Love Hands : Lost in Translation

I have so many ideas for what to write about and so little time to write.  But this week we have some time off for the moon festival so I am hoping to post more frequently this coming week- so there will probably be a few posts this week.  And keep the comments coming on the posts- I love comments.   Anyway, for today's post, I just wanted to share some stories that I think are funny. 
The first one is fairly short and has to do with idioms. 
I gave my students a rubric in which I stated that all items listed needed to be addressed "in some way, shape or form".  The next day, I had a couple of strange conversations with students in which they kept asking me questions like, "Do I need to use different shapes- like circles and squares- on my assignment?"  or "What are the different forms that we can use?".  I had no idea what they were talking about, and kept saying you just need to write in paragraphs- until one student pulled out a rubric and showed me where I had clearly written "in some way, shape or form". 
Another funny story involves a vocabulary review game that I learned from one Ms. Benskey, in which you put the vocabulary words up on the board and give two students fly swatters and the first person to swat the right word for the definition wins the round. 
Fly swatters were not high on the list of items packed and so Myron and I headed off to the store that we call "Walmart" as it seems to have everything and it is cheap.  However, as I scanned each aisle packed with items, I could not find a fly swatter, so I headed off to find someone who could help me. 
The woman working couldn't speak any English, so she grabbed some paper and a pen. 
I drew my version of a fly- which wasn't a great drawing- and I began to hit the bug several times with my hand.   She didn't understand and led me to some butterfly nets.  So I had to go back to the drawing, hit the bug several times again, and say "kill, kill, kill"-  I think this terrified the woman as she looked at me with great distaste.
And then I thought, oh my gosh, maybe swatting flies is some sort of savage American thing that other countries would never dream of and I got more and more embarrassed thinking about how awful swatting and killing flies might really be. 
She did finally lead me to the aisle with bug traps and sprays, but there were no fly swatters. 
So then I went off on a search for something I could use that would work just as well and came across this:

Perfect!  It even has a finger pointing to what would be the correct vocabulary word. 
So I bring these in the next day and pull them out of my school bag and there is an audible gasp from all of my students.
And I say, "What is wrong?'
And they promptly proceed to explain to me that these are known as "love hands" and teachers and parents use them to hit the students when they misbehave.  You have to hold out your hand and the teacher uses this to swat your palm. 
So, in my search to find a fly swatter, I inadvertently found and brought in a child swatter- Hah! But don't worry- so far I've just used them to play the vocab. game. They work perfectly.