Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Life: The Class

Today there were open classes at the Deaf School. Lilia's class, the first graders, had Life. I've never been exactly sure of what they study in Life. I know that they grow vegetables and fruits and harvest them during this period. They also cook and eat the vegetables. I think this is also the time when they go out and collect fallen leaves and acorns. Anyway, it seems to have to do with plants and other living things. Today they made tops out of acorns and hoops out of dried vines, which they then used in a ring toss game. Lilia became ecstatic whenever one of her classmates managed to toss a ring onto a toilet paper roll. She hugged R. and bumped fists with D. Y., the autistic kid, thought the whole thing was boring, and didn't try very hard. He pulled down his pants in class a couple of times, which made all the kids laugh, but I can understand that his mother failed to see the humor in it.

2 Comments:

Blogger jean said...

Yes, must be tough to be Y's Mom. Have you ever read Oe's books? (I think that's his name - the Nobel Prize winner who often wrote about life with his autistic son.) I haven't but hopefully some day.

5:52 AM  
Blogger Gaijin Mama said...

I read A PERSONAL MATTER my first year in Japan. I should read it again, as it would have an entirely different meaning for me now. At the time, the thing I most identified with was that the narrator dreamed of going to Africa.

I have to say, though, that I really disliked his most recent novel inspired by his son. The narrator made too many references to women's pubic hair and a woman in the book had an orgasm while she was being raped, which I found very offensive.

1:46 AM  

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