大混乱Chaos

It has been one hell of an interesting week.

面白い週だった。

So on Thursday, I went to help teach English at Rakuto Middle School for the first time. Generally, Japanese are viewed as obedient, quiet people, right? Well, either that's just a facade, or I've found the one middle school that has all of the excitable students. I mean, seriously... the first question I was asked was "Do you have girlfriend?"

木曜日には、洛東中学校に英語の授業のアシスタントをしに行った。アメリカ人にとって、日本人は素直で、おとなしい人だけど．．．まあ、これはまねだけか、洛東は一つだけの元気な学生がいる中学校だ。初めての質問は「Do you have girlfriend?」だ！

What's more, the teacher didn't seem to be overly worried with discipline. I have to imagine that anyone who talked out of turn so much in an American school would have gotten punishment of some kind. Perhaps some measure of excitement is to be expected, considering they had a foreign student as an English teaching assistant.

しかも、先生は規律のことはあまり気にしなかった。アメリカの学校で、そんなのうるさい学生は罰があるかもしれない。まあ、私たちがいるから、もっと元気になることは普通でしょう。

I'm looking forward to this all the more. It really was fun to go in and help with the English class, and next week I get to go by myself... this time I went with a friend, so yeah.

それはまだ楽しみね。本当に楽しかった。そして、来週は一人で行くよ。

Friday... well. So there was a party scheduled for 6:30 in the evening, but my classes were over by 3. Three hours of free time, weekend starting... off to the arcade! First up was another round of DDR, because I will never get tired of DDR. I did much better this time, although still not as good as I would like. Then again, anything other than perfection is "not as good as I would like", so perhaps my goal is a little unreasonable.

金曜日．．．まあ、6時半にパーティーがあるけど、僕の授業は3時に終わった。3時間の暇な時間があったし、週末だったし．．．ゲームセンターに行こう！初めて、DDRをした。その時、もっといいだけど、まだ物足りなかった。でも、完璧以外のは「物足りない」だから、多分僕の目的はむちゃだったかな．．．

Then I went upstairs to the Mobile Suit Gundam: Bonds of the Battlefield machines. I am such a coward sometimes... I just stood in front of the machines for a good fifteen minutes doing nothing, pretty much. Okay, I was watching two Japanese people playing, but really, watching it isn't that interesting.

その後、機動戦士ガンダム戦場の絆の機に行った。時々、僕は臆病だな．．．ゲーム機の前にたった立つだけした。日本人のゲームを見ているけど、本当に見るだけは面白くない。

Finally, I started playing, and in short order was taking out enemies left and right. I finally got promoted! Well, okay, I'm still only a Private (I was a Civilian...), but it's still a promotion, right? Next time I play, I can elect to go for a real battle rather than a training match against AIs. That should be fun.

やっと、した。よく出来たね．．．昇進した！まあ、はい、まだ二等兵だけだけど（前は、民間人だった）、昇進じゃないか。次は、本物の戦闘をすることが出来る。楽しみにしてね。

Although right after I got promoted... well, while I was updating my pilot card, these two Japanese girls actually asked if they could borrow my card and have a go at it. They were kinda lucky... I still had the option to do training, which they kinda needed. I tried to explain the controls, but my Japanese is still not that good. All the same, they did surprisingly well. And you get to do two battles each time you play, but they were done after one, so I got a free battle!

そして、昇進した後で．．．パイロットカードをアップデートしながら、二人の日本人の女の子は「カードを借りてくださいませんか」と聴いた。本当に、その彼女たちは運がよかった．．．僕のカードはまだトレーニングを出来たし、彼女たちは全然したことがない。やり方を説明してみたけど、僕の日本語はまだまだだから．．．でも、彼女たちもよく出来た。そして、プレイするとき、戦闘を二つあるし、彼女たちは一つしかしないから、無料な戦闘がした。

It's a good thing too... Bonds of the Battlefield is expensive. I mean, Japanese arcades usually operate on 100-yen coins, so already it costs five times as much as an American arcade. What's worse, Bonds of the Battlefield wants five of those, usually. Even at the arcade that I went to, where it's only 400 yen, each play costs five dollars.

よかったな．．．戦場の絆は高いよ。日本のゲームセンターは100円の硬貨を使うから、日本のはアメリカの5倍高い。しかも、戦場の絆はたいてい500円がかかる。行ったゲームセンターは400円だけだけど、まだ5ドルもかかる！

And that wasn't even the end of the day... I believe I said "party" earlier? Nearly seventy people, KCJS students and students from Doshisha and Kyodai, got together to have fun. And of those, nearly half went to this "Sweets of Ninja" buffet-style restaurant for a late dinner and a lot of cake. The staff there were dressed like ninjas... it was actually kinda cool.

これは終わりじゃない。先、「パーティー」と言ったね。70人ぐらい、KCJSの学生と同志社と京大の学生は来た。そして、「Sweets of Ninja」と言う食べ放題のレストランに行って、たくさんケーキと晩ご飯を食べた。レストランの人は忍者みたいな服を着ている．．．かっこいいね。

And now, I have anime to watch this weekend.

それで、今週末はアニメを見るつもり。