Ari to Kirigirisu (Saturday, April 23rd)

For some reason, since I've arrived in Okazaki, it's been gorgeous weather every day except for each Saturday, when it's done nothing but rain - weird.  Very strange weather patterns.

Not much to say, so I'm going to mention an anecdote from yesterday that I thought was pretty surreal.  I had a "Reading" elective class yesterday, in which two teachers spent a full hour with me as the only student, basically reading me children's stories.  The idea being, that during future sessions, I will be able to read stories on my own, but they would start me off with Japanese versions of "The Ant and the Grasshopper" (one of the old Aesop fables, of which the sensei were surprised to hear I knew about for some reason) and "The Three Little Pigs."

Here's some cute Japanese-style animals since I couldn't find any pigs or crickets that resembled the ones in the stories that were read to me.

I'm kind of embarrassed to say I caught myself really getting into it!  Of course, I was into it because I was surprised I was able to follow the Japanese reasonably well, and not because I was into the story itself.  Still, try to picture what was going on in that room.  Here is a grown, 35 year old man enraptured by these two stories, having them read to him by two very earnest sensei (and yes, there were pictures... I noted that in the Japanese version, the triumphant pig with the house of bricks was the cutest and smallest of the pigs).  Pretty funny when you think about it.

All I can say is it serves the damn "kirigirisu" right for singing "la la la" all day instead of preparing for winter.  What a wastrel and layabout!