Odd Flavored Things and Breakthrough!

The post title actually has something to do with the post! Imagine that! First things first: food (like I ever put food second, come on!). One thing about Japan is that while foreign foods do sometimes crop up in the supermarkets, there does seem to be an overwhelming desire for KitKats here--they seem to pop up everywhere. And there apparently exists a huge market for a wild variety of flavors. Last year I had an amazing Ramune flavored one during the excruciating Mt Fuji hike (ramune apparently comes from lemonade, but I wouldn't describe it as such; I don't really know what kind of flavor it is), and Hera swears by green tea flavored ones. A few weeks ago we sampled a combo pack of cola and lemon flavored KKs. The general consensus (i.e. my opinion) was that cola was meh, but lemon ROCKED. I have since been on the kick for different Kats. The latest I have found is Mixed Juice flavored (ミックスジュ-ス）, which is an interesting choice from the makers of KK. Observations: not bad, not my favorite; tastes more like candy bananas than mixed juice. I'm holding out for lemon flavored.

Next: Breakthrough! While I do teach a class by this name, this is not what I refer to. What I refer to is a certain child I teach who presents somewhat of a problem for me during class at times (ex. mooning), and overall doesn't listen to me at all. However, I had a make-up class with him on our Sunday Open (that is, my last in a six day week); since he was the only student, we basically played whatever game he wanted to do, and wonder of wonders, he listened to me--and he actually repeated what I said in English! And not only that, but he remembered after class! See, the absolute worst part of my job is the 5 minutes after a kids lesson where we teachers have to prove to the mothers that their children are learning--and if the child screws around in class, it becomes apparent after class (and as you can imagine, insanely embarrassing for me). So this Sunday was the first time he could actually repeat what we did in class, and quite well to boot. The fact that he got so much encouragement clearly pleased him; he turned bright red and kept squirming around on his mom's lap, trying to hide his smile. It was really satisfying to see that happen, and even though I know this will never happen again unless I have another private lesson with him, it's still the small victories that count.