It's the little things...
Apr. 26th, 2007 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacealien_vampI pitched a little fit at work yesterday when I found that not only had someone wanting to use the microwave unplugged the refrigerator (instead of the pot of hot water--because we simply MUST have tea available at all times), the person left it unplugged when finished.
Unseemly of me, perhaps. But when comparing a pot of hot water with the perishables of the entire faculty, use a little common sense, people.
Today the microwave was moved to a new location with its own outlet. Much better.
My "American Culture" workshop using Supernatural went pretty well yesterday. I started by spending about 30 minutes going over the vocabulary in the first ~7 minutes of the episode. (Imagine explaining the Bradys and the Huxtables to Japanese high school girls.) Then we watched those few minutes (another teacher got the key for me, yay!).
The thing that surprised them the most was that Baby!Sam had his own bedroom. That is completely unheard of here. Japanese babies always sleep with their parents. The students were amazed when I pointed out the little microphone device the parents used to hear the baby in the baby room during the night. An American watching the show would probably know right away what it was, but my students had never heard of such a thing; they thought it was a radio.
It really is interesting how much more is involved in watching a TV show than being able to understand the vocabulary (and even that is hard enough).
I think next time I should give the students copies of a US map so they have a better idea of where these things are taking place. Setting the location in Kansas (like the opening scene) has certain associations that are hard to pick up on if the only places in America you know are New York, California, and Hawaii.
Unseemly of me, perhaps. But when comparing a pot of hot water with the perishables of the entire faculty, use a little common sense, people.
Today the microwave was moved to a new location with its own outlet. Much better.
My "American Culture" workshop using Supernatural went pretty well yesterday. I started by spending about 30 minutes going over the vocabulary in the first ~7 minutes of the episode. (Imagine explaining the Bradys and the Huxtables to Japanese high school girls.) Then we watched those few minutes (another teacher got the key for me, yay!).
The thing that surprised them the most was that Baby!Sam had his own bedroom. That is completely unheard of here. Japanese babies always sleep with their parents. The students were amazed when I pointed out the little microphone device the parents used to hear the baby in the baby room during the night. An American watching the show would probably know right away what it was, but my students had never heard of such a thing; they thought it was a radio.
It really is interesting how much more is involved in watching a TV show than being able to understand the vocabulary (and even that is hard enough).
I think next time I should give the students copies of a US map so they have a better idea of where these things are taking place. Setting the location in Kansas (like the opening scene) has certain associations that are hard to pick up on if the only places in America you know are New York, California, and Hawaii.
