinal in Latin?), from Latin to Fr./It. (HELLO CAN THEY PICK ONE PLEASE?) and it's usage in that language (ie. was it an ordinal usage?).

Then I want to find out how it got from Fr./It. into English and then how the modern ordinal usage came about. Ma even looked in books, but no! Nothing! Why??? Erm, I am maybe a little obsessed with etymology?

I will comfort myself by looking up this lj post's "high jinks":

Playful or rowdy activity, often involving mischievous pranks. For example, All sorts of high jinks go on at summer camp after "lights out." About 1700 this term denoted a gambling game accompanied by much drinking, but by the mid-1800s it acquired its present meaning.

Wow, I feel so much better now. Etymology: my antidrug.

Comments

Re: See? Actual commenting!

[fenlings]

::preens at actual comments::

Hah! I hadn't thought of that. It's a story in the second year textbook. It's supposed to be a South American myth I think. It's really weird. But maybe the r/l thing is why it was included. ::admires your SMRT::

Also? I am a crazy gay foreigner! Wheee!

Although, if we go by the definition of queer=breaking societal norms, then gaijin are *definitely* queer, and one could argue that the study of English and internationalization are OH MY GOD STOP IT BRAIN!