Maybe another ‘white-washed tomb’ metaphor could be:
“You can’t see the filth under painted fingernails”
because i saw a guy on the train today who had only one of his hands’ fingernails painted. His other hand looked like he’d been digging around in nearly-dried oil-based paint. Some serious crust.
Term finals begin tomorrow for my students, and that means I have nothing to do for the next 4 days. Sure, there’s grading, but that’s not really anything but time consuming (I’ll spend about 10 hours marking tests). I will try and make lessons for next term as well. I need to because I’ll be missing the first day of class (I’ll be in Taipei). So, I won’t have time to make plans before classes begin. And who wants to do work on holiday? I’m no different, “put my pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else”. (props to those who can tell me that source)
Hopefully, my supervisor will take my recommendation for the 3rd years’ final term: read the Giving Tree and make a skit or other creative performance about it. Last year, they used “Frog and Toad”. Lesson planning will then be a snap. The hardest part is picking/finidng a topic. After that, it’s pick 2 key sentences in a dialog and make a game about it.
Tokorode, there are days when Japanese feels so natural - like it’s the easiest or most regular language. And there are days when it’s bigger than Fujisan. A mess of conjugations and same-reading kanji but different actual kanji (so different meaning). The tongue-twisting parts of the past verbs and adjectives are aggravating. Real practice is seldom, and I sit in the teachers’ room just saying a word and it’s different conjugations. No thot making, no context practice. I need to find a workbook…. Yes, a workbook.
misete kudasai