"I play blog."

Yesterday I had a class with one of my bright, young students. He's 11 years old, loves table tennis and shogi (Japanese chess), is very respectful, has a great laugh, and speaks English pretty darn well for his age!!

We were reviewing adverbs of frequency when this little gem came up:

"Do you ever play computer?" he asked.
"No, I rarely play computer games," I responded, thinking he forgot the word 'games.'
"I always play computer. I play blogs," he replied with a smile.

I was going to correct him and say, "Ahhh, you mean you have a blog," but a funny thought struck me: maybe his way of saying it is better.

According to dictionary.com, "Play" can be defined as to engage in (a game, pastime, etc.) or to do or perform (in certain contexts).

Touché.

Sakura 90

Sakura 90
Originally uploaded by bderstine

This photo has gotten quite a bit of views on my Flickr page. It is the 90-year-old Cherry Tree (Sakura-no Ki) in at Mukoshima Elementary School near where I play tennis every Sunday.

Simply beautiful.

"Yatta!"

やった!!!

"Yatta", according to the internet, can be roughly translated as "I/We did it!" But my students seems to use it for everything from picking a good card in UNO to receiving an extra chocolate.

This song captures the joy and exuberance of that word (only partial sarcasm here... it is really happy!). I'm only sad to admit that I found out about it today and not 9 years ago.