Me 101

Often during class the Japanese teachers love to use me as an example, often using my name in the course of a grammar point or what have you.

This week has been “Are you …?” And “ You are …” as the grammar point…

Of course, I am the example, with my name plugged in to the “…”

So here I have 40 Japanese thirteen year olds declaring in unison that they are, in fact, me…

That’s a little surreal.

And here’s another thing that is strange:

I am learning Braille… Both Japanese and English Braille… Not intentionally, mind you... Quite incidentally...

I can tell you that Braille was invented in 1826 by Louis Braille, a Frenchman. And that it was brought over to Japan in the Meiji era (1880-ish) where it was modified for Japanese Kana (One of their alphabets), and implemented shortly thereafter…

I can even write “se” in Japanese-Braille … All but the lowest left dot is raised… (There are 6 dots in Braille, laid out like the 6 on standard gambling dice…)

Why, you may ask, do you know all of this information?

Well, it is lesson 1 of my third year textbook… We have been on this one point for two weeks now, and I have reread the section for every third year class (4 classes) at least 4 times per class for the last two weeks... and if I have to repeat that information one more time… I believe I shall start tweeting like a songbird…

There are strange drawbacks to this job… Really strange…

Or maybe that’s a plus… I’m not really sure…

Tweet… tweet…

---Me.