Yes, really.

This morning I saw a toddler at a train station wearing an orange v-necked t-shirt over a white t-shirt or vest. On her lower half she had a blue and white thin striped skirt stopping just below her knees. It was a cute look. However, the fact her mother was dressed IDENTICALLY was NOT cute.

One of the students in my afternoon class today, came in wearing a white t-shirt with bright green marijuana leaves all over it, and an unbuttoned shirt with flowers over the top. One of the activities we were doing involved me getting the students (advanced level) to challenge each other to talk about a topic for a minute. The student wearing the marijuana t-shirt was given the word 'marijuana' by the other student and proceeded to look panicked. Anyway, to the total amusement of the other student and myself, it turns out this guy has never smoked dope and 'just likes the look of the t-shirt, and do people really think i smoke because i wear this t-shirt' (kind of thing) and then told us how the eyes of one of his friends in high school had gone funny when he'd smoked some and.... Other student and I kind of explained the t-shirt and the message it gives off and told him to NOT wear it when he moves to the USA next month. Oh the innocence, eh!

Another reason I love my job: one of my nine year olds was sleepy so we threw a ball around to wake him up. Note to self: don't get students to recite the alphabet backwards until you are sure you won't make any mistakes yourself. I'd had loads of free time before the lesson so had made up a very elaborate version of snakes and ladders for them and later when we were covering the target language (no, it's not ALL fun and games in my lessons!) the same student started looking tired again so I threw a large soft dice at his head. The students and I then just lobbed it at each others heads for the next five minutes for no reason... Hard life. Great kids though.

I went into the supermarket this evening and passed a dog in the basket of a parked bicycle, with it's lead entwined around the handlebars, and whining away sadly. I couldn't help but think that dog could see easily end up hanging itself...

And I'm finally starting to see businessmen NOT wearing their suit jackets on the trains. Shirts are still firmly buttoned up and ties tightly knotted. It's bloody hot. They are all insane. Early this year, Koizumi, the Prime Minister, declared it was okay for men to dress down a bit this summer - mainly to save on the costs of aircon in offices.... Looks like old habits are dying hard.