Wow, talk about a break between updates! :-X Sorry!
Things have been crazy busy here. Thankfully. It has been a whole week since I graced you with my boring life updates so I hope I will be able to entertain you for more than 5 minutes this time :-P.
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| Dancers at the fire festival |
Tuesday was the enkai (drinking party) and everyone got really drunk. The celebration was for me, S, and another new employee (Japanese) at the BoE. She drove herself to maintain the excuse she would be unable to drink. I don't blame her LOL. The men all got super drunk, including S, and there were various chunks of conversation where they reverted entirely to grunting as a means of communication wherein I removed myself from the conversation. S also got pretty drunk (though I am sure he will deny it) and although I thought the whole experience might be awkward since my Japanese is only sub-par and only one person speaks any manner of English, it actually went surprisingly well. The food, however, was amazing! They just threw live fish and clams onto makeshift grills run off of wood they threw into a hole in the middle of the table. I couldn't believe how good it tasted even though there wasn't any seasoning or anything!
The school day on Tuesday was really fun! I went to Yamaga elementary school for the first time and spent literally all morning having a half-English, half-Japanese philosophical conversation about education and second language acquisition and different country's approaches to this learning style in children. I couldn't believe how well it followed and it wasn't until someone knocked on the door of the conference room announcing our lunch was getting cold that we realized we had wasted the entire day. Though I wouldn't call it a waste. We spent the after-lunch time making a newspaper about me for the students since I wouldn't be meeting any of them until the end of the month. I am terrible at drawing, hopefully the newspaper will still be on the wall when I go back so I can take a picture to show you since it's pretty hilarious!
Wednesday was the first official day of school and I went to the opening ceremony where I had to introduce myself to the entire student body. Luckily I wasn't alone since there was a new student from Hokkaido who had to follow me. After the ceremony the students sat in homeroom and various introductory sessions while I patiently waited at my desk. The students were surprisingly excited to meet me though, which my Mom has described as the best kind of ego booster. They kept hollering at me from every corner of the school saying 'HELLO!' and waving vigorously. It made me feel really special - like a TV star in a good way. One of the students actually hit on me which was incredibly flattering and entertaining since he is all of 15 and maybe in 5 years he will be quite the ladies man because he was very suave. Oh puppy love!
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| Clouds on the mountain |
Thursday I went to elementary school where some college students from Saitama were teaching the other teachers how to teach English to elementary school children. They ended up teaching me too and I made a few friends along the way. There was definitely some advantage to having them show me before I actually began to teach on my own since the first lesson they did was a little slow for the kids and you could tell they were bored so I got to watch how they adapted it to the next class. I also got invited over with them to some hot springs in Yufuin for the afternoon but it brought about a whole new cultural issue I was not prepared to deal with... The ‘how to teach English’ teacher asked if I would join them for hot springing and a BBQ in Yufuin once we finished class at around 2:00. I really wanted to join them, especially since I knew I would be stuck doing nothing until 4 when my shift ended, I told them it was unlikely I would be able to go. She encouraged me to ask the principal. Knowing I would be asking if I could skip out on work to leave for a hot spring I asked a second opinion, the 5th grade teacher in who’s class I ate lunch. She got really excited and actually walked me to the Principal herself so I could ask. Taking that as a sign, I asked and was rejected after a call to my supervisor. Thinking I had just made a huge culture f**k-up I called my supervisor shortly thereafter to grovel about language barriers and how I had meant no offense and I was pressured into it... yada yada. After reassuring me that he understood my sentiments about wanting to hang out with people my own age, I realized he wasn’t in the bit least bit upset. In fact, he wanted me to go but because my car sucks and the tires are bad he thought it was a little too dangerous (should I be hurt during work hours they would be liable and a drive to Yufuin isn’t exactly in my contract). That experience could have been really bad so I am glad everything but I learned my lesson about expressing interest in doing things outside of school during work hours - never again!
Friday was my first official day teaching but my elementary school 1st -5th graders were on a field trip so I had a whole three students to ‘teach’ for the entire day. They were a lot of fun though and I spent the morning learning Japanese with them then before lunch we did and English lesson. During the Japanese lesson we did a series of kanji sheets with a twist - they taught me how to write the kanji (Chinese character) then I told them the English word and they learned how to write and pronounce it. The kanji were for 4th grade so they ranged from ‘first snow’ to ‘telescope’ making some of the vocabulary very difficult to explain. It was a lot of fun though and after lunch we played catch together (they even had a left-handed glove for me to use!) until it got too hot and we quit. I went home shortly thereafter.
This is getting long but I feel like I am only getting started... I will end here and put up another entry about the weekend so you can have a reading break :-P
Love!
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