A Good Day!

I went to a very small elementary school today in the middle of rice fields. There was only one class per year and so I got to see almost everybody.

I love, small country school; everyone is so nice and the kids are wonderful.

* All of the classes went well and it was fun to have a fire drill halfway through my first class.

* I ate lunch with a 9 year old who loves to ride on his brother’s motorbike and sneak a puff on his cigarettes!!

* Play time was all about the see-saw with the younger kids followed by tag with the older ones.

* At the end of lunch time I had two bunches of flowers from the boys – I hope they didn’t pick them from the flower pots

* By the end of the day my T-shirt was covered in stickers – presents from the girls

A Perfect Saturday

Every Saturday should be like today!

* Meet Aska downtown
* Eat a delicious lunch
* Sing karaoke for an hour
* Take a relaxing onsen
* Non-stop gossip catch-up
* Do all of the above for under a tenner

Every Saturday night should also be this much fun

* Pot luck taco themed dinner
* American Idol
* Wrestling

We love life in Japan!

For Kitty...

Happy Birthday to our favourite Irish lady!
I’m not quite sure how this picture turned out the way it did but I think it’s cool that you can see 3 faces!

Cinderella Story

I have been hearing a lot about Susan Boyle and so when my curiosity got the best of me, I went online to see what it was all about. I never expected to hear such a voice to from her – I hope she does well.

Imagine my surprise when I turned on the TV to check the weather this morning and saw her face. A Japanese TV show was talking about Cinderella stories and had decided that hers was number one. If Japan is talking about her already, I think she’s going to be big!

The Misfits

Wanting to get outside and enjoy the spring sunshine, a group of us decided to take part in a Kuma-jet football tournament. Dawn, Cherese, Kevin, Kitty and I made up the Misfits team! I thought it was an appropriate name given our outfits for the day!

As we warmed up and I didn’t think our chances were high

It was a fun day. We played well and considering we didn’t have any actual football players we didn’t do too badly. I was in goal and made quite a few great saves – I’m not just being big-headed I actually did!

Unfortunately we didn’t make the finals and I think Cherese was secretly happy - it was Idol night after all!

Eigo Note

So as part of the current educational reforms, the 5th and 6th years at elementary school now have an English textbook. Previously the only real English lessons elementary school kids had was when the ALT’s visited. Now their homeroom teachers are expected to teach them too. I don’t think this is set in stone just yet and a lot of teachers are already freaking out. It’s a bit like training to be a brain surgeon and then being told you’re going to do a heart operation twice a month!

Anyway the textbook that has been made is called “Eigo Noto” which translates to English Notebook. The kids are not tested on what they learn but it is supposed to prepare them a little more for English classes at junior high school.

A lot of people do not like these books but I think they could have been a lot worse. The textbook also comes with an interactive CD-ROM and it’s a good way to get them excited about a class. The first lesson for the 5th years is all about saying hello in different languages so even I have been learning something. The 6th years have been learning the alphabet and this “find the letter” game has been very popular with the kids, especially when using the computer.

American Idol

Cherese is obsessed with American idol. As a result of this, Saturday night has become Idol night. Me, Cherese, Dawn, Carrie, David, Kitty, Natalee (and whoever else shows up) now have pot-luck dinners and debate the best and worse performances of the night.

There is no denying that Adam is amazing and, as Cherese refers to him as her future husband, I’m guessing she wants him to win. I’m a Danny fan myself! How about you??

Back to school...

So for the next three months I won’t have my own school. I will be visiting random elementary schools. Not sure how I feel about it. It will be shorter days – usually start at 9am and end around 3pm but everyone is always so tired at random schools. They only see ALT’s occasionally so you have to put everything into it and be full of energy every class. Oh well – I like a challenge!


Elementary school kids are cute though and this week I was lucky enough to attend my first elementary entrance ceremony. The first years are so cute. When you are 6 years old in Japan, going to school is a big deal. Everyone gets the same yellow hats and red or black backpacks. These packs are designed to last a long time and are usually made of leather. Oh and they cost at least 75 pounds! Sending a 6 year old to school with a 75 pound backpack – wow!

Easter Eggs

Today was our first class back at the orphanage after the break and in celebration of Easter we decided to paint and blow eggs. Having never done this before I was excited too and was even more excited to see that our class of 3 had grown to 12! We now have a mix of boys and girls aged 9 to 12 and I think we’re going to have a lot of fun this year.

Wedding Day

Erich has only lived in Kumamoto City for a few months but he was good enough to invite a group of us to Nagasaki for his wedding. His blushing bride, Tomoko, was lovely and although I expected the wedding to be very formal (as is the norm in Japan) I was happy they threw a few western style things in including The Conga

Congratulations Erich & Tomoko

Hard at "work"

So now we have spring break and although we don’t have to go to school, we still have to “work” at the office.

So far this generally means

* getting to work at 10am
* being sent to a room in the city hall
(because there are just too many of us for our office)
* playing games for two hours
* going to lunch
* running “errands” in the afternoon

I have also been asked to make a cleaning manual for the leaving ALT’s. Me make a cleaning manual?!?! They obviously know me too well.

I have managed to keep myself amused over the past few days by watching this at least once a day – enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtX8nswnUKU