A Real Leaving Ceremony

ALT’s usually leave schools in the summer and so we just get to give a speech at the closing ceremony. The only good thing about leaving Hitsuyukan now is that I get to experience a real leaving ceremony with the other teachers who are also leaving.

It started at 8:30am when all the teachers who were leaving had to sit together and wait in the principal’s office. Then we had to have a meeting with all of the teachers (about 70 in all) and give a farewell speech. Everyone was crying and I was about ¾ down the list so of course I was very emotional by the time I had to speak. It was nice to have the chance to thank them all for their kindness and help but all I could think about was how much harder it would be to say goodbye to the kids.

A little while later we were escorted to the gym. The whole school was waiting for us and the student’s were especially nervous as they had no idea which teachers were leaving.

As we walked in you could hear the gasps of shock as students started calling to each other the names of the leaving teachers. As I was near the back most didn’t see me at first and it was only later that I heard them shouting my name. Needless to say the tears started early.

I had my speech planned but as I sat listening to the other teachers it just didn’t seem enough. There was so much I wanted to say to the students, to let them know just how much I had enjoyed working with them. When it was my turn to talk I didn’t even use my pre-planned speech and ended up making one up on the spot. At least I know I can bust out the Japanese even when I’m sobbing!

The speech seemed to go down well and many people said it was good so I spent the rest of the day saying goodbye, clearing out my desk and English cupboard (3 boxes and 3 bags worth) and crying even more.

After leaving the school, I had just one more official thing to do – attend the nighttime party. It was an emotional night but I really enjoyed it. I got drunk very quickly as I didn’t have much time to eat. Everyone wanted to talk and pour me drinks and so who am I to say no?! It was great to end on a high and I know it won’t be the last time I see everyone – love to all xxx

It's all about the money - not common sense

So the Board of Education has decided that having one ALT in both high schools is a waste of resources and they are going to have one person go to both. As a result of that decision, today was my last day at Hitsuyukan.

I am more angry than upset as my school really makes use of me and I actually do a lot more work outside of regular classes. Students always need help preparing for English exams and they are so busy that they need someone to be flexible and be available at all times. If you are working at two schools this is not possible.

I guess as I want to be a teacher in the future, this is not the first time that I will experience the money VS standard of teaching debate. However as a foreigner working here I seem to have little or no say and so I look forward to that being changed in the future.

Games and Bridges

Cherese’s mum is in town and we just found out that we all love to play card games. I went upstairs to see them about 8pm last night and ended up leaving at 4am!

Cherese loves sweets and so her mum had bought Skittles and Starburst from America. I was so excited to see Skittles that a grabbed about 5 purple ones, looking forward to the juicy blackcurrant flavour. I was very disappointed to find out that, just like Japan, the purple ones in America are grape flavour! I may just be scarred for life.

After a little over 5 hours sleep we were joined by Carrie and David and we drove out to the Kumamoto Water Bridge. We had to get there by noon to see the water and we just made it!

I saw this little cow in the gift shop and fell in love with him. If he hadn’t been over 50 pounds I might’ve bought him.

Even thought we were all pretty sleepy we made one last stop for ice cream and ended up playing with the goats – fun times!

Another Birthday!

Have a good one Dad!

Another Graduation

Tonight was the last night at the orphanage before the new school year. In Japan the new school year starts in April and ends in March and so the girls from the orphanage club will move from elementary to junior high school. They might be too busy to come to the club and so we decided to have a graduation ceremony for them. We wrote their certificates and got them to make and decorate their own hats.

Well done girls! I wonder what the next group will be like?

Yay Kohei!

This is why I really want to teach – to watch kids grow up and succeed.
From junior high to high school I have known Kohei and watched him turn from a super shy, awkward teenager, into a slightly shy member of the cool gang. Now after much practice and worry (he came to tell me he thought he had failed after test day) he got his university place!

Well done!

Just For Mum

Happy Mothers Day Mum!

In celebration I have just started book three of the Twilight series :)

Buddhas and Spanish Boys

I love random, crazy, interesting days and there are so many of them in Japan!

Deciding we wanted to go for a little drive, Dawn and I went to see the 500 Buddha statues just a short drive from the city. As we were driving along the windy mountain roads, we suddenly spotted three guys hitchhiking. By the time we realized they were foreigners, we had driven around the next bend.

At home neither of us would pick up hitchhikers. Japan is a relatively safe country but we don’t take anything for granted so we decided to chat with them and then decide. We waited around the bend but the next car that drove by had already picked them up.

It turns out we were going to the same place. As we walked around the Buddha statues we met the three guys again. They were from Spain and on a two-week trip around Japan. We had three new friends; Pedro, Pablo and Iago.

We hadn’t finished looking around yet and so they left us to take the bus back to the city. An hour later as we drove back we saw them at the bus stop. Deciding they gave off a good vibe we gave them a lift to the city.

The rest of the day was just as random

We took the boys to lunch and treated them to some Kumamoto specials such as lotus root and raw horsemeat. After lunch we took them to the castle and as they looked around we met a few people in the park for drinks.

· The Spanish boys joined us for a few drinks and gave Dawn and I presents from the castle.
· After the boys had left the rest of us stayed to drink and play Scrabble.
· Deciding we were sweaty and dusty we decided to go to the public baths.
· Feeling hungry and a little tipsy we went to breakers for bagel sandwiches.
· A quick game of Phase 10 and it was off to bed – a great day!

They Got Me!

Dawn and Carrie have been running around organizing something for my birthday. Tomorrow is a holiday so I’m sure something is going on tomorrow night. I’m going to have a nice relaxing day tomorrow and might even get my hair done too.

Tonight I am going to Carrie’s house for dinner as we are saying goodbye to Shunsuke who is moving to Osaka. It has been a long week and so I threw on my jeans, Aber sweater, my comfy Elmo socks and headed out of the door.

Carrie asked me to stop by the Italian restaurant near her house and pick up dessert. The restaurant cooks amazing food and it seemed perfectly normal that she would ask them to make something. It didn’t even click when I approached the restaurant and heard people speaking English.

SURPRISE!!

Tonight was my birthday party! I was in complete shock! Part of me was so impressed with them for pulling off a complete surprise but the other parts couldn’t help but cringe because of my wardrobe choice – oh well.

It was a great night complete with speeches, amazing food (really, really good!), lipstick games and blindfolded drawing challenges.

I feel like Japan is the place where I have made most friends for life. I keep in touch with a couple of people from high school and a few from university but I was always so excited about the next part of my life that I just figured meeting and leaving friends was part of the game.

Since moving to Japan I have met people from all over the world and even thought this will

make it much more difficult to actually see each other often, I know I will keep in touch with so many of them.

Thanks guys – you’re the best!

26 Today!

Well what a crazy 12 months it has been. I was so excited to be 25; I’m not sure why but it seemed a good number. As it turns out it wasn’t such a good year.

I’m hoping 26 turns out better but even now there is so much going on and my head is constantly in a spin.

Even with all that in mind, nothing can change the fact that on your birthday you simply must have cake and ice-cream. This year I was surprised with a doughnut birthday cake complete with tea lights for candles.

Needless to say the girls and I enjoyed eating it!

Playtime!

Playtime at a Japanese Elementary school.

It is quite dangerous!

Face Painting

Today Kevin and I volunteered to help a group of students from Shinwa high school. As part of their International Project they were doing various things around town this weekend. Kevin and I were to help a group doing free face painting.
I’m sure at home many people, especially those with children, would come and get their faces painted but it was a little harder to get “customers” here.
In the end we painted our own faces and jumped up and down like idiots while waving the signs the students had made.

A Great Getaway

The weather has been so gloomy this year I feel like I haven’t seen or felt the warm sun in a long time. Today Kumajet organised a trip around Amakusa and at the last minute Dawn and I decided to go.

First we visited a cave onsen. An onsen is a public bath where you get naked, scrub yourself clean and then relax in the hot water. Perfect after spending a long week running after little kids. Next we went to the aquarium (see my photo site for more pictures)

Then we went to the Pearl Centre and I had to restrain myself when I saw a beautiful crane made of pearl. It was over 100 pounds but it was beautiful! Lunch was next and we got to sample the local octopus which was followed by delicious home made mint ice cream. No pictures of these as we were too busy eating!

We were already sleepy from the first onsen and the food but we headed to a hilltop onsen overlooking the sea. It was beyond beautiful! It was a great day. We got to met new people, visit new places and catch a little sun before heading home. I am so relaxed and sleepy………night night!

Back to Elementary School

My students get three days off this week so I get to visit random elementary schools. It is always nice to go back and see the little ones. They have no fear of English yet and they will always try and speak to you whether you want them to or not.


Tuesday

I visited an elementary school where the first graders knew greetings, feelings, fruits, animals, colours and could answer questions like “What colour do you like?” It usually takes them a while to get to that level and so it was a nice change. I went to the school with Chloe (an ALT from England). It was nice to teach with someone else as you get to see how other people act in the classroom and steal an idea or two.


Wednesday

I was at Izumi-minami today. I have visited the school before and it is one of my favourites. My first class was with the special ed class who love English. We sang a song, played a game, read a book and they even had time to talk me into giving them my favourite animal stickers! I love them!


Thursday

Today I visited Tatsuda elementary school with Walter. I like Walter; he is very quiet but super cool. He is from New York, speaks amazing Chinese and Japanese and listens to heavy metal music! We had such a laugh teaching together as we got into a USA vs UK debate and he enjoyed sticking magnets all over my David Beckham picture as I pretended to get angry. The kids loved it and it made teaching them even more fun.

Missing my big sis....

Yesterday I skyped with Micchan for a couple of hours and we shared our stories of the last few months. As my birthday gets nearer I am really beginning to miss her all over again. I really miss going to see her for a cuppa. When work is busy it’s not so bad but I know spring break is coming up……*sigh*

I’m not sure why (maybe because the weather is so crazy this year) but I seem to have really bad hay fever this year. Luckily my eyes aren’t so bad but I am using so many tissues a day I have to buy more every week. I am so excited about spring and the cherry blossoms – I don’t want to spend the entire time sneezing and wheezing. Luckily (???) I live in Japan and they have a whole range of masks and goggles designed to help me through this season……..yay!

Show & Tell

For their last project the 14 students in my current English class were asked to write and present a show and tell piece on a topic of their choice.

As Hanakawa sensei and I sat listening to their speeches we were amazed. The students have improved so much in the last year and this final project really shows it. The writing has improved so much and now instead of relying on simple phrases taken straight from the textbook, they are looking into new ways of expressing themselves.

I expected them to talk about music, hobbies or movies so I was surprised when they talked about personal things and even bought items in to show us. They talked about their past feelings and experiences and shared very personal information about their lives and families. While this wouldn’t be so hard to achieve at home, it almost never happens here.

For the second time in a week I felt like a proud momma and can’t wait to see these guys graduate next year. Then there will be tears!

Practice makes perfect!

It turns out all those hours spent practicing for the eiken speaking tests last month paid off. The eiken test is an English proficiency test. 31 out of 40 students passed and the students that did fail are the ones who didn’t come to practice!

Today I found out my uncle had a stroke earlier in the week. The hardest part about being on the other side of the world is not being with family. I can handle going without a decent bacon sandwich, a decent pub atmosphere; I can handle the constant state of confusion and the general frustration that comes from living abroad. However I am not good at handling the guilt that comes from not being able to be there when family and friend need help *big, long, heavy sigh*

Odd ramblings.....

Things that are popular at home take a little while to get popular over here.
Right now my kids are talking about Twilight (Robert Pattinson in particular)

and Miley Cyrus! As I sat at school today thinking about the challenges left to come this year I remembered it is the year of the Ox. 2009 is going to be a tough year – the ox is a hard worker after all.

Did you know??

Dawn sent me this from Wikipedia

Square Root Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated on days when both the day of the month and the month are the square root of the last two digits of the year.

For example, this year Square Root Day is March 3, 2009 (3/3/09), and the next Square Root Day will be April 4, 2016 (4/4/16). The final Square Root Day of the century will occur on September 9, 2081.

Ron Gordon, a Redwood City, California high school teacher, created the first Square Root Day for September 9, 1981 (9/9/81). Gordon remains the holiday's publicist, sending news releases to world media outlets.

One suggested way of celebrating the holiday is by eating square radishes, or other root vegetables cut into shapes with square cross sections (thus creating a "square root").

This makes me mad!

Some people in my apartment building are not good at reading our rubbish calendar. The calendars are very helpful (even colour coded) so we know exactly what can go out on what day. There are quite strict about rubbish collection in Japan and as a result the rubbish bags are clear so they can see what people are throwing away. Plastic bottles and cans have to be put out on a separate day and so if you put cans in with your household burnable rubbish they won’t take it away until you’ve sorted it out.

Some people in my building however have decided to ignore these rules. This is not helped by the fact that the weather is getting warmer and there are a few stray cats in the area. Needless to say our collection point was dirty, smelly and getting worse by the day. A few of us complained but nothing happened and so I decided enough was enough.

It took me over an hour and it was completely disgusting but it is clean now. The pile turned into 2 bags of cans, 2 bags of plastic bottles and three bags of burnable rubbish. Foreigners usually get blamed for causing problems like this and so it was funny to see the faces of my Japanese neighbours watching me in disbelief as I cleaned it.

After a long hot shower I felt human again and settled down to read my book. I finished reading Twilight last week and now I’m on book two; New Moon.

Graduation

Today was graduation day. I was expecting the long speeches and the flowing tears but it turns out this year group are a tough lot. Last year I didn’t really know any of the graduating students and so it was nice to be saying goodbye and good luck to kids that I had actually spent some time with.

Luckily the rain held off and so after sitting through the 90 minutes ceremony in the cold gym I headed straight to the teachers room for a hot cuppa. After that it was time to wonder the corridors, say goodbye and take a lot of pictures.

This is Yusaku. He speaks amazing English and just won a full scholarship to Tokyo University. I have high hopes for him and look forward to hearing his news from Tokyo.

This is Kohei. I watched him graduate from junior high school three years ago and now here he is graduating high school. I feel like a proud momma!