Sauce Man!

Not much happening lately. Oh, well, there was something of an upset during lunch today. Kocho-sensei went up to the microphone in the cafeteria of Nita JHS and said something, and what he said caused quite a stir among the students. I didn't understand what was going on, and I figured I'd find out later, so I continued eating. I reached for my bowl of soup, but the girls I was sitting with said, "Stop! Emily, stop!" Huh? I turned back to where Kocho-sensei was, and now he was joined by a couple of workers from the food prep building (attached to Nita JHS) in their white caps. Something was wrong with the food? So I asked my JTE what was up. She said they'd found some pieces of grass in the soup, so we shouldn't eat any more of it. I'd already finished most of mine. :/ But the rest of the food was fine.

Later in the teachers room Kocho-sensei asked if we were all feeling okay, and we were, cos it was just grass, right? They wrote up a letter to be sent home with all the students explaining what had happened. So that was mildly exciting.

And plus I've had a headache. But that started before lunch, so I'm not too concerned.

Yesterday I had my first class with the 3rd years this semester. Beckham is the 3nensei JTE at Nita, and also the homeroom teacher of this particular class, so they were especially genki, considering the 3nensei are relatively reticent. I'd written out some sentences that followed a particular pattern (namely, "[Something] is [important/easy/difficult, etc.] for me, because [reason]"), and was reading them aloud to the class; they had to listen to me and figure out what I'd said. There was a part of one sentence that no one could figure out, except one kid who responded suddenly with the correct answer. "Oh," said Beckham, "You are so smart!"

But between Beckham's pronunciation skills and the students' listening skills, they thought he'd said, "You are Sauce Man!" "Sauce Man! Sauce Man!" they teased the kid, even after Beckham corrected them. Sauce Man was on fire yesterday, providing many correct answers, and every time he did, the boys around him continued: "You are Sauce Man!" He was pretty good-natured about it, though, and even at one point corrected them. "No," he said, "Shouyu (soy sauce) Man."


Every year there's a seminar in November for all of the ALTs in Shimane, as well as some JTEs. Last year it was Beckham's turn to attend, and he with a couple other JTEs did a workshop. I decided I wanted to see how this workshop turned out, and boy was I in for the unexpected. They did a model class where the workshop attendees were students, and Beckham played the ALT named—here's where he gets his nickname—David Beckham. He wore his favorite soccer jersey, and tried to act all cool and confident. So awesome. The workshop on the whole was pretty fun. I can't say that we really learned anything except for one possible lesson plan, but it was fun, and later other ALTs who'd attended thought it was really cool that my JTE had been willing to be all goofy like that in public. I was surprised; still waters run deep, I guess. The next time I was at Nita, I told Beckham how much we'd enjoyed his workshop. He prefered to forget it had ever happened.