It's Not So Difficult, Folks...

So I guess I should update more than once a month. I'll put pictures up again soon enough.
Man, I've been so busy at work lately--in a good way. We did a treasure hunt in the 1st and 2nd year elective classes, which they mostly enjoyed. But I feel so sorry for the kids. The 1st years did a really good job, but the 2nd years didn't do so well. You'd think that an extra year of English classes under the belt would help, but when you consider who their teachers have been these past 2 years, it's no real surprise. That wasn't really the problem, though. After not listening to the directions on how to proceed they also were really not able to think, I hate to use this godawful phrase, "think outside the box." Seriously. One clue was: Go to the flower garden. Look under the yellow bird. But they didn't think about how their may be more than one flower garden at school. And they didn't think about how I definitely wouldn't put a clue under a real bird. Another group had trouble locating the "tree island," even though they checked it five times. Then they couldn't figure out that the one dead tree that had zero green on it was the "brown tree." "They're all brown!" they said. Not that they learn how to be analytical at school, though. Ah, how I love rote memorization and copying words over and over again with no real purpose. But then again, one must remember what the only possible purpose of Japanese schools really could be: create a person who can function appropriately in Japanese society. Potentially useful subjects (English) be damned.