At least little Yuki thinks I`m special....

Translating things automatically, without thinking about what you’re saying can sometimes lead to hilarious results. For example, last week one of the guys I play tennis with asked me how to say “borru ga nai” in English and I told him it was “I have no balls” before giving it much proper thought. The result was that during tennis practice yesterday he shouted across the court at me “Hey Rana, I havu no Balls!!” and flashed a big grin, proud with his English. I thought about correcting him, but didn’t know how to explain what he was saying in Japanese so I just let it slide after I had myself a good chuckle.

I had a good day at elementary school yesterday too. I learned how to write “Ichi Go Ichi E” (“once in a lifetime chance”) in Kanji. This was because I got to take a class with the 5th graders who were practicing their Shodo (traditional Japanese calligraphy) skills. It’s always humbling when 10 year olds outdo you at something like writing or drawing, but at least they were rather nice about it. Little Yuki even told me that `she thought I had great potential`, though I suspect she was just being overly kind, since at that point I had only drawn one straight line.

At the end of the day though, I didn’t care how retarded it was that I was sitting at the world’s smallest desk and chair learning to write from little children (while getting some rather condescending praise from passing adults, who seemed more than shocked that I was able to hold the brush upright and not drool all over the scroll paper) because doing crafts sure as hell beats sitting on my ass in the staff room. In addition, my finished scroll is now proudly hanging on my fridge door, patiently waiting for a visit from my parents (or someone that can temporarily act as a parental surrogate) to receive the praise that it so desperately yearns for and dare I say, deserves. Japan rules.