There is one English teacher I've nicknamed that I failed to mention before. She gets her own editorial.
I call her Ms. Grinch. It's difficult to tell her age, because she's wearing enough layers of makeup to effectively shield her from shotgun shells to the face. I wonder if she's actually ever taken off makeup in her life--like the rings on a tree trunk, perhaps we can determine her age by counting the layers of foundation. I am going to guess no younger than 50. For a 50 year-old, she's in pretty good shape, but she dresses like a trendy 20-something. Mercifully, nothing revealing, but still, with jeans and shirts perhaps tighter than they should be. I've said before that I have no problem with Mrs. Robinsons, but I'm afraid I do have to draw the line at Estelle Getty.
In planning our first classes together, she wanted my self-introduction to include a quiz about San Francisco. As such, she asked me about what SF was most famous for. Jokingly, I suggested Gay Pride, thinking way, way back to the young student who answered that question with "Gay Bridge." Ms. Grinch's face lights up (I suppose--under all that makeup who knows what's going on...)--"Oh, Gay Pride!" she says. "Oh, so there are a lot of gay people in San Francisco then!" I said there were, but that I was really only joking, and if we wanted to talk about the history of San Francisco, surely we could cover anything ranging from the gold rush and the Golden Gate Bridge, to Alcatraz, how Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage survived Alcatraz, or hell, even Rice-A-Roni. "No no, I want to talk about the gays!" Ms. Grinch insists, and that is how it was decided that, during my first classes with very impressionable Japanese 15 year-olds, I would give a talk about Gay Pride.
Not that I have anything against Gay Pride--I am from San Francisco after all--but I don't really want to talk about Gay Pride when I'm, y'know, not gay. I'm sure most homosexuals out there wouldn't exactly leap at the chance to talk about the wonders of being straight. We can't ask Kate Moss to give a talk about being dangerously obese, can we? Or, how about asking women to be thrilled to talk about how great it is to have a penis.*
*Although, ladies, you have NO idea what you're missing. Cause it's fuckin' awesome.
Ms. Grinch asks me to outline my potential Gay Pride talk with her. I try to think of the most straightforward explanation I can think of. I say that, perhaps in America, on the coasts people are more open and accepting of alternative lifestyles, but in the middle of America (red states!) people aren't quite as accepting. Ms. Grinch nods along as if I'm revealing some long-hidden truth to her. "The middle of America...oh, so you mean, like Arizona?"
...So, Arizona is considered the Midwest now? Who knew? You hear that all you Arizonians out there? You guys are the Midwest now. Time to start hating gays and worshiping football, if you haven't already. I also expect a fine herd of cattle and the dogged cowboys to properly wrangle them. I don't wanna hear any "desert wasteland" excuses outta you either.
I can't really blame her for this too much though, it's not like Americans are any better...
Mom: Hey, I heard on the news that there was an earthquake in Hokkaido...are you okay?
Me: Yeah Mom, Kyoto doesn't really feel earthquakes that happen over 600 miles away...
Can it get worse? Oh boy yes it can.
Grandma: Boy, are you eating right? I heard that food's real scarce thanks to that Kim Jong Il character...
Me: ...That's not even the right country!
Once Ms. Grinch and I were doing a skit during class. I forget what the context was, but Ms. Grinch asked what I would like. The textbook had me say orange juice or something boring like that...but I like to ad-lib a lot during class, so I put on a pouty face and said that I would like a hug....Didn't expect her to actually do it....By GOD, those were the hardest tits I have ever felt IN MY LIFE. And I've been to a lot of strip clubs in my day. I'm not even exaggerating, it felt like having two slabs of granite be pressed into my chest. That shit HURT, and it continued to hurt for a day afterwards.
Now, I don't know why Ms. Grinch has Tits of Iron...and I don't want to know either. There is no explanation that will bring me any measure of joy, so I choose to remain blissfully ignorant.
Ms. Grinch gets her name from the fact that she somehow finds a way to completely kill all the fun in any activity we might plan to do. I could come up with a "Let's Learn English Through Blowjobs!" class, and Ms. Grinch would find a way to suck all the fun out of it (not literally...oh GOD, not literally...). The first big problem is that when the students are divided into groups and told to move their desks together, we spend about 15 minutes with Ms. Grinch bitching about "tsukima"--open spaces between the desks. Yes, in Ms. Grinch's world, things are brought to a grinding halt if the students don't have their desks perfectly aligned with one another.
I wasn't aware that having the desks be in contact with each other was so VITAL to the enjoyment of an English activity.
Because she makes such a big deal out of it, the students make it a point to try and rebel against her, either gradually opening up subtle little spaces between their desks, or Grand Canyon-sized rifts. Ms. Grinch is deeply and personally offended--I think the the male students could get up, pin her to the ground, and take turns tea-bagging her, and she'd be less bothered by that than she would be by the tsukima. So we spend 15 minutes (sometimes longer) with Ms. Grinch screaming "tsukima! Tsukima!" while students try to move their desks apart when they think she's not looking.
The Japanese version of Dangerous Minds, ladies and gentlemen.
Once, one boy, in flat-out open defiance, left a chasm of tsukima between him and the girl in front of him. It was huge, roughly equivalent to the size of the space between Mariah Carey's breasts. To further spit in her face, he put his head down on the desk and went to sleep. Ms. Grinch comes along, and with a hearty shout of "TSUKIMA!" she *kicks* the desk forward, with the student still sleeping on it. I'm not talking about some weak-shit granny kick either, she put all the might of a Japanese obasan into her leg and Kazuya Mishima'd the damn thing. The desk goes FLYING right into the poor girl's desk. The girl, who is already kind of shy and introverted to begin with, nearly dies of a sudden heart attack. Can you blame her? Ms. Grinch goes to the (now wide awake) boy and berates him over the tsukima--"How rude you are to her! Isn't it offensive to her to have that much tsukima!" Meanwhile, I was wondering what was more offensive to the poor girl--the guy across from her leaving a little space between the desks, or nearly getting a flying desk to the grill from a crazed obasan in makeup armor.
Aside from the TSUKIMA!, she will also stop an activity and berate the students if they aren't doing exactly what she wants them to do, in the manner she expects it. In some cases, she'll take away points from groups in a game/activity. And once a group's gotten on her Shit List...they're just royally fucked. In one sannensei class, a group of more or less good kids came under Ms. Grinch's watchful eye. One of the boys had been singled out for talking when Ms. Grinch expected silence. Was he chatting with his friends in the back, or dissing other students? Nope. He was simply enjoying the game more than Ms. Grinch thought he should be. She began to take away points from this group, in some cases when the boy was breathing in a manner she didn't like. As you might imagine, the rest of the group members were getting very frustrated over being punished for the actions of ONE boy who wasn't even really doing anything wrong to begin with. After they'd lost a full six points, one girl, who had been playing with a fake rose, extended it towards Mrs. Grinch. "Why do you hate us? Why can't we be friends?"
Ms. Grinch's response? Deduct another point from this group. ...You're a mean one, Ms. Grinch.
Words simply cannot describe the dejected look on the girl's face. Her rose, despite being plastic, also seemed to droop lower than flaccid Japanese penis. She looked kind of like Bambi, when he learned that his mom had died...except in this version, the hunter cooks Bambi's Mom up into veal Parmesan and eats her right in front of Bambi too.
And that is why games with Ms. Grinch just aren't fun. This Christmas, you'd better watch out, for if you have any TSUKIMA! between your study desks, you might just wake up to find that Ms. Grinch has beaten you silly with her Ben Grimm tits.
Sounds like a teacher I had back when I was in 8th grade.. With the the exception of the whole desk thing going on. Boy I hated those days.. Now you get to teach with a similar person. I hope you survive this trip with Ms. Grinch.
She's got quite the grapple attack there; Quick obason counter followed by 'mortar and pestle breasts'.
Wow. Some of my co-teachers have these qualities split up between them. None of them have the complete package like this though. I hope for your sake your classes with her are few and far between...even the stories you write about her classes would become depressing after a while! Maybe your just giving me bad flashbacks from some of my co-teachers of the past though :P
First comment! Yeah, that is one funny story...I love your style of writing, very inspiring style.
But the events...very funny and humoring, it just shows how ironic and crazy life can get. I can't write the same stories at my high school (Korea), so yours just warm up the day.
"She Kazuya Mishima'd it..." that's classic material baby. I love the VG references.
First;)
wow!! i'm like the first hear. makeing a post now just so mine will be the first.
on a forum i use to visit alot this was called spamming.
Open your stocking and she comes jumping out, screaming and howling and beating you to death with her chest if the other stockings aren't touching.
Sounds like my Japanese teacher in High School.
Dude, she's an android. She keeps lasers in her tits. Call Will Smith.
lol, "had been died"...new phrase of the week ^_^ Kinda reminds of how you'd say your dog died and it affected your family. It'd literally translate as "Our dog was died by my family!" Hee XD ("Kazoku ni inu ga shinareta")
"...So, Arizona is considered the mid-west now? Who knew? You hear that all you Arizonians out there? You guys are the Midwest now. Time to start hating gays and worshipping football, if you haven't already. I also expect a fine herd of cattle and the dogged cowboys to properly wrangle them. I don't wanna hear any "desert wasteland" excuses outta you either."
You know what's funny? I lived in AZ for 15 years in a town populated by rednecked haters, football was God, and real cowboys who herded cattle weren't that hard to find.
Well, we all have our pet peeves. Some are just more screwy and whacked-out than others. On that note, at least she's not kancho'ing anyone.
You know, it would be kind of funny if Ms.Grinch did meet Mariah Carey.
"The middle of America...oh, so you mean, like Arizona?"
Has everyone forgotten about poor ol' Kansas? D:
I think Mrs Grinch will get along splendidly with Kim Jong II. They are both in Japan afterall.
Az, you show the usual coast-dweller's ignorance regarding the Midwest (I'm a Minneapolis-ite). Nonetheless, great post - my friend in the hotel room with me wonders why the hell I'm laughing so hard. I particularly enjoyed the description of the girl's rose as a flaccid japanese penis... although I think the term is redundant.
For once.... I'm almost at a loss for words.
Almost ;)
"Because she makes such a big deal out of it, the students make it a point to try and rebel against her, either gradually opening up subtle little spaces between their desks, or Grand Canyon-sized rifts. Ms. Grinch is deeply and personally offended - I think the the male students could get up, pin her to the ground, and take turns tea-bagging her, and she'd be less bothered by that than she would be by the tsukima. So we spend 15 minutes (sometimes longer) with Ms. Grinch screaming "tsukima! Tsukima!" while students try to move their desks apart when they think she's not looking."
Ms Grinch sounds like she has too much tsukima between her ears :D
and...
"The Japanese version of Dangerous Minds, ladies and gentlemen."
(sings offkey)
They been spending most their lives living in the kancho's paradise...
^_^
Hope the remainder of the week is better. Peace to you.
Wow I think that's all I got. Good luck with dealing with irrational old Japanese women...
Arizonans, dammit. Arizonans.
And being a midwesterner now and all, should I start hiding the fact that I'm bisexual and go to one of those psycho camps that try to worship the gay right out of you?
I think I just might have to move to California to continue to partake in my girl-fucking ways. Anybody need a roommate?!
Couldn't you try to drop her a subtle hint when stuff like that happens? Like casually tell her "it might be good for the learning atmosphere if we stopped worrying about tsukima, since they'd enjoy english more" or something like that? I'm sure the students would respect you a lot if you stood up a bit for them when it's obvious that they're right (like the girl with the rose). If you're really diplomatic with it even the Grinch shouldn't be offended...
Unless she's effectively an insane obasan. Well, gotta live dangerously :P
I didn't know Baba Yaga taught english.
Love your editorials. They're always great fun to read.
So do you have to put up with Ms. Grinch every class, or is it just an occasional/temporary thing?
Rock that straight Gay Pride!
Az wrote: *Although, ladies, you have NO idea what you're missing. Cause it's fuckin' awesome.
-
But wouldn't it (maybe) be interesting to know what's it like - Without having to do some surgery or taking hormones. ^^
"TSUKIMA!" *Crying with laughter* same goes for the old "BREAST!" *poff* gone...
I really enjoyed this story about Ms. Grinch. Oh, how it makes me hearken back to my own days on JET... lol.
BTW, I hope you don't mind me saying so, but I noticed that it's "sukima" rather than "tsukima" to talk about a space or gap between two things... just thought I would put that out there :) Thanks!
--Jamie (formerly from Kagoshima)
... Are you sure that Ms. Grinch is an English teacher, and not a music one? Oh, and that she teaches at your school and not at mine?
Because you just gave a damn accurate description of my school's music teacher. Well, I wouldn't know about the boobs of steel. Thank God.
We have her 1st period Wednesday mornings, and if she doesn't like our greeting, she starts screaming 'GENKI! GENKIII!!!!!!' at us... a room of 37 shy Catholic school girls, 3 slightly wise-guy girls and me, a trained soloist actively trying to hide the fact that she sings louder and better than everyone else in the room combined.
And thats just the beginning of a 50 minute class.
Do you have any tips on dealing with a Grinch?
Good lord that woman sounds scary....eep I mean this is an unGodly combo if there ever was one.
-Invincible makeup barrier
-Adamantium boobs
-Thunder Obasan kick
She should be the next Kaiju monster that toho makes if Godzilla ever returns..
Thank u Az for effectively remiding me of my high school English teacher. I was all relaxed from the bathhouse and now I'm having reliving horrifing English classes (which was a subject I actually liked!) Mine only shouted "SILENCE! AND MY NAME IS FRAIZOR LIKE RAZOR!! OPEN YOUR BOOKS AND READ IN SILENCE!!!" sigh....thank GOD high school is LONG over. now I just deal with crazy kids....and I'm terrified by the Iron tits....
Becky, the best way to deal with that is to graduate...then its all over. I used to just drive her crazy (she retired after i graduated...ha ha ha) it makes u feel better.
Seems like she didn't have sex in the past two decades.
FIRST COMMENT WOOHOO! Just like comments #4, 5, and 6. hahahaha
I hate crazy controlling teachers like that.. one of my friends has this insane teacher in elementary who used to pull on students' hair and even outright slap them sometimes if they misbehaved.
Oh god. 'Iron Tits', I so imagining that as I read it. Thanks. You've ruined my already screwed up mind all the more!
You should really just kick her out of your room in the good old fashioned way that all Americans do to the elderly. Put her in a nursing home!
I don't mean to be a pain the butt, but it's "sukima" (隙間), not "tsukima"...
But but but... what did you say about Gay Pride???
You know what's funny? I lived in AZ for 15 years in a town populated by rednecked haters, football was God, and real cowboys who herded cattle weren't that hard to find.
Prescott? Except for the football thing (I never cared, so I didn't notice), sounds a lot like there.
Az, sometimes, I wonder if you live in some alternate universe when I read this shit.
Then I remember that Japan IS an alternate universe. Where some fun things are common and other things are really wrong. And I both laugh and shudder, which is a neat trick if you can do it.
When i was in school we had teachers like her. One was bad enough that one of the students who went by the name "D Boy" busted her upside the head with a fist full of those linkin log size kindergarden crayons. Public school blows.
She reminds me of my old 10th grade honors english teacher, Mrs. King. Bitch was an old, "FRENCH" grammar Nazi from hell. and the bitch couldn't speak english. And as pet peevs go, she had way too many, even with her favorites, and god help you if u wern't. If you turned in a paper and it wasn't exactly how she would've wrote it, and god forbid you had a different opinion, she'd read that shit in class, and make you sound all sorts of retarded. only thing that saved me was that sum of people in my class would proof read my shit for burned CDs (back in 2002 when it was 2-300 dollars for cd burner.
Nice article, try to avoid American political and cultural landscape. You came off about half as bad as your mother example.
"TSUKIMA!" Should go on your next T-Shirt.
What is "Tsukima" ? Isn't is supposed to be "Sukima"?
wow, dude, I do feel for you. but then, I've grown up with people who have that attitude my entire life. I understand what you're going through.
however, I will never understand your, dislike? of the red states. :p eh, whatever maintains the buoyancy of your aquatic vessel.
Aw fuck. You're reminding me of Mrs. Bergantz, my old history teacher, Az. Not cool, man. NOT cool.
Hell, reminds me of my 8th grade Advanced English teacher. She hated my guts. Once, we were reading a story told by some guys from Siberia; it was written about 50 years ago, and it involved a wierd crash, which they said was a giant tiger. It was a good story, and supposedly true. Well, she said that it was a crashed jet, even though the story and the supplemental material said no one ever discovered what it was, they only found its bones, and it indeed looked like a giant tiger. I pointed this out to her, and she explained that they were savages, and had no knowledge of anything mechanical. I pointed out that not only do they use guns in the story, the Russian government shows up in snowmobiles, and they don't freak out or anything. Hell, one of them wrote the damn story, probably on moving type. She sent me out to the hall. Once, when talking about the game Digimon World with a friend of mine, I mentioned the crap Digimon, Sukamon (he literally looks like a giant yellow crap with eyes and arms), she yelled at me and sent me to the hallway (and class hadn't started yet, so it was okay to talk). For this essay we had to write, we also had to turn in folders with our sources and notecards, in a particular order, rubber-banded. I missed the first day we worked on them, and so the next day, when I tried to get a rubber band from her, she wouldn't give me one, because she wouldn't believe that I had missed the day before. So, when I turned it in rubber-band-less, she wrote that my folder was all out of order and gave me a D on it, and a C on the total assignment; the only thing wrong was the missing rubber band. And, in history class, I got an A+ on it. She was a fucking bitch, and retired at the end of that year. And she did worse to other people; one guy, she "lost" his essay the day they were due, and gave him an F on the assignment, and another guy she sent to the office for sayign the word "hubcaps". I am dead serious. I can't even figure out any bad words that even sounds like.
I feel like a dick for saying this, but veal is baby cow, not deer. I think that deer is venison.
There was a fourth grade teacher in my elementary school who threw chairs...but this is much more entertaining.
Oh dear God, your description of her breasts remindes me of my "rich southern belle" aunt and her breast implants of death. You think that shit hurts on a mans chest, think about them things digging into another unfortunate woman's breasts (NOT sexual what-so-ever). What's even worse is my mother knew that it would hurt and didn't tell me!
The tons of corrections about the finer points of Japanese nomenclature are amusing.
I think we've all had instructors like this one at some point, but this is really bad. Don't give in to the dark side, Az.
The sad part about graduating as a solution for dealing with a Grinch-
I already did that. This year is of my own free will, doing the exchange student thing.
I must be insane.
Its too bad that none of you guys had my air horn honking, egg throwing, student's notebooks burning, surprise electrical shocking, meter stick shattering Physics teacher. Because he was one of the best teachers I ever had...
Ben Grimm Tits...line of the year right there
Oh you Californians, with your Homosexualness and your Weed.
See, I can sterotype too. :-P
Kidding. Just had to get a jab in there for Wisconsin. And despite the sterotype of gay-bashin cowboys, I think Az's editorials have shown us that idiots live EVERYWHERE.