He's still got it!

It’s not as good as the 80’s films but still come on – it’s Indiana Jones!

The tears begin.........

Tonight was the leaving party for all the ALT’s who will be leaving Kumamoto City this summer. We have 13 people leaving – the biggest number since I arrived. I am so sad because one of them is Minika and I’m going to miss her like crazy!

It was a great party – one of the best actually and everyone was well and truly drunk and happy by the end of the night. There were speeches and tears but most of all there was alcohol and karaoke!

Sorry!

I have been such a grump over the last two days. Possible reasons include:

* Being told I’m not moving to Phil’s apartment
* BOE politics of not letting me have time in lieu for the past weekend
* Leaving party coming up and the goodbye’s will start

I’m sorry to all those whom I have been grumpy to this week!

Daiichi Camp

There is a girl’s high school right next to my house and I after 3 years of saying a brief “hello” to some of the girls, I finally got to know some of them this weekend. Nancy is the ALT there and she needed volunteers for her school’s English camp so, I decided to volunteer!

There were around 80 students and 13 ALT’s and, just as I expected, it was a great 3-day camp.

Highlights:

* Meeting an old student I used to teach from Jyosei JHS. I actually helped her practice for the interview test for this high school and now I know she passed!

* Playing so many games and talking to so many girls during the free time.

* Meeting new ALT’s that are great such as Sylvia, Zane and Heidi!

* Making a success of my “Typhoon Topic” workshop – apparently the girls really enjoyed it.

* Being in the top bunk!

* Henry and his bubble wrap toy

* Sneaking around (after the students had gone to bed on the first night) looking for a place to hang out because we weren’t ready for bed.

* The fantastic food!

* Mini volleyball tournament; cheering on and playing with my group.

* Being a judge for “Aso Idol” (part of the night show)

* Watching the amazing talents of the Daiichi girls

* Having everyone cry at the end of camp

* Being asked for my email (as usual) but then getting ten emails from students before going to bed tonight – that never happens!

I can’t wait to go again next year!

A Typical Week

Just a few randoms from the week gone by –

Monday

watched Deep Impact with 3-7 because they have been working so hard over the last few weeks – they really liked it!

Tuesday

I can’t believe how crazy class 1-7 is – I LOVE THEM!

Wednesday

After studying English email abbreviations I got this from one of my boys:

Hello.
I am C-P now, but I have to open my eyes. LOL
It's not so EZ 2 write this sentence. BCOZ I don't have XLNT brain.
SOZ.

K. That's all.
THX 4 read my e-mail.
CUL8R!
BIBI.

Thursday

It was so hot at school today I got very dizzy and almost fainted in the staff room. The nurse says it’s a sign that my body is out of balance and I need to relax – ha!

Friday

It was karaoke day in the CALL room today as 2-7 were giving their music presentations. A few weeks ago they chose an English song. Their task today was to explain why they chose it, sing half of the song (in English), then explain the meaning in Japanese. Most of them tried really hard but my favourite was Sumire who sang “Skater Boi” and played great air guitar for the intro – love it!

A typical week in the world of me!

Random Road-trip!

Minika and Anthony came over for dinner last night and it was good to spend time with them talking about the good old days of JET. At around 1am Dawn, Minika and I decided to take a trip to Miyazaki today as Minika is leaving soon and has places on her “to see” list that she hasn’t seen.

Crazy, random road trips are the best!

The weather wasn't the best but we still had time to mess around!

CRASH!

Today I was in my first ever car accident. Thankfully it wasn’t bad and no one was hurt. Dawn and I were on our way to the orphanage in the pouring rain when we got to a red light. As it turned green we started to pull away when there was a big crunching noise. Someone had hit us from the back.


We found room to pull over and I called Natsuko our supervisor so she could speak to the lady and get her details. We couldn’t see much damage and we were all fine so we just swapped info and went on our way.

The kids at the orphanage wanted all the details and seeing as we only had about 20 minutes of class time left, we played games and told them all about it.

Another first (and hopefully last) in Japan!

Kids In England Have It Easy!

It’s no wonder my kids are falling asleep in class –this is their typical day.

Wake up around 6am
Extra morning class 7:30-8:15am
Homeroom 8:30-8:40am
Morning classes 8:45-12:35pm
Lunch 12:35-13:15pm
Cleaning 13:15-13:30pm
Afternoon classes 13:35-15:25pm
Long Homeroom 15:35-16:25pm
Club Activity until around 6pm

The third years actually have more extra classes until about 6pm as they don’t take part in club activities because they are too busy studying. After all this some of them also go to juku (cram school) for more studying!

Welcome Back!

Two Japanese students who have been studying in Texas for ten months, returned to school today. Needless to say their English has improved beyond belief and I ended up having a two hour conversation after school with one of them.

Apparently he had so much fun playing sports, hanging out and chasing the girls in America, he now has a few things to say about the strict, insanely polite, society of Japan. It must be hard to enjoy all that freedom for so long and then come back to 12 hour school days.

I wish I had the chance to send all of the International course kids abroad. They would get so much out of it. My favourite part of the conversation was when he told me he liked English because it’s so “bad-ass”. We have so many bad words (unlike Japanese) and apparently part of my job over the next year will be to teach him more of them

A First For Kumamoto

Congratulations to Phil and Akira. After planning a Canadian wedding for 08/08/08, Akira decided he wanted to have a celebration in Japan too. I don’t think they had very long to plan it but they chose a great place and invited a lot of friends and Japanese colleagues who, I’m so happy to say, decided celebrating love and happiness was more important than arguing over morals and beliefs.

Having E.T. as the ring-bearer was a classic touch boys! We also had fun dragging our bosses to purikura after the party. I think this is the most people I have ever squeezed into a photo box with!

Reasons NOT to be cheerful - 1,2,3

1. I have to teach all the kids in the first year whether they like English or not. I don’t expect them all to like it and I totally respect that. Last year those kids would be sleeping or doing work for another class. If the JTE doesn’t mind then it’s fine with me because at least they are quiet. This year they don’t want to learn and they are so noisy, no one else has a chance to learn whether they want to or not. That makes my job super hard and Thursday is fast becoming my day from hell.

2. The weather is getting hotter, faster and at school everyone is sticky and sweaty all day. Luckily my school is fully air conditioned but like everything else in japan, this is closely regulated. The AC cannot be used until Welcome to summer in Kumamoto – I hate it!

3. Minika decided she’s going to leave me after all and move back to SF. There was a faint glimmer of hope that she would stay and get a job here but she has made up her mind and seems much happier now.

Smelly ALT's

As I was showering late last night the water pressure suddenly dropped. Eventually it all but stopped and I was suddenly thankful I don’t wash my hair at night. I checked my basin and kitchen sink but I got nothing.

I didn’t see the point in waking everyone up after midnight as I doubt the problem could have been sorted before the morning. Sure enough from 6:30am the panic began and people resorted to using bottled water or going to other people’s houses for a shower. It has been very hot this week too which didn’t help.

Thankfully by the time we got home the problem had been fixed but it just makes you realize how much we take it for granted that when we turn on a tap, water will come out!

Belated Birthday Trip

Even though Anthony’s birthday was in April we haven’t been able to have his birthday road trip until now. Apparently he has been to Takachiho twice but each time the weather has been so bad he hasn’t been able to get good pictures (and that really, really annoys him). So, it was decided that’s where we would go.

Takachiho Gorge
The cave at Ama-no-Iwato Shrine

An Aso sunset!