Have you ever eaten a chocolate covered potato chip? Because I have.

Have you ever eaten a chocolate covered potato chip? Because I have. I’m writing this at work, because I could be (should be) working on what the hey I’m gonna do with my 5th and 6th years tomorrow, but I really don’t know and I’ve already devoted 2 hours of my down time to it so I’m just gonna let myself digest and think of it when I’m at home. Because I’m gonna have to. I mean really, how do you make teaching time interesting? Especially since 5th year is only doing hours. I might just take Nick’s plan and throw it out the window with this one. I think it’s kind of silly that the first years only learn 1-10, and then 2nd 1-20, while 3rd grade is responsible for 1-100 and hasn’t even done the date yet. I might just make a survey sheet. Where you ask your classmates how old they are, how tall they are, what time they wake up in the morning, and how many people they have living in their house or something stupid like that. It’s all numbers, and why not have a variety. I just don’t know though.

So instead of working on that problem some more, because my brain hurts already, I’m gonna post. Or write now for a post later. Because I brought my laptop with me today. Forgetting that I have magnets in my bag. But whatever, on they way home I’ll put them in a different bag. I brought my laptop with me so that I could work on worksheets, and I’ve made three already. So I’m done.

I Hate my schedule. I really don’t like that I see the classes at all different sequences. Sometimes I’ll see kids every week, once a week, and sometimes I’ll see them for once a month, or twice in two weeks and not again for more than three. It makes my lesson planning really difficult, and makes teaching the same lesson subject on the same day kind of impossible. Because I think that the lessons should be spread out over about 2 lessons (because otherwise I don’t think the kids will actually retain anything if every lesson is a one shot. But as it is, I don’t know how much they’ll be retaining, especially if it’s a class I don’t see every week), so sometimes I’ll get days like today, where I saw the 4th years (class 1 and 2) for the 3rd time (numbers 1-100, we counted together, and then one by one throwing a ball around, the class laughed when I hit the kids not paying attention. The ball is really soft, and then we played bingo), but the 5th and 6th years I saw for only the 2nd time (family part two, we played survey bingo (you have to go around the room and ask people questions to get bingo) and the fifth graders would have done a writing exercise if they weren’t totally late, then the 6th years did a really hard/easy word search (only up to down and left to right, but the word search is upper case and the hints are lower case)), so two sets of flashcards and materials are needed. Later in the school year I have classes that I’ve seen for the 7th time on the same day I’m doing introductions. It’s crazy. So, unless I have a lesson planned for every grade different every week, I can’t see a way that it’s gonna work. That and Nick’s lesson plans call for different lessons for each grade. But although he’s been great with leaving me so much stuff, there are certain things that he’s left out completely. Like he has exhaustive lessons that say things like “warm up d, r, s, and t, New vocabulary, Countries, Typhoon game,” but have I found the directions for this Typhoon game anywhere? And I’m not really upset, he’s left me so much and helped me out so much I really shouldn’t be upset. It’s just frustrating that I can’t necessarily use everything that he’s left me.

I’m in a foul mood today, aren’t I? I didn’t really sleep well last night, maybe that’s why. I pulled a I was laying there and my mind was really wandering all over the place, but I wasn’t really sleeping for several of those hours I was laying there.

Meh. I had a good weekend. Let’s talk about that.

On Friday, I think I’ve talked about already, with the medicine. Yeah, I think I did. So on to Saturday. I had my two week house party. As I’m realizing exactly how few people actually show up for such things, I’ve been inviting more and more people. This time Janine, Stu, Makiko, Scott, (their son) Nick, Teresa, Sam, and Kirsty showed up, with Amy and Keiko later. Then we met up with some of the boys and went out to a dance club (the only one in Miyako, so far as I know) called Musica, and that was fun, but I had to go home because the following day was:

Sunagawa’s Undoukai. My last one. Finally. Four weeks of not having Sundays is finally over. So I was late to the undoukai, and left a little early, but I feel justified because I ran in one of the races, spoke on the microphone in English, and didn’t have Monday as a holiday like the rest of the school. So there. Beach.

I found a new route to the beach directly from Sunagawa (which is a lot more south than I thought it was) and lounged on the beach for about 4 hours. And didn’t get burned :D We ran into everybody in waves, which was fun, and we even ran into a South African girl (Amy) who was spending her holiday biking down Japan. She started on the mainland and just took ferries between the islands. Really cool.

Then I went home and made myself diner, because I forgot to put the mushrooms in the stew I made for the party, and if I didn’t cook them they’d go bad, so I sautéed the mushrooms with some sausage, onions, and potatoes. Happiness. I still have the stew in the freezer (I forgot to pull it out to defrost this morning). I have no idea what dinner is for tonight, but I’m really not allowed to eat out anymore. I’m so broke. Or I feel like I’ve been spending a lot of money recently, so I feel broke.

On my way home from the beach I got gas. And while I was there, I had them add air to my tires. And the knob that holds the air in broke. This was on my scooter mind. So yeah, he super glued it back so that I could get home, and yesterday I found a motorcycle shop (with Jeff’s help) near my house and I bought a new inner tube and had the guy put it on for 1500. Not too bad, and I feel a lot better about riding my scooter around. I also found a helmet that I want, but it was 23000, which is very shabby indeed.

But now, it’s just about time to get off work, and I have to go to the doctor, because hopefully my medication is in and I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Just about tomorrow’s lesson. Weeee.

Oh and by the way, http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/0715.html