Arie: A Taste of Home

For those who may not know, I've recently made the official call to return to Canada at the end of this JET year. Come next August, I'll lose my semi-ex-pat status and be among those called 'Canadian' once again. And y'know, it's funny. Now that the return plans have been etched in stone, I find myself becoming that much more nostalgic about the people and places I left behind, thinking about them more and more. Luckily, however, my melancholy state of mind has been curbed by the delicious, delicious events of yesterday.

One of my two schools had school festival yesterday. The theme of day one of three was food. Cooking, selling, producing, etc. Therein, I assisted one of the classes with the preparation of a somewhat familiar dish: Jerk Chicken.
Background: One of my students has quite a love and appreciation of West Indian music, particularly reggae and the like. Very nice boy who never speaks English to me, but often has me listen to the latest song he's bought or asks me a random question about Jamaica and my family. As school festival approached, his class decided to do jerk and, being the only one around who knows anything about it, I was asked to lend a hand. So I had some bottles shipped in from Canada and told them how to make it.

There was a small hiccup at the start as the fire for the barbecue wouldn't light, so I started to get a little apprehensive. However, assistance from one or two teachers soon had us with supercharged charcoal before we knew it. No sooner had we thrown the first few pieces on the grill did we attract the attention of students and local townspeople alike. It was almost a steady stream of selling pieces and throwing new ones on. I was a touch worried that we'd have leftover by the end of the day, but a good hour before the food stalls were to close, we'd sold the last of the 120+ pieces we'd prepared. What's more, I was a little worried that the taste and/or spice wouldn't agree with people, and yet I heard 'oishi' 's (JPN: Delicious) left, right, and centre, and marvels at 80 year olds tearing through it like it was nothing. It left me feeling quite pleased that I could pass on a bit of my own culture to people who may or may not have known much about it before. And I've learned that the best way to effect grassroots internationalization is through the stomach.

Footnote: Of course, I was taking little bits of chicken as the day went on. Even when a piece hit the ground, and it was the only one left at the end of the day... Hey! The other side was still good.

How My Students would decide the US Presidental Election

Hats off to one of my JTEs. Truly. This woman is like God in Japanese, English-speaking, teaching form. Senator Obama been declared President-elect not one hour prior, and yet she had already designed a worksheet and lesson on the fly for her next class. Upon completion, she asked me to accompany her as we had been talking about it all day up to this point and she wanted me to explain to the students what the election meant for America, Canada, and indeed, the world. I happily obliged, but not before donning my Obama campaign button that had been oh so kindly given to me many months before by one Heath.

And so apporximately one hour after the 270th vote had been posted, I found myself in front of a classroom of high school students and explaining to them how the American election system worked (A shock to me, more than anyone. I can barely explain how the Canadian one works). The highlight of the lesson came during the explanation of how the voting worked and the states having electoral votes. One student asked, "So what happens if the two candidates are tied?"

A girl immediately replied, "Janken?"

...

Arguably, the literal fate of the world being decided by a round of janken.

...

After recovering from my spout of laughter, a thought entered my head: "Would playing janken to decide global socio-economic politics really be that bad?"