Overexposure

T-Rex Sensei wanted to teach with me this term, had planned to teach with me this term, but then found out I was leaving in August and ordered The Sensei back to the mimeograph machines to crank out a revision. He worries I will be replaced by a young man, and he “doesn’t like that.” So he will teach with Praju who is “getting better at teaching,” although he laments the fact that we have developed English to use in the classroom and now he might have to undo all this hard work. He lingers at my desk because I’ve had three cups of tea and am smiling dreamily at a bunch of bananas tied with a yellow ribbon that say Happy Birthday! I wish you a very happy year! from O Sensei.

“It was your birthday the day before?” T-Rex Sensei asks. “You should have told me.”

I apologize for his memory lapse.

“How old are you?” He asks and when I tell him and he says, “Still too young,” I wonder for what? For eating bananas with a yellow ribbon tied to the stem? For making 41 colored books the new first year students will use to introduce themselves? Because these are the things I do regularly and if anything I’d think I’m too old for some of these activities.

Our conversation turns to the second year students who will go to Canada for a school trip this fall, and then he asks me about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Frontier Girl, and Little House on the Prairie.

“Do all school children read this book?” he asks. “Is it required?”

“Not required,” I say, “but many children read it.”

“Like a kind of textbook?”

“No,” I say, “only for fun.”

“Ah,” he says, throwing a huge finger in the air, “have you seen the tv show?”

I tell him that my youngest brother loves it, records so many back episodes that it’s a Little House extravaganza on the weekend mornings while he sips sneakily procured ginger ale and eats pita chips.

“I was a child and at that time I didn’t have the usual TV,” T-Rex explains, “so I couldn’t listen to the natural English. When I was a college student I had the opportunity to listen to the English. I was surprised at the gap. Between the Japanese and English. Actually, do you know the actor who plays Laura?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He name is Melissa Gilbert. Perhaps you know her.”

“No,” I say, “I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

He cocks his head to the side. “The books Little House on the Prairie are the reason I wanted to study English. “Yes,” he contintues, “I have all the books. Each one.” We stare at each other for awhile, the bananas putting off a rich gold glow in a room otherwise darkened by the silver curtains of rain pulled across the windows. I put on my glasses. T-Rex Sensei gives a curt bow. “Good evening,” he says and clomps off.

And I guess I’m writing all this down because I never would have suspected the 6 foot tall Japanese teacher who wears old blue tweed suits and carries five different colors of chalk to class would be lured into the world of English by a little girl making rag dolls out of corn husks. Then I realize I’ve been leaning forward on my elbows and my black t-shirt has created a slight gap around my neck, allowing one to see a few inches of skin I usually don’t expose, if you know what I mean. “My plumpness,” as my grandmother would say. And I have to wonder if it is this–and not his interest in Melissa Gilbert’s portrayal of a girl excited to find an orange in her Christmas stocking–that’s what kept him chatting so long.