Yesterday was interesting.

Yesterday was interesting.

It started barely on time, as always, if you know me. I was gonna be rather early, but I drove past the driveway. Great way to start the day, right? So I get to Heiichi and I don’t quite remember where I’m suppose to go, and I finally figure it out, with help. I get deposited in the 3-4th year teacher’s room with a really nice guy, who says outright that he lies a lot, which I think is in jest, and I actually really like his personality, even though I can’t remember his name and have no idea of anything else about him, other than he probably teaches 3rd or 4th year. Oh, and he’s 273 years old. Which is a fun game I use to tell the kids at GA before asked them how old I was :P Fun fun.

So yesterday, other than sitting in the teacher’s room for a bit, consisted of a staff meeting that I didn’t follow where I had to give a self introduction, in Japanese. Then an assembly that I had to give an introduction, in Japanese (why couldn’t I have gone AFTER the two new teachers who are working on their certification? I would have done so much better!!). And then I was told by Makiko-sensei (my English coordinator at Heiichi) that I could go to the iinkai because I didn’t have anymore classes that day. Normally I’ve been told that if I am ever told that, I can just go home. But I had some printing and copying to do for my next school day, seeing how I actually had to teach, and I hadn’t really decided what I wanted to teach (I’ve been given about 3 possible syllabuses and told to go have fun with how I teach them, how fast I move, what I do). So I get there, I work a bit, figure it out, make some handouts and call it a day.

Btw, I went with Jeff (whom I’m really getting along with, I hope) to a little hole-in-the-wall place that I would have never in a million years found on my own that was really expensive for lunch (alone it was 800 for my meal, for the set (which includes a drink) it’s just a 200 more), but I had a “ham and tomato panini” (which was that really expensive ham that Gayle and Jim make during holidays) with a salad with a basil dressing, the best soup I’ve had in a long time, roast vegetables, and a piece of chocolate cake with a small scoop of ice cream, drizzled with caramel, booya. It’s literally down an alley, but the stairs, don’t bumb your head, through the hallway, outside onto the patio and back inside to the restaurant, which was sparsely decorated with stucco walls and dark hardwood. Very nice, very hole-in-the-wall.

So, when I think I’m done with work, I go home and get stuff together and drive my scooter down to the beach. I swam from where they play volleyball to the pier and back and I didn’t die. I can prove I swam all the way there because the pier (which I have never walked down to) is covered in barnacles, and more than a couple crabs (which I didn’t see anywhere else on the beach). On my way I saw many small (the size of my foot or smaller) white fish with various tan or little black markings (which makes sense with the white sand at Maehama), but at the pier I saw little brown fish with purple and yellow, and blue markings (I just described 3 different kinds of fish I hadn’t seen at all previously). Oh, and a dead crab. Weee. But I guess it’s why those kind of fish were by the pier and not by the beach, the barnacles and stuff is what they eat, and their coloring fits in with the colors of the pier. On my way back I saw (in the distance, which with that visibility was about 10 feet) I saw white fish longer than my elbow to my hand. I swam away calmly and quickly. Now mind, throughout my swim I was in water that I could put my hand down while swimming at the top of the water and touch the ocean bottom. This spurned by my discussion with Jeff at lunch about exactly which sharks can be found in Miyako and why Sunayama beach is closed because they think that there is a great white in the bay. Yeah, I could stand up and my swimming suit wouldn’t get wet. Perfect.

So I go home just before a glorious sunset (I was riding my scooter, with contacts because I had been swimming, and my contacts don’t correct for my astigmatism, so I can’t see at night very well, the lights blur something fierce) and when I get home and am going over my things one more time, I realize that one of the things I had meant to do was to find flashcards online and print them out. Panic.

So I get the flashcards, download them, find worksheets, download them, find pictures of my family, download them, and put them all on my flashdrive with the incentive to get to school really early the next day so that I can hop on a computer and print like a mad woman. And of course! This is when my mom doesn’t answer the phone so I can freak to Mommy, who would tell me that it’s all okay. (Breathes). So I go to bed, sleep surprisingly well (probably because I hadn’t slept at all the day before, although I pretended to really well).

I wake up early, eat the fastest (what did I even eat for breakfast, I know I ate something . . .) breakfast, called my mom, who told me it was okay, and got to school 45 minutes early. I printed out everything I needed for my first 2 classes (after which I had a break), met a whole bunch of people, gave another self-introduction at a assembly, where I said I was 16, in Japanese, and didn’t catch it until after. But I think that just endeared me to the kids. Cuz they asked me snarky questions after, and joked around with me.

My first class was 4-1 (fourth year, class one of two. In this school there is one class of each grade, except 2 fourth grades) which had 24 kids. It went well, and Nariko-sensei, my English coordinator here at Shimoji (yes I’m writing this as school, but I’ll have to post it later) stayed with the class and helped me out with a bit of Japanese. After class, the girls walked me back down to the staff room and carried my stuff (they reminded me of Devon and Cassie).

Next, 10 minutes later, I taught the other half of 4th year, where I forgot to go over the alphabet, but it went really well. Then I had a yasumi (a break) for about an hour, where I copied out the rest of my hand outs and generally sat down and had a nice conversation with the office secretary (Mariko?).

Then it was 5th. Which was scary, because I was worried they would be above silly games, but they weren’t. Although there were 37 of them. Which was ridiculous. They responded really well to the writing exercise (copy the words, first grade style, with the dotted lines and everything, and if they finished, I gave them the same worksheet, but with the example dotted lines only the first time). They were actually quiet for it, which was great. (The teachers here don’t really understand the concept of “everyone be quiet so that she/he can speak” and discipline isn’t my job (it says that somewhere) so I’m just going along with it). That was another one I forgot the alphabet. I wanted to see how far they’d gotten with phonics. I was gonna pull a Lopez/Butterworth “A ah, B buh, C kk” song out of my head, but I forgot. Ah well.

After that I had my first dreaded school lunch. Which was curry rice, with an omelet and broccoli and milk with a fourth of grapefruit for desert. I was all psyched up for something nasty, and they end up having one of my favorites. Just watch, because today’s was so nice, tomorrow will be horrendous, like octopus, or pigs feet or something. Yes, I’m not joking. I ate with the 6th years, which was okay, but because I hadn’t taught them, they didn’t really talk to me. Which was fine, I got to listen. I swear that Auerbach’s Rudolfo from last year is one of the 6th years. He looks sooooo similar, its just eerie. But he speaks perfect Japanese, so who am I to say.

After lunch the entire school has something akin to recess, where they go outside and yell for a bit, so my next class wasn’t for another hour and a half. It was 3rd year. The teacher was nice enough to repeat everything I said into Japanese, which means that they didn’t learn nearly a thing. Like they don't know any of the English commands or anything, probably because she just repeats for me (and probably for Nick too). And the other classes could understand me with just a little Japanese (or a lot, however you want to look at it, because they cannot ask the “are we suppose to” questions in English), but you know what? It’s her class. By the end of it, I think they got the idea, although I think I’ll go over the same vocabulary next time too. Maybe complete sentences. That would be good. She was really nice. Oh, and one of the kids I swear is a cross between Luz and Yadira from Lisa’s 3rd grade (Both Lisas, Salmon then Burnette, right after the other), she could easily have been either of their siblings and I wouldn’t have noticed.

Then I had more free time (because I’d used the previous free time to get tomorrow’s lessons ready, except for the copies, because I don’t know how many kids are in my school at Sunakawa, and I don’t want to burn resources), so I started this after writing down how my classes went and what I actually ended up teaching them. Weeeeee. I’m so tired and just used that I think I’ll go to Wafute and have that amazing tofu again, just to make me feel good. Not that I don’t. I think today went pretty well for forgetting my dice, forgetting my life line—cell phone, forgetting my water (all they had was dehydrating tea, which tasted good, but didn’t help my dry throat), forgetting to teach things I had wanted to teach, and lugging around my stuff all day. I’m still not sure why the 5th grade was laughing about my back. And the 3rd year girls say that my arms are purupuru (sqwishy, with the “w”). But I had fun. And that’s the point, right?

Oh, and Tamara, “yes ma’am.”