Size Medium or Small for your gleen hoot?

Today, as I rushed to get ready for my kindergarten class (so adorable!), the volleyball coach approached my about "night volley" -pronounced naito bolee. As he mentioned before, I need to buy the uniform, of course, to join the team. Not a problem I don't mind TOO much that I end up dishing out lots of money for "optional" office events - such as enkais - and shirts. But what I DO mind that I HAVE to get used to, is giving me two choices when the correct answer, when they expect a premeditated response. Tabata sensei present a choice of sizes, "EEETO, Eidorian-sesei ne...EEETO, naito bolee ne..." (the "ne"s are like conversational glue such as "like", and in this case he was probably trying to figure out how to achieve a desirable answer from me). "Hai." (yes I am listening) "Eto ne, naito bolee no uniformu ne nani saizu ga iin desu ka ne?" (um so, what size is good for night volley?) "Sa, saizu ga otouko no hito no saizu desu ka?" (Well, is it a men's size?) "Un" (Yes) "Okay, sumaru saizu onegaishimasu" (Okay, a small size please) ........Pause....... (This means no!) "Emu ga iin ja nai n desu ka?" (Is Medium not a good size?) I caught on!!! He had never wanted me to say I wanted a small size. Everyone here wears super baggy shirts, but I want mine to be wearable outside of sports. Then not only Tabata sensei, but Kochou sensei (my principle) went into a lengthy explanation about how "in American women wear tighter shirts..." Awkward. I never really wear shirts any tighter or any lower than any of the other females in the office. But, I was running late and I didn't want to fight it. I asked what all the other women bought, and they had bought mediums. Since I am paying a lot for the shirt, I should have battled for a good fitting size because I know from buying a small for sport's day that it is loose fitting. A medium will no doubt be too big and I won't ever want to wear it outside of the several weeks of night volley. So the whole point of my telling this really insignificant and two minute conversation was to point out that I had no choice in the matter, which happens a lot. I am sometimes asked to choose, but the unspoken rule is that everyone should know what to say ahead of time. Before I didn't know the script. So, I wonder why they even ask everyone sizes when they know everyone will say medium? My speculation is that scripted conversation acts as a ceremonial reminder that I will pay for night volley. Maybe it asking for my size is a last minute chance to change your mind and say, "Oh no I don't want a shirt because I am too busy for night volley." Size didn't actually seem to be what Tabata sensei asked me. Oh I have yet to mature my infantile social pragmatics.

Success at kindergarten. Only three kindergarteners at Sakiura Kindergarten. I told the best story ever to the kids. My job: translate the story into English. Easy, and I embellished a bit and the moral was: If kids stay up having fun past midnight they will be taken away to the ghost land and be turned into a ghost forever. Cute as buttons they all looked like they were going to cry and quickly explained how they all go to bed around 9 o'clock. Poor kids, but I had fun telling the story.

Obviously, they could imitate my English almost perfectly, but the kindergarten teachers I think retarded their pronunciation advancements. I would pronounce something like, "green" and they would over-articulate and assume that the "r" I said was actually "l" because they assume it is "l" if they are unsure. So they kept saying, "GLLLEEEEN." And I have to admit this frustrates me a bit. I try so incredibly hard to get the kids to acquire a good pronunciation before katakana English (Japanified English pronunciation: ai laiku apuruzu (i like apples) ). Alas, the kids instead of watching my mouth would watch the two teachers who (in my opinion) had some of the worst accents I have encountered. The poor kids got so confused with green, but I explained to the adults that you don't use your tongue for green. That helped. But, the poor kids when we learned "foot" at first did a great job, but started to pronounce it "hoot" because the two teachers used the Japanese "fu" which is more like "hu" because they don't actually use teeth when pronouncing "fu". So I am ashamed to say that my kids would walk around saying, "gleen hoot" and think they have a perfect accent. I wish teachers would stop trying to pronounce things to the kids, it just screws them up. This happens in other classes. I just need to correct the adult language or tell them not to speak after me, just the kids.