Electronic Messages

I woke up Monday morning, blinked and now it's Thursday. I wish I woke up on Monday, blinked and it was Friday. Now the week has officially slowed to a crawl at Thursday and the weekend seems years away. At least Thursdays are blog worthy. Last Thursday, I experienced the most successful communication attempt since arriving in Japan. I felt truly understood for the first time, with hardly any energy expended on my part. Too bad it was with a cat. But when that cat meowed back at me man, I tell ya, I felt such a great sense of accomplishment. Baby steps, friends, baby steps.

Thursday is also the day I teach my Junior College Communications class. 90 minutes of controlled chaos. The day I wear protective gear to class to protect myself from the poking and stroking of my female students. Ya remember the bum toucher from last year? Ya she's in the class. And she's graduated to calves. I'm not shittin ya! I was leaning over talking to another student, and I feel one, two quick squeezes of my calf. "What the !?!" flashes and fades. And before I can even process the event, I'm helping another student. After class, I'm left wondering if the walk-by assault even occurred. She's fucking with me man. Thankfully, since then her hands have not wandered - but I know she lies in wait and give her a wide berth.

And for a couple of weeks I was lulled into a sense of safety until I was rudely awakened by a student poking and massaging my cheeks (the ones on my face, to be clear) as her friend looked on. I see a electronic dictionary approaching my line of vision - I read the screen - on it is written 'FINE SKIN.' I nervously answer 'Thanks.' I feel the other girl's fingers exploring this fine skin of mine and she her electronic dictionary floating into view. On it another translated message: ELASTICITY. I utter another strained 'Thanks' and head to the relative safety of the front of the classroom. Where I stand with my back pressed against the blackboard for the remainder of the 90 minutes.

Note: 5 words were looked up in the writing of this blog. AND, just now I was correcting a student's homework and wondered why the word moose (M-O-U-S-E spells moose right?) was included in a list of computer related words. I actually stopped correcting to think about it, until minutes later the lightbuld went on and I thought, "Oh, MOUSE!" Well that makes sense then.