Wobbegong stays steady

[Wobbegong]

Last challenge I settled into a ketogenic way of eating. It went great and I'm super happy with my new "diet" and the progress I've made so far. All this success makes me think I should branch out and start doing more things! Maybe even all the things! 

 

Buuuut I have some experience on my side, and it tells me things generally don't go so well for me when I split my focus. So this challenge, I'll tentatively try adding one thing to my list. Keep keto, and post more frequently on NF! I miss the community and I want to do my part to foster it again. 

 

So that's it. Here we go! 

[Arkania]

[Wobbegong]

1 minute ago, Arkania said:

 

 

Hiiiiiiiiii

[Bean Sidhe]

 

Following as always. Always glad to have you here.

[Wobbegong]

2 minutes ago, Bean Sidhe said:

 

Following as always. Always glad to have you here.

 

BEAN IS HERE! 

 

 

Hi Bean <3 

 

[Wobbegong]

Today I made pate for the first time! Yes, out of my "pure lizard livers." 

 

They turned out not only not to be lizard (they were chicken, as expected) but also not pure liver! Hearts were included. I cooked everything together and tossed it in the blender and discovered in that way that hearts just don't blend at all. Surprise! So I fished them out and, uh... "rescued" them. 

 

It was my first time eating heart (as far as I know) and it was really delicious! I don't do well with super chewy food so I skipped the cockles, but the meaty part was very mild and tender and reminded me strongly of lamb. 10/10 would partially consume again. 

 

Now it's 8:40 and the pate is chilling and I'm still on the hook for dinner. I was going to make fettuccini alfredo tonight but there's no way that's happening now. (Not because I anticipate it being ridiculously time consuming but because I've never done it before so I need like. A whole afternoon. Which is why I got home at 4 and just finished making pate.) So bacon-wrapped cheese-stuffed peppers it is! 

[Wobbegong]

Before I go, today my junior high third graders studied the word "robot" but the textbook showed humanoid robots so I took the opportunity to teach them "android" and "cyborg" as well. The teacher had not previously known android was anything other than a smartphone line, and the whole class agreed the word cyborg was "really cool." I told them Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Genos (One-Punch Man) are "cyborgs" and Astro Boy (aka Atomu) is an android. (Can you guys believe FMA is already totally old school? Nerdy students had to explain to their classmates T_T But Astro Boy is a timeless classic, I guess, lol)  

 

One of my students boldly asked "If an android is a robot in the shape of a human, what's a humanoid?" I said a humanoid is anything that's not human but looks human, and that you don't have to be a robot to be human. But really, where do they come up with these questions! I'm so proud. <3 

[Bean Sidhe]

23 hours ago, Wobbegong said:

 

BEAN IS HERE! 

 

 

Hi Bean <3 

 

 

Of course I am here. I love hearing about your adventures. 

[Bean Sidhe]

18 minutes ago, Wobbegong said:

Before I go, today my junior high third graders studied the word "robot" but the textbook showed humanoid robots so I took the opportunity to teach them "android" and "cyborg" as well. The teacher had not previously known android was anything other than a smartphone line, and the whole class agreed the word cyborg was "really cool." I told them Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Genos (One-Punch Man) are "cyborgs" and Astro Boy (aka Atomu) is an android. (Can you guys believe FMA is already totally old school? Nerdy students had to explain to their classmates T_T But Astro Boy is a timeless classic, I guess, lol)   

 

I can see the looks of confusion. I think its great that you are explaining the differences here. A

 

18 minutes ago, Wobbegong said:

One of my students boldly asked "If an android is a robot in the shape of a human, what's a humanoid?" I said a humanoid is anything that's not human but looks human, and that you don't have to be a robot to be human. But really, where do they come up with these questions! I'm so proud. <3 

 

This one I had to explain to Youngest Agent recently. SHe had a similar thought "You mean thats a thing?" and then said her mind was blown. Its constantly amazes me what kids will come up with if you let their minds work things out themselves.

One book that might help you (and the kids) with explaining things is The Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe. ITs the guy that writes the XKCD cartoon. He only uses the 100 most common words to explain things like rocket ships, nuclear reactors, batteries, cells,  elevators and microwaves. We got it for Youngest Agent a few years ago when she wanted to learn more about things but she was still a bit young to figure things out.  It is really easy to read and is fairly accurate. It might be fun to show the kids.

[Wobbegong]

17 minutes ago, Bean Sidhe said:

One book that might help you (and the kids) with explaining things is The Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe. ITs the guy that writes the XKCD cartoon. He only uses the 100 most common words to explain things like rocket ships, nuclear reactors, batteries, cells,  elevators and microwaves. We got it for Youngest Agent a few years ago when she wanted to learn more about things but she was still a bit young to figure things out.  It is really easy to read and is fairly accurate. It might be fun to show the kids.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check it out, that sounds like an awesome resource. As is probably pretty normal in most classes, I have a small handful of students who are a little extra on the ball in each class, and they're usually the ones that come up with these questions. But the other students tend to be a bit more interested when I'm answering a peer than when it's just another explanation of a stupid rule with fifty exceptions (English, you're such a mess). 

 

But this also makes me really curious what the 100 most common words in English are, and more relevantly, if my third years have learned them all. (My first years definitely haven't. They are still struggling to reliably spell Tuesday correctly. I get a lot of Thuesday and Tuseday.) We learn a lot of fairly random words, lol. 

[Bean Sidhe]

2 minutes ago, Wobbegong said:

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check it out, that sounds like an awesome resource. As is probably pretty normal in most classes, I have a small handful of students who are a little extra on the ball in each class, and they're usually the ones that come up with these questions. But the other students tend to be a bit more interested when I'm answering a peer than when it's just another explanation of a stupid rule with fifty exceptions (English, you're such a mess).  

 

And this may be a fun way to do it. Its not a rule, but usage that will show them how things work together a bit. Especially when it explains things like clouds or solar system, which they may have studied in Japanese, but seeing how it translates to english.

 

2 minutes ago, Wobbegong said:

But this also makes me really curious what the 100 most common words in English are, and more relevantly, if my third years have learned them all. (My first years definitely haven't. They are still struggling to reliably spell Tuesday correctly. I get a lot of Thuesday and Tuseday.) We learn a lot of fairly random words, lol. 

 

So here is an interactive way to type in words and see if they are in his list or not : https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/

I also found the coded "list" which is a bit hard to read until you figure it out. https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/words.js

Found this on a thread on Redit as a more "readable" list - http://splasho.com/upgoer5/phpspellcheck/dictionaries/1000.dicin

 

I don't know how much these will help or not.

[J3NN]

So much cool in this thread and we just barely started.  Thank you Bean and Wobbe for starting my morning off right!

[Wobbegong]

You guuuuuys T_T Yesterday I was wandering around town playing Pokemon Go and an elementary school kid spotted me. He was maybe... 2nd grade? Definitely not in my classes, super cute and small. He asked if I lived in the area and I said no, I was playing PoGo. Then he super sagely scolded me to be careful and pay attention to my surroundings!!! He was super serious and it was the cutest thing ever. So I gave him a very formal "thank you" and promised that I would. <3 <3 (It was extra adorable because he kept walking while he was scolding me and had to turn around and walk backwards down the middle of the street to maintain eye contact. It was a really quiet street, but like. Babe. Which one of us is tempting fate worse right now.) 

 

I feel like my students just keep getting sweeter and cuter and I can't tell if it's a result of them getting used to and opening up to me, but they just kill me. Today I swung by Daiso to pick up some Halloween stickers and on my way back home I ran into flocks and flocks of junior high kids who were just being let out of club activities. Everyone wanted to wave and say "hello" or "see you!" A group of first year boys spotted me from down the block and started jumping and hollering and waving their arms to attract my attention, it was amazing. And I even ran into one of my students who does terribly in all his classes and is really shy, and he nudged his buddy and pointed me out and his buddy started hollering hello's at me. It was really sweet. 

 

I know in some ways I'm kind of viewed as a Dancing Bear (something wonderous and exotic and amusing but also stupid and inferior -- most people I know don't view dancing bears that way now, but when they were popular that was the general perception) so of course everyone is happy to see me, I'm like a cute pet -- and I'm pretty happy-go-lucky myself so I'm always delighted to grin and wave. But I also like to think they just like me. It's nice to be liked. 

[Wobbegong]

18 hours ago, J3NN said:

So much cool in this thread and we just barely started.  Thank you Bean and Wobbe for starting my morning off right!

You're so welcome, thank you for dropping by!  It's wonderful to have you here <3

[Wobbegong]

@Bean Sidhe my love, I know how crazy busy your life is so I hate to even ask you for a minute, but by any chance does Youngest's magical explanation book happen to include a simple (yet thorough) explanation of Halloween? 

 

The teachers at my elementary schools asked me and the other ALT to please think up some things to do for a Halloween Party at school. The other ALT had no ideas and has apparently never heard of Google (actually she literally is a yahoo person) so I turned to the Internet and wracked my brains and came up with a few scaleable games and activities that can work with any English level. Luckily, upon asking the teachers confirmed that at elementary school Halloween is a "cultural exchange event" and not necessarily an "English skills class" so I was allowed to make some Halloween-themed games in Japanese. (Imo, Halloween is about fun, and struggling with a foreign language is not always conductive to that.) 

 

Then today I realized I hadn't heard from my middle school teachers, who tend to leave everything to the last minute (mostly because they're too busy to prepare any earlier), so I took some initiative and asked them if they wanted to do anything for the holiday. They said, "Oh, yeah! Please prepare an explanation of Halloween and some stuff to do." :/ Vague. But also a fun opportunity to do things my way once. So I'm looking for sources and suggestions! 

 

At ES, students will bring their own costumes (to be worn only during English class, not in general at school -- we have a uniform dress code to uphold), and I'm thinking I'll set the classroom up with the desks in groups and let the kids sit with their friends. Each group station will have its own activity and kids can move freely among them. Teachers and adult helpers will hand out treats. These are the activities that seem best suited to their English level, but I'm worried it might be too many things going on at once: 

• Drawing Station -- design Jack-o-Lanterns, color Halloween-themed pages, and/or maybe I'll have spooky "background images" pages that the kids can decorate with stickers (kids here are sticker crazy)
• Word Search (Halloween themed)
• Hot Potato (with a plastic pumpkin/jack-o-lantern to pass) -- I'm trying to think how to add an English vocab element to this game, suggestions welcome
• Concentration with Halloween themed cards
• Scavenger Hunt (for letters spelling out "Happy Halloween" or "Trick or Treat" which will be hidden around the classroom)
• Maaaaybe Halloween keyword game but it's best played with the whole class. But it could be a fun warm up to introduce Halloween vocab. 

Kids can earn treats by participating, but there're naturally going to be some kids who want to do something competitive and some who want to chill and draw and some who want to do something a little studious just for the sake of it. Depending on the teacher, we might also force them to rotate between stations, but I dunno. It seems like if it's a party they should be allowed to enjoy themselves. (Am I being too American?) 

 

Some of the things I'm thinking about for JHS: 

• Story time -- with an illustrated story of Halloween, either to explain what it is or to explain how it is
• Same word search as ES
• Halloween flavored "Once Upon A Time." Traditionally the game is set up to encourage fairy tales, but I've come up with a list of Halloween-themed vocab and am working on some ending cards. This is a game that I think can be played in Japanese for my lower level students and in English as a challenge, but honestly it's tough enough in English for a native speaker, so... 

[Lateral Planet]

As someone whose job mostly involves correcting other people's English, I can confirm that English is a stupid bogus made-up language and I'm SO impressed by and proud of anyone who wants to pick it up. Met a whole bunch of people and schoolkids in Japan who wanted to have a chat to practice their English, and especially considering how little I know of Japanese I was only too happy to! Glad you're enjoying your job so much

[Wobbegong]

On 10/20/2018 at 12:14 PM, Lateral Planet said:

As someone whose job mostly involves correcting other people's English, I can confirm that English is a stupid bogus made-up language and I'm SO impressed by and proud of anyone who wants to pick it up. Met a whole bunch of people and schoolkids in Japan who wanted to have a chat to practice their English, and especially considering how little I know of Japanese I was only too happy to! Glad you're enjoying your job so much

Seconded! All of this, seconded. 

 

RE: Halloween, I am now taking suggestions for elementary-appropriate Halloween songs. Holla your suggestions up at me! 

 

My day was exhausting and involved a lot of miscommunication (and corrective communication) in Japanese. Also, the 5th grade teacher at Atasho does not know what he is doing, ever. But at least he's nice about it? 

 

How was your day? Tell me some good things if you've got any lying around! 

[Wobbegong]

Today was really tiring. 

 

Tuesdays and Fridays are my busiest days in terms of class load, but on Tuesday I add significant commute time to that, plus the school I visit hosts one of my less-engaged student bodies. Somehow my high energy managed to infect my class of second-years and the teacher couldn't stop crowing about it in the staff room, so the teacher of my post-lunch third-years asked if I'd please work my magic on her classes as well. 

 

Generally speaking, those third year students are the lowest energy people I have ever worked with, including when I worked for a college-based catering company. But I am not one to back down from a challenge and the tea lady saw me drinking coffee the other day and has taken it as an open invitation to pump me as full as caffeine as possible at every chance (it is offensive to people when I just want water), so I was pumped. The first group of third years has a few class clowns and a few teachers pets who have apparently been waiting for me to bring it because they responded beautifully. The second group was 100% Not Having It and I feel like I just dumped a ton of energy into people who will just resent me for it. 

 

That would've been enough to send me home for a quiet night in but I decided to run a (theoretically quick) errand at the Board of Education (BOE) on my way home. While there, I was ambushed with information about a mandatory continued-training conference I must attend next month. I had to review the workshops on offer and rank my selections for each time slot. The BOE has had this information since October 3rd. My selections are due on Friday. If I hadn't happened to stop by, they wouldn't have mentioned it to me at all. It took me an hour and a half to go through the information and figure out what exactly was needed of me. 

 

I'm also not the only one who wasn't informed. The informational sheet about the conference stated it is for JET ALTs (that's me, native English speakers who help in the classroom) as well as for JTEs (those are local Japanese teachers of English). The BoE made a big fuss about me going to this meeting alone (it's a 4+ hour commute even with the bullet train) and I asked if any of the local English teachers from my schools were going. "Oh, it does say they can go... well... they're probably too busy with classes, right? I guess we should ask though... We'll find out and get back to you about that." Better make sure you do that TOMORROW, guys. 

 

In the end, the question I went in to ask turned out not to have a decided answer yet. Siiiigh. 

[Tateman]

Man, last minute stuff.

 

Oh, and it is the Halloween even in Pokemon Go now, so more ghost pokemon out there, and a special Professor Willow research for spirit tomb.

 

For Halloween songs, would old songs like Monster Mash be good?

Are you thinking like background type music, or things that can be sung along with?

[Wobbegong]

2 hours ago, Tateman said:

Are you thinking like background type music, or things that can be sung along with?

More like background music. We have a lot of activities to keep them occupied, and singing along in English would be really tough for them. Thanks for the recommendation! 

[Bean Sidhe]

On 10/19/2018 at 3:34 AM, Wobbegong said:

@Bean Sidhe my love, I know how crazy busy your life is so I hate to even ask you for a minute, but by any chance does Youngest's magical explanation book happen to include a simple (yet thorough) explanation of Halloween? 

 

The teachers at my elementary schools asked me and the other ALT to please think up some things to do for a Halloween Party at school. The other ALT had no ideas and has apparently never heard of Google (actually she literally is a yahoo person) so I turned to the Internet and wracked my brains and came up with a few scaleable games and activities that can work with any English level. Luckily, upon asking the teachers confirmed that at elementary school Halloween is a "cultural exchange event" and not necessarily an "English skills class" so I was allowed to make some Halloween-themed games in Japanese. (Imo, Halloween is about fun, and struggling with a foreign language is not always conductive to that.) 

 

Then today I realized I hadn't heard from my middle school teachers, who tend to leave everything to the last minute (mostly because they're too busy to prepare any earlier), so I took some initiative and asked them if they wanted to do anything for the holiday. They said, "Oh, yeah! Please prepare an explanation of Halloween and some stuff to do." :/ Vague. But also a fun opportunity to do things my way once. So I'm looking for sources and suggestions! 

 

At ES, students will bring their own costumes (to be worn only during English class, not in general at school -- we have a uniform dress code to uphold), and I'm thinking I'll set the classroom up with the desks in groups and let the kids sit with their friends. Each group station will have its own activity and kids can move freely among them. Teachers and adult helpers will hand out treats. These are the activities that seem best suited to their English level, but I'm worried it might be too many things going on at once: 

• Drawing Station -- design Jack-o-Lanterns, color Halloween-themed pages, and/or maybe I'll have spooky "background images" pages that the kids can decorate with stickers (kids here are sticker crazy)
• Word Search (Halloween themed)
• Hot Potato (with a plastic pumpkin/jack-o-lantern to pass) -- I'm trying to think how to add an English vocab element to this game, suggestions welcome
• Concentration with Halloween themed cards
• Scavenger Hunt (for letters spelling out "Happy Halloween" or "Trick or Treat" which will be hidden around the classroom)
• Maaaaybe Halloween keyword game but it's best played with the whole class. But it could be a fun warm up to introduce Halloween vocab. 

Kids can earn treats by participating, but there're naturally going to be some kids who want to do something competitive and some who want to chill and draw and some who want to do something a little studious just for the sake of it. Depending on the teacher, we might also force them to rotate between stations, but I dunno. It seems like if it's a party they should be allowed to enjoy themselves. (Am I being too American?) 

 

Some of the things I'm thinking about for JHS: 

• Story time -- with an illustrated story of Halloween, either to explain what it is or to explain how it is
• Same word search as ES
• Halloween flavored "Once Upon A Time." Traditionally the game is set up to encourage fairy tales, but I've come up with a list of Halloween-themed vocab and am working on some ending cards. This is a game that I think can be played in Japanese for my lower level students and in English as a challenge, but honestly it's tough enough in English for a native speaker, so... 

 

 

Oh shoot.. I so saw this and got distracted

 

Best kid friendly explanation I can give you for Halloween : Halloween is from long long long ago, when people thought that was the day that monsters and witches appeared because that was when the cold/dark part of year began (winter). Eventually, the people decided that instead of hiding from the monsters in their homes, they would start dressing as the monsters so they could walk around with the monsters and witches and go to their neighbors to sing song and the neighbors would give them food. (Even as I was a kid, you were suppose to dress scary, not cute). Now kids use it as a chance to dress up and pretend to be someone/something else, while going to events in the community or their neighbors to have fun, play games or collect candy.

 

Halloween party is a bit easier.

Games you can play (Not sure how these will translate, so you may need to tweek them):
Witches brew: get a pot (or cauldron or something). get a few small bats or spiders (toys). You may even be able to make them with paper or something else. take a styrofoam ball and put a dot on it (eyeball). Maybe grab a few small twigs from outside and call them mummy fingers or toe of newt. Have the kids stand back a set distance and toss the items into the pot. (Maybe even have them say the name of the item while they do it.)

Here is a link to a very active website with a bit more "moving" games. I like the skeleton scavanger hunt https://www.verywellfamily.com/halloween-games-that-keep-kids-moving-1257320

 

Craft wise, easiest is the sucker ghost (take a sucker, cover in white cloth, use a piece of ribbon or thread to tie it around the stick. Then put eyes and a mouth on it.  (same can be done for bowling pins (if you have something similar shaped) and then have the kids "knock down the ghosts"

 

For hot potato, make it more a memory game. Youngest plays this game called "Concentration" where you just have to do the hand movements (alot like patty cake) but you can say they have to use english words when they throw the potato. So before they can hand it off, they have to do a word in english. Youngest and I do concentration even when we are just waiting for something.

 

I think the keyword game might work well with the introduction idea. I will say here our kids rotate between a craft, a snack/coloring (in case they finish snack) and a game station at all parties. That way everyone gets to do everything and its a bit less chaotic (Trust me, without the rotating, it gets a it but difficult to control (at least here anyway)) .

 

I think you have a good idea for the JHS students. One thing I will suggest, never underestimate the power of just a Bingo card too, where you say the English word, then the japanese word for the bingo cards. You can usually find make these on the internet (word and clip art can be a huge friend)

Let me know if you need more help. I am watching things a bit closer now.

 

[WhiteGhost]

At first I thought this was a Wobbegong challenge, but it doesn't have a poll.

 

Guess I'll follow it anyway  

[Wobbegong]

On 11/1/2018 at 12:14 AM, WhiteGhost said:

At first I thought this was a Wobbegong challenge, but it doesn't have a poll.

 

Guess I'll follow it anyway  

I don't think I had a poll in my last challenge, either... I must be slipping. Either that or I'm not really Wobbegong. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN

 

Just kidding, I totally forgot to poll. Sorry. Thanks for stopping by the no-fun zone anyway! 

 

@Bean Sidhe Those were all awesome suggestions and I thank you. In the end the Japanese teachers basically cherry-picked whatever they wanted and we did everything their way. But it was fun, so I'm cool with it. Not like I stayed up late preparing. Sigh. 

 

On Halloween (Wednesday) the music teacher at school came up to me and handed me the music for a nearly five-minute Japanese pop song that I do not know. "The chorus contest is on Friday," she said. "This is what the teachers are singing. You'll take the soprano part." 

 

Friends, I do not know how my descriptions of myself have led you to picture me, but allow me to make myself clear: I am by no means a soprano. Most choral leaders assign me to alto, and my range easily covers the tenor notes as well. Sometimes I can even manage the bass line, but it's usually a bit of a reach. Basically, I have a decent range, but in the wrong direction for my musical gender. 

 

Since there are so few women teachers, the chorus teacher had decided to eliminate the alto section and have us all just sing soprano. So I memorized the song in two days and sang my flat little heart out. After, I told the teacher it was fun but next year I'm singing with the men. Ugh. 

 

During my whirlwind of memorization, I also took the time to familiarize myself with the CA midterms ballot. USA friends, DO NOT NEGLECT TO VOTE. I don't want to know who or what you vote for because I like NF being a mostly politics-free zone, so I won't even harp on the voting point any further. Just remember that if you do not vote, you are a NPC. 

 

Finally, the actual challenge. I haven't been doing a good job of being on NF much this week because Halloween-ChorusContest-Voting-ForGodsSakeEatSomethingAndGoToSleep was pretty much my whole life, but I will try to be better next week. I also have not measured myself in a while because I keep forgetting. My clothes have continued to get looser though, so I assume I'm heading in the preferred direction. I did run into a coworker and the coworker's neighbor who I had met once before at the grocery store this week. Later, the coworker said "My neighbor said she didn't recognize you, you've become so beautiful!" I don't think I've quite changed that much yet, but it was definitely nice of her to say.

 

As far as how much I have changed, I'd estimate that I've lost between a conservative ten and a generous twenty pounds so far. I did take Halloween dinner off because I miss my country and people here kept giving me well-intentioned (American) candy and I was too exhausted to cook. The next day I was pretty exhausted but no brain fog and aside from being ravenous I felt pretty much back to normal by Friday, so apparently it wasn't too awful a blip. Onward. 

[Bean Sidhe]

Not a problem on the suggestions. I am just sorry I didn't get them to you sooner. At least the teachers were willing to help (I guess) as opposed to letting you do stuff and it not going well.

Yikes, I would have been in the same spot with the song. I am a 2nd soprano, but I can do alto much easier and I have done bass before. (My range is weird), but having to sign high when you really can't is hard. Did you at least have fun with the concert?

 

I am glad to hear you are seeing changes and that the one blip didn't hit too hard. Hopefully things keep going well in that regard. Keep up the good work.
 

[Wobbegong]

19 hours ago, Bean Sidhe said:

Not a problem on the suggestions. I am just sorry I didn't get them to you sooner. At least the teachers were willing to help (I guess) as opposed to letting you do stuff and it not going well.

To be honest, teacher participation around here is kind of hit and miss, but I probably should have expected that anytime they give me a heads up weeks in advance, it means they want me to know something is coming but they're still intending to plan it themselves at the last minute. Whatever. 

 

19 hours ago, Bean Sidhe said:

Yikes, I would have been in the same spot with the song. I am a 2nd soprano, but I can do alto much easier and I have done bass before. (My range is weird), but having to sign high when you really can't is hard. Did you at least have fun with the concert?

The concert was fun, and the students all did an amazing job with their songs. Some of the music was really weird (like the happy birthday song sung in a minor key that sounded simultaneously triumphant and despondent... it reminded me strongly of church choir music, except it was literally a happy birthday song. Maybe they were singing happy birthday to a person who had died or something.) 

 

19 hours ago, Bean Sidhe said:

I am glad to hear you are seeing changes and that the one blip didn't hit too hard. Hopefully things keep going well in that regard. Keep up the good work.

Estimating weight loss is mostly based on how I fit into my clothes (better) and how people react to me (lately I've been getting a lot of "you look so different already!"s, which is nice -- although the most honest was probably from the new assistant boss of the BOE, who I met tonight, who had previously only seen a picture of me. He said "I wasn't sure if you were Wobbegong, you look really different from your picture." Score!) 

 

But I measured after I posted last time and my measurements are climbing again. I knew I had been pretty lax lately, so I recommitted to eating approved food only. But then today, I ate my school lunch salad and it tasted sweet, so since I was at the only school that actually gives me the monthly lunch menu, I decided to bite the bullet and actually translate the thing. 

 

Until now, I've just been skipping the obvious-carbohydrate portion of school lunch (rice, bread, or noodles, depending on the day) and eating around any obvious fillers like potatoes and corn. But taking a good look at the menu today, I realized that almost every single thing they serve has sugar or starch added to it. In a month worth of meals, I found six items -- not six full meals, but six meal components -- that do not have a high added or inherent carb content. Which is why I went to the Board of Education and met the new mini boss tonight, to ask if I could opt out of school lunch and bring my own food. 

 

I asked them after discussing the situation in depth with the tea lady at today's school (the one who is always harping about how worried she is about me, but has at least accepted that I'm not about to drop dead). She initially suggested I ask the school principal for permission to skip lunch, but when I confirmed that I should do that at all four schools, she said, "Oh no, if you're going to do it everywhere just go straight to the BoE. Tell them once and they can tell everyone else for you." (Like that would ever happen lol.) But the BoE said, "Well, it's fine at elementary school since you eat with the teachers, but at middle school you eat with the students, so you need to eat school lunch. If they see you bringing your own food, they won't want to eat school lunch, either. You'll have to ask the school principals." 

 

So again the message I'm getting is that centralized authority does not under any circumstances want to make any top-down decisions and I should just not tell them anything. Because forget bureaucracy, we've got feudalism to uphold!  I told the BoE that in truth it's my body and my decision, and from now on I'm not going to eat school lunch whether I'm sitting with the students or not. So... good luck, principals! I'm coming to you tomorrow!