Sometimes I laugh and I laugh and everyone in the teachers room looks at me funny.

Okay, I concede I am not quite living up to my New Year resolution.



Still, let’s see if I can improve things from this point on; starting with an old favourite, amusing stuff my students have written recently.



I have recently begun working at a new school (again, gah!) and one of the first things the teachers at my new school did was dump a load of work on me that my new students had written over the winter break.



This was a comedy goldmine.



Apparently at my new school the teachers had been very good at introducing the students to some higher level vocabulary. Words like pleasure, one (in the sense of oneself or one does), restless, etc, etc. However the students weren’t quite so hot on how to properly conjugate these new words, leading to such examples as…



Well, see for yourself.



“I will pleasure me in winter vacation.”



“I will pleasure in winter vacation. I want come early.”



“I want to go to Okinawa because I want to raid a banana.”



“My dream is ueding dtheina. Becoues I think many peapol smailing get home. They’re get married to happy. They’re never happy mamols plezant for them.”



“I exerted a cultural festival.”



“I like my bedroom because it is very restless.” (he meant messy)



“”2nd term was great! There was field day, culture day and eisteddfod.”



Cue conversation between me and the Japanese teacher of English.



Me: What do you think eisteddfod means, I can’t think what English word it could be.



JTE: Hmmm. No, idea. I’ll read the Japanese version they wrote.

Okay apparently they mean music festival.



Me: How did they get eisteddfod from music festival? Does it sound similar in Japanese?



JTE: No, let me check my dictionary.



Me: What does it say.



JTE: Apparently it’s an arts festival in Wales.



Me: What! Wales!



(cue gales of laughter for ages)



There were two other entries that are absolutely heartbreaking too.



For example, one girl was talking about the Akashi suspension bridge and wrote:





“When I saw it, I was happy, for the first time.”



Now obviously she meant “when I saw it for the first time I was happy.” But even so

don’t you just wanna give her a hug?



The other heartbreaking one was in answer to the question. “How was your second

term?”



“What!!! How was it!!! It was terrible. Oh my god!!! I studied very hard but I love the

comic books too much. When my mother came in she yelled at me and took the comic

book. The next day, my mother took all the comic books. I was very sad. I didn’t get a

good grade.”



Awwww. Rest assured I gave you a good grade fellow comic fan.