A Little Bit Less Philosophy on Today's Menu

I guess if I want to bolster the readership of this blog beyond Gabe, Blake, and a reticent Ann, I should include something a little more universally appealing than muddled philosophical comments.

Along those lines, I had an interesting day today (my, it's hard for me to write those words!). I eat lunch everyday with students (I'm an English teacher in Japan), and today I ate with an ichinensei class--equivalent in age to American 7th graders. When I go to the classrooms to eat with the kids, I never know what kind of response I will receive--from effusive joy to very deliberate and calculated apathy. Well today I was met with a healthy dose of the former. As soon as I walked into the classroom, the kids competed heartily to win a seat next to me. Then as we ate, the kids sat, Japanese-English dictionary in hand, armed and ready for communication. The highlight of the lunch period came when a popular song came on the intercom. I told the students I liked the song and asked what it meant. After many conferences filled with the standard nervous, energetic laughter, one student told me the singer of this catchy little tune was singing about the sky. "Oh, the sky..." I thought. "That's... a little bizarre." I asked him what about the sky was so interesting. After the requisite huddling, the student emerged from his cabal to inform me that the singer wanted to eat the sky. "He wants to eat the sky?!" I yelled in disbelief. The student assured me that such was the case, so I proceeded to laugh my head off. Later, I was given a reinterpretation of the same song, something about the sky crying, but I reject the latter interpretation as intentionally misleading redaction and hold firmly to the first. He wants to eat the sky... what a weird song...