Siren

Tyr's day.

I hadn't even finished marking my second Japan test yet (though it was a very long test. Some of the students took as long as two hours and a half, just to give you an idea), and now there was already a bunch of dragon classifying tests. I wasn't worried about marking the dragon riding test since like the fencing test, I only needed to watch what they do and make notes about it.

Right now, it was the third hour, which was Japan. I'd brought my books with me, and I handed the test I marked.

That was Hildegard's. She did pretty well. She had a ninety-one percent on the test. That made me really proud of her. She'd come a long way since the last test, when she had sixty percent. I knew she'd been putting in some very hard work on studying for the test.

I felt very confident by next exam week, she'd be getting around 95%. I had goals for the kids to do their very best, and that would 100%. I knew they'd have their own ways of doing it, but whatever strategy they used to achieve 100%, I would support them.

"Alright," I said, setting my Japan book in front of me. I opened it up to the glossary page, where there were Japanese to Nordic and Nordic to Japanese translations. Over the weekend, while I finished marking Hildegard's testing, started marking Alf's, assessed how Al was doing in Celtic and dragon riding, studied Korean and did well enough to be able to hold a brief conversation in the language, rode Toothless, and took care of my crops, I came up with my pupils' next project. I decided to have them make a Japanese and Nordic translation guide, along with a pen pal project I wanted to start as soon as possible. I found out Ichigo was teaching a tutor in Japan Nordic, and the tutor was teaching more students. I'd only found out yesterday when Sharpshot, my Terrible Terror, had brought a message from Japan saying there are samurais' children in Japan learning Nordic. I decided in order to help them enhance their learning, along with my own students' learning, so they could understand the languages better. I also wanted to teach them about Taoism, Buddhism and Shintoism, religions in Japan.

"First,we're starting a new project," I announced. "It's due in two months. You are going to make a Japanese-Nordic translation guide for both Vikings and the Japanese. If your guides are good enough, then I can send them to Trader Johann or keep them as an example for the next set of students I teach." I eyed every single one of them. "Or, if some of you become teachers, I'll pass them down to you for your pupils. You may work on them in groups of two to six. I'll pick your groups."

I wanted to make their workload less, so I thought if they worked in groups, then they could meet the deadline sooner. I also felt that if I let them pick their own group mates, they may not work as efficiently because they would be with their friends.

"Second, we'll have pen pals from Japan if we can get the approval of our pen pals' teacher in Japan. I'll be deciding your pen pals if we get approval. I'm hoping for your pen pals to be the opposite gender." I noticed Hod raised his hand.

"Yes, Hod?"

"Will our female pen pals be hot?" he asked. The older kids giggled.

Like I said earlier, not very mature.

"Is that relevant?"

Hod sunk in his seat and turned red. He never learned his lesson about asking me dumb questions.

"Third," I continued on, as though nothing had happened. At this point, some kids began whispering, only to be silenced as soon as words exited my mouth. "We're onto a new topic in Japan: Religions. There are three religions in Japan: Taoism, Buddhism, and Shintoism. They are each unique in their own way.

"Any other questions?" Freya raised her hand. She was a red haired girl, with freckles across her cheeks and arms. She was muscular, and quite tall for a girl of thirteen years old, at five foot five.

Last year, when I was thirteen, I would have been shorter than she was, at five foot three. Now, I was five foot eleven. I had grown quite a bit in the past few years.

"How are we going to fit all our studies in one hour?" she asked.

"Good question," I said. "We'll divide our time into thirty minutes for now. If I get the pen pals project approved, then we'll divide our time into twenty minutes for each."

Magnus' hand was also up. "Will we get to meet our pen pals?"

I wasn't really thinking about that. "We'll have to see about it. Anything else?"

No. There was nothing.

"Alright. Time to start on religions in Japan. We have only thirty minutes."

That was true. Half an hour had already passed away. I wanted to use the remaining time efficiently. I felt teaching them about religion would be efficient enough. Besides, it was a good introduction to their new topic.