Saturday morning was the only precious hours I had to myself this weekend, though as usual I can’t complain about the adventures I had. In the afternoon a friend from Hippo picked me up at the Ryuo library and we went to Hippo together listening to the Hippo tapes in her car. She has two beautiful children of ages around1 year and 3 years. Hippo was fun as usual and this time I ventured to give my self-introduction in Japanese using the style everyone else uses. I needed a lot of help, but I got through it. It should be easier next time.
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Niko’s friend picked me up soon
after I got home from school and went to Niko’s new place for her thank-you
music party. She had about ten people
over and the theme of the night was music and food. I didn’t eat until after I’d played, but I had
plenty of time to eat the many different dishes while Niko’s violin teacher
played. I played Over the Rainbow with
Niko then I played a few random pieces by myself. I don’t have much music here and I don’t have
the piano part to anything so I just played some excerpts that would sound
halfway decent on their own. Of course
it was good to perform again. I keep
thinking that I’d be happy in a life without a heavy dose of music, but then I
pick up my instruments again and I start to think otherwise. I simply like too many things! (More)
I have to say this was the most
unconventional Holy Week of my life given that school started the same week, we
had the farewell party on good Friday and the Easter church service on Saturday
night. I managed to make it work by
using the Jewish way of counting days – with sundown. Still, I can hardly imagine a party on Holy
Saturday being quite appropriate . . . But praise God I do not serve a god of
legalistic rituals, so such a disturbance need not interfere with my worship. (More)
On Friday (April 14th)
we had the farewell and welcome enkai for the new year. I went directly after school with Yuko and
helped set up. It was at The Bell
Classic, which is a fancy wedding hall near Kofu eki that always gave me the creeps
because it’s, well, a wedding hall and the concept of imitating church without
being a church is bothersome. However,
if I just think of it as being like a hotel it’s not so bad. In any case, it was very fancy, and I’m never
at home in very fancy surroundings. I’ll
have to work on that. (More)
Wow, I had no idea how far behind I
was with updates! I continue to have too
many wonderful experiences and not enough time to write about them. Currently I am at home because I took a half
day off, even though it’s Saturday. I’m
getting tired of working on Saturday, but I think I won’t have to again for a
while. Some events deserve more
description, so I’ll just try to summarize my life then write about details
later before I forget!
At school things have been going quite well. Of course I always see problems with how I teach and what I’m doing, but I am fairly relaxed and have managed to be on top of my work. We started the Show and Tell introduction presentations and I’ve been quite happy. Again, the kids defy the system with the students in the lower classes often producing better work than those in the upper levels. Some of them are a bit more responsible, too . . .
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I’ve already posted about
ichinensei classes (please see my essay Another Week, Another Lesson) but
there’s much more about life at school than classes! Maundy Thursday after school I went running
with the boy’s tennis team again. This
time I’m pretty sure they went faster than last time because I’m more in shape
and they kicked my butt again. I kept up
with them, though! I was wiped
afterwards, though. I used the time to
cool down outside and chat with new students.
I’m so surprised with how genki (energetic) they are! I talk with various groups of friends and
they feel comfortable in a pack outside of class and we had quite extensive
conversations in English. This year I’m
trying to learn student names by asking them when I meet them then calling them
by name when I see them again. If I
can’t remember, I ask again. No
pressure, I’m just doing by best to learn what I can. This frees my brain cells to actually
remember names as opposed to last year when I promised them I would know their
name after they gave their introduction.
I was so stressed and embarrassed that I didn’t know their names that it
took me nearly all year to learn them all (and even then I know about 150 of
the 200). I’d say that now I know about
30 student names and that will grow after I take their pictures and have a resource
to reference and review (and it’s only been about a week!). (More)
This year my schedule is full on
Thursday and Fridays, which is not ideal, but it will work out. I teach four classes on Thursday and Friday,
and on Thursday I have three in a row.
It’s not so bad, but I have to say I was a little bit sick of my
introduction lesson by the time I’d done it twelve times . . .
For the most part classes are
fairly good. Of course some are more
responsive than others and the English ability and interest level various quite
a bit. Of particular note, one half of
the 1-1 class (they group the classes by ability with 1-6 as the highest and
1-1 the lowest) had not a clue. They
were quite self-motivated in the speaking activity, but they were clueless with
the rest of my lesson. I made a note
that their English ability was almost null set about thinking of ways to
compensate for the next class. However,
the next week I was in for a great surprise. (More)
Monday, April 10th was
the first day of school with everyone together.
There were a few classes, but mostly it was freshman orientation stuff
and testing for the returning students.
I fixed up the last bits for my classes, which started the next
day. I don’t know how much I wrote about
this, but since I see some classes six times before the first exam and other
classes two times, I threw out the old syllabus and made a much more relaxed
and simple plan. I’m quite relieved,
actually, and it’s started off well, but I get ahead of myself. On this lovely Monday morning I left my
apartment on time only to discover that my bike wasn’t there! It dawned quite quickly that it was still at
the station from when I’d gone to church, but Adden had taken Kasai ,
Leslie and I all to my place after church.
Once again I was grateful that I usual get to school much earlier than I
need to because I had enough time to walk to the station and bike from
there. I scuttled into the main office
area just before the morning meeting (the first of the new school year!). Technically I was on time, but I felt awkward
since I had my coat and backpack and had clearly just gotten off my bike! (More)
Kasia and Leslie spent the night at
my place Saturday and we stayed up rather late talking. It didn’t keep me from getting up at 7, but I
used the time to make buckwheat pancakes and strawberries for the three of
us. I felt bad waiting them up to eat
around 8, but I was hungry! We spent a
lazy morning talking, which was lovely, then Kasia went home and Leslie and I
joined Mark and Megan on their way to Dennis’s (my former apartment neighbor)
BBQ at his new place in the same neighborhood.
It was a beautiful day, warm, sunny, and a nice breeze. It was great to be outside! I was also able to have a decent chat in
Japanese with some folks there, which of course made me happy! It was good to see people again, but I didn’t
stay too long since I had stuff to do at home.
The rest of the day was productive with laundry, finances, oboe
practice, etc. And that was it for my
one day weekend.
Saturday, April 8th I
had to work since it was the entrance ceremony for the new freshman. It’s a good thing I like my school and my job
or I might get really mad that they’re asking me to come in for four Saturdays
in five weeks. The entrance ceremony was
just about like graduation in reverse with the same amount of hoopla: chairs,
red carpet, heated gym, TV news, fancy clothes, etc. I tried not to think anything sinister like
“Sure they treat you real good now, but once they’ve got your kids inside
they’ll treat them . . .” well, like I said I tried not to have any sinister
thoughts. (More)
I guess I’m getting older. My birthday snuck up on me and passed without
any great fanfare. Of course, I did
celebrate when Mom and Dad were here, so I guess it’s to be expected. It was also the first day of school so
everyone at school was busy and had other things to worry about. However, I got calls from the states and Nikko dropped by to give
me flowers. The next day Michiko brought
flowers to church for me and Mark and Megan gave me chocolate and stationary
items. (More)
I realize I am once again behind in this blog, but I had such a funny moment at school today I felt like writing a separate post. After hanging out with the kids at club activities for a while after school I headed home as usual with my red bike helmet (required in America, but still not cool), my backpack with the waste strap buckled (major nerd factor), my plane green turtleneck, kaki pants (that are too worn out for professional use but I wear them anyway) on my beat-up mountain bike, and to top it all off the bike doesn’t have chain guard so I stuff my right pants leg into my socks so they don’t get dirty. This is a picture of a fashion-oblivious, self-admitting nerd if there ever was one. However, as I biked out of the school grounds I said goodbye to a group of ichinensei girls and they chorused “Kakkoiiiiiiiiii!” I’ve always been told it means “cool,” but in this case my dictionary gives a more ironic definition: of nice appearance, stylish.
Today was less stressful at school,
but I still have lots of random papers and things to sort through and organize
before school starts. Everyone’s busy so
it’s hard to ask all the questions I need to for the next year. I don’t have trouble getting answers, but I’m
worried that I’m not asking all the right questions and something will come up
suddenly and catch me off guard, like “you have to give a speech” or “oh, you
have half the class sessions you thought you did because of random ear, heart
and other health checks” (that one is true! Well, not half the classes . . .) (More)
Like I said, Monday (April 3rd)
was a beautiful day so I was motivated to go for a run and clean up my
apartment after my comfort breakfast with Yuko after Mom and Dad left. It sure is a beautiful thing to have a clean
apartment. There is plenty of junk
hidden in the closets, but at least it’s contained. That’s my next project . . . (More)
Well, the past twelve days I have
had no guilt that Mom is daily searching for a blog post, so writing slipped
from the “to do” list a little. Mom and
Dad just went home yesterday and I’m about to go to work and we only have three
days to prepare for when students come.
I learned on Saturday what classes I’ll be teaching and we’ll find out
the class schedule on Wednesday. Yes,
it’s very messed up that the system only gives you a few days to prepare for
class, but I won’t go into a rant now.
Mom, Dad and I had a lovely ten
days in Japan
even though the weather was not as cooperative as I would have liked. Mt.
Fuji came out only a few
days so I couldn’t show off all the wonderful views from school and my commute
and on other bike trips. At least they
did get to see her in her full glory the morning they left! (More)
