Brian’s Japan Adventure

September 30th, 2007

Quiet Sunday

McDonalds For Breakfast

It was cool again today AND it rained early this morning.  I slept a little later than usual, but left at exactly 9:30 as planned. I had a new mission in mind that had a rigid time frame that could not be missed!  This morning’s secret mission: McDonalds breakfast, which ends worldwide at 10:30. What can I say, I’m in love with the Sausage Egg McMuffin. I really like the Steak, Egg and Cheese Bagel, but they don’t have that one here. The plan is to go to McD’ and then back to the library to work on my lessons for next week.  The real reason is that I suddenly want McDonalds coffee. McD’s coffee is the best in the world in my opinion, WAY better that that burnt crap Starbucks sells.

Since it had rained, I decided to take the bus to Tenmaya and walk to the library. Since there’s a McDonalds in the Tenmaya arcade, all the better!  I order my Sausage Egg McMuffin value set and I’m happy for the day. Note that’s it’s called a “value set” here, not a ”value meal.”  It’s the same thing: sandwich, hash browns and coffee, but they call it a set. Just one of those things I guess.  I also noticed that the bagels they use here for breakfast food all have sesame seeds on them, where the McDonald’s bagels at home are the plain kind. Gosh, there’s something to ponder huh?  There must be some hidden Eastern significance there somewhere.

More Library Action and Lesson Plans

After eating, I quickly walk the two or three blocks to the library. It still looks like rain, and I’m still hoping to avoid using my little folding umbrella. It turns out that the rain was done for the day at that point, but it didn’t look like it right then.  I find a nice quiet spot in the back of the library and set up my laptop there. Everything works instantly with no fuss at all this time.  I forgot to update the “email list” version of this blog yesterday, so I did all that first. Then I upload yesterday’s report and a little test video that I made last night.

Next up was email. I received several suggestions about kindergarten activities from my sister-in-law and also from Dr. M back at my university in the states. Both had some good ideas that I will try to use for the Kindergarten class real soon now.  For this week, I downloaded a bunch of “coloring book pictures” of animals from the National Geographic website. These are really good pictures and I’d recommend them to anyone who needs animal pictures to print. The youngest group of children is supposed to know animals, so we’ll see with these pictures.

I also downloaded clip art pictures of trees in all four seasons. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to work it, but I think in the older kids classrooms, I will break them up into four groups, and each group will “be a season.” They’ll color their trees appropriately for that season. Then I’ll have them trade papers with other groups and have the groups now become weather groups.”  One will draw snow, another rain, another sun, and another clouds. We can tackle seasons and weather at the same time.  I’m not quite sure how to drag this out to fill a half an hour, but I have a couple of days yet.

I’m not supposed to prepare anything for tomorrow’s university class. It’s the first class of that course, and the professor wants to talk about his syllabus and that kind of thing. He’ll probably introduce me and maybe ask a few questions, but tomorrow isn’t anything I need to prepare for. Tuesday’s class is more of a support group, and I don’t think I’m really supposed to have anything ready to go, just deal with whatever arises. Thursday’s class I do have to prepare for, but it’s not hard and I can think about it on Wednesday while riding on the train; there’s no point in dwelling on that one yet. Friday this week I am off this time.

That leaves the two adult classes on Wednesday.  For the early class, I told them that this week we would start looking at idioms. I did quite a bit of work with idioms with my Korean student last year, and he always enjoyed it, so we’ll see how they like it now. I have an excellent website bookmarked that lists hundreds and hundreds of them. I’ll print off about one or two pages’ worth for each class.

They are advanced enough that they are asking really tough grammar questions, many of which I can’t find answers to on the Internet. I really need a good grammar reference, but there isn’t one here in the apartment. There’s one at the bookstore, but it’s around $50 or something and I can’t do that.  Maybe one of my “academic readers” (You know who you are!) can get the English department at school to send something?  Hint-hint?

The older ladies in the evening are posing a new problem.  The old man from two weeks ago has now joined their group and he’s already shaking things up.  The ladies were happy to just sit around and chat for the most part, almost ignoring me for long stretches, just looking to me for grammar help and occasional input. The Old Man wants to make it into more of a “real class”. He’s talked them into wanting to work on a nightly “theme” where everything revolves around some central idea.  They voted that this week will be “going abroad week.”  I need to create vocabulary lists and some activities involving travel.  It’s a good idea, and I’m fine with that, but I wonder if the ladies really want it like this or they are just being accommodating to the only man in the group?  I’d hate for one or more of them to get frustrated and leave because the dynamics of the class is changing.  The old man is just far more advanced than they are, and it’s going to be frustrating for all of them.

So while at the library I saved an article for the early class to work on, and a few things involving travel that I will have to manipulate into vocabulary lists. Nothing difficult, and if I can get it all done this evening, that’ll just make the rest of the week so much easier. I can print everything off tomorrow morning at the office before my class and be done with the materials for the week. I still have some thinking to do about what exactly to do with them, but I’m sure I can come up with something. The concern now is that I only have about one hour with the Internet and printer tomorrow, and that’s my only opportunity until Thursday morning. This would all be so much easier if I could just get on the net conveniently.

I left the library around 2:30 or so, after watching some highly important stuff on Youtube. I had some very plain French food from a place inside the train station; some kind of vegetable pizza, a hash-brown muffin, and some kind of hard biscuit with chocolate chips in it; not bad. After coming home, I manipulated and cleaned up everything for printing in the morning. I’m pretty well set now.

Roommate Wanted?

Marc just left, stating that he was going to a rock concert. It was the first I’d heard about it.   He could have asked me to go along, or at least mentioned that there was such a thing happening tonight. I probably wouldn’t have gone, but you never know!  Actually, one of my readers has suggested that I get a lock box for my pay money, since it seems likely that he’s going to run out. We don’t get paid again until the 27th, and that’s a long way off. The lockbox may be a little much, but then again, maybe not. On the other hand, I don’t even know where to get one, so it’s not really an issue.   I really don’t think he’s the sort of person to do that, but he’s clearly got a drinking problem and when people get desperate, who knows?  I’d be willing to bet the loan requests will be starting soon. Groan.

Now it’s 8:00; as far as I can remember, everything is done for tomorrow. I should probably look over my vocabulary lists for Japanese class, but that’s it. Since Monday isn’t a holiday, I have Japanese twice this week. It’s moving too slowly to be of much use, but it’s a place here I can ask questions at least. I think I’ll hit that Haiku book some more, and hopefully finish it tomorrow night. Then I can start the History of Japan, the second book I bought. After that, I’ll bring home something from the library, maybe The Tale of Genji, one of their major classics.

My weekly schedule is pretty well set and fixed now with the exception of Fridays. Here’s my regular schedule:

Schedule:

Monday 10:50-12:20 Dr. N’s class up on the mountain.
Monday 1:00-3:00 Japanese class up on the mountain.
(No real travel)

Tuesday 1:00-4:00 Bitchu-Takahashi in the university student support center.
(About an hour train ride each way)

Wednesday 10:00-11:30 Three different kindergarten classes.
Wednesday 1:00-3:00 Advanced adult learners.
Wednesday 6:00-8:00 Beginner adult learners.
(About an hour getting there, about two coming back on the fast and slow Shinkansen)
Thursday 10:50-12:20 Dr. K’s class up on the mountain.
Thursday 3:30-5:30 Japanese class near the little train station.
(No real travel)

Friday 10:00-??? Something or other in Fukuyama’s Elementary School.
(About an hour each way by train)

So as you can see, I am going to have some hours on the train, reading hopefully. I see eight classes PLUS whatever comes up on Fridays, so I’m betting on ten all together.   As far as I know no one has ever gone insane from the pressure before, and I don’t want to be the first, but it des look like a lot.  Marc’s schedule is set up along similar lines, but he’s doing a nursery school and junior high among other things. It sounds like I have a busy couple of months ahead of me!

September 29th, 2007

A Cool Day!

OK, so much for the plan to go back to the beach. It’s 66 degrees and completely overcast outside, and they are forecasting a high of 72. That’s a pretty drastic change from yesterday! Still, it’s not supposed to rain, so I can get some things done around town at least.

First thing this morning, I do a load of laundry and hang it out to dry. I figured with it being this cloudy and cool, it might take while to dry out hanging there, and I was right. I brought the stuff in at 5pm, and one pair of pants was still a little moist. Fortunately, I can hang a few items in my room.

A Little Library Action

In the meantime, around 10:00 I rode my bicycle to the library. The last time I went there I took the bus, but this time I wanted to see how long it would take on the bicycle. When I got there, I forgot to check what time it was, so I’m still not sure how long it takes. I’m going to guess around 20 minutes. So in the future, I can choose to either bike for 20 minutes each way or pay around $4.00 in train and/or bus fares to get there. Normally, it’d kill me to pay for something like that, but I really don’t have much else to spend money on here, so why not make life easy when you can? Still, I like to be frugal, so it’s going to be an ongoing internal debate with me. I guess the weather will usually be the deciding factor. I can easily see myself spending at least one afternoon per week there preparing for classes, so I guess I’d better get organized about it.

Arriving at the library, more or less dry for once due to the cool weather, I went in and asked if anyone spoke English. I can figure out how to ask for lots of things in Japanese, but I didn’t even want to attempt this, as I figured it would be complicated. They asked around, and eventually found a man who understood that I wanted to apply for a library card. He asked me if I had an ID, and I showed it to him. Pleased that I was prepared, he smiled and handed me a form. It was basic name and address stuff, so I could figure out the form without any problem. I handed the form back and the clerk typed a few things into her computer, scanned the barcode on a plastic card, and made me sign it. She then handed me an instruction sheet for the library and I thanked her and left with my shiny new library card, which for some reason is pink with flowers all over it. The whole process is really no different than applying for a card in the USA, except that I couldn’t identify the form to fill out on my own.

I have a few unread books at home, so I was really more interested in getting on the Internet than actually checking out books. So my next project was to get my computer hooked up and working with their Internet connection. The library has public computers, but they all use those funky Japanese keyboards, and I don’t seem to get along with them very well. I once used the keyboard at the Hiroshima culture center to send four or five emails, all of which were unreadable by the recipients. I still have no idea why that happened, so I want to avoid those keyboards if I can. In addition, all my blog reports and Youtube videos and photos and things are on my laptop already, so it’s just easier to use my own system. Yet another factor is that I know my computer doesn’t have any kind of key logging software to steal my passwords; you just never know with public computers.

I Broke The Internet!

So I picked out an empty desk and set up the computer. They have many desks scattered throughout the library, and each one has an electrical outlet as well as a plug for a network cable. I had all the cables and everything I needed this time. Remember, I went last week, but didn’t have a card so I couldn’t get help. Once again, the Internet diagnostic software said I was connected to the net, but I couldn’t really do anything. I fought with it for about a half an hour and decided to break down and ask for help.

I then went to the audio-visual counter and the girl spoke no English at all. I said “Internet?” and pointed to a line in my (English) library instruction that said to ask at the desk for details. She handed me a clipboard with a computer number on it. She thought I wanted to reserve one of their computers. I looked confused for a moment, so she came out to lead me to the computer. I shook my head and pointed the other way, toward my computer. She had no idea what I was talking about or what I wanted, but at least she followed me. I opened up my computer, started the browser, and when she saw the “Cannot Access” message, she gave the hoped-for “Ah soo!” and ran off to get instructions for me. She came back with instructions, and they were even specific to the Mac operating system, which surprised me. They were in Japanese, but the DNS number and required PROXY were written in English, and there were even a few pictures, so I eventually figured out how to make it all work. Whew!

So then I spent the next two hours updating blog, checking and answering email, message board, uploading Youtube and Photo files and so forth. It was fun not having a time limit or anyone watching over my shoulder. I forgot my headphones, so there were some Youtube videos that I wanted to see but couldn’t, but that’s OK. Unless something else comes up, I’ll probably be going back tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to make a list of all the things I want to download and information to look up for next week’s classes. I’ll have to print out my work Monday at the office, but I can get it all ready ahead of time. More hungry than bored, I decided to look for lunch and left the library in search of something new.

Another New Place To Eat

At first, I figured I’d go to the McDonalds at the Tenmaya Arcade, but it was crowded and since I’m getting more than a little tired of the same old McSlop, I decided that as long as I had my bicycle with me, to go a little out of the way and find something new. I eventually wound up way south of where I usually go, near where we had breakfast yesterday. I went to a place called Mos Burger, which Marc had said was good. I went in and it looks like a cross between a traditional Japanese restaurant and a Burger King. It’s hard to describe how that works exactly, but it was a weird mix. They have a picture menu, just like McDonalds or Freshness Burger, so I order a hamburger (300Y) as well as a hot dog (270Y). They don’t seem to have fries or anything, so I went with two sandwiches. I went to a table and sat down. A few minutes later, someone brought the food out to me.

It was great! The hot dog and bun were just slightly crunchy, which was good. They had ketchup, onions, and a bit of some kind of unusual mustard on it. It was far larger than the hotdogs Marc and I had at the place near the train station a week or so ago (was it called Po-Po’s?), cheaper as well. The hamburger was interesting as well. Nowhere near as greasy as Freshness Burger, but with so much special sauce on it that it dripped all over the place. I’m tempted to say the sauce tasted like that on a Big Mac, but it was spicier somehow. It was all very good stuff and, at under $6 for both, pretty affordable as well. Too bad it’s so far out of my usual vicinity. Finishing off the sandwiches, I hop back on the bike and ride home, laughing evilly as I pass by Happy Town without slowing down.

Time and Seasons

When I got home, I took the laundry inside and sat down to practice some vocabulary; I have Japanese class twice this week, since Monday is not a holiday this time. Five minutes later I am asleep on the couch. Not too long afterwards, I hear Marc leave for the evening. He’s been decidedly grumpy yesterday and today; I wonder if he’s mad at me about something or if he has some problem of his own. I guess I’ll find out eventually or he’ll get over it. As I wake up, I find that I had left the air conditioner on all day and it was absolutely freezing in the room. Right now I am drink hot coffee, the first hot drink I have had since the first or second day here. Between the morning orange juice and iced coffee, I have barely missed the hot stuff, but I guess when the weather changes, it’ll be making a big comeback. Tea is also very big here, but I’ve never been a big fan of hot tea. Much like the iced coffee, I may have to learn to like it!

It’s currently not quite 6pm yet, and it’s fully dark outside. It may be the first cool day since I arrived, but there are signs that winter is coming. I noticed quite a few fallen leaves last Tuesday in the mountains of Bitchu-Takahashi. It’s been getting dark earlier and earlier. I wonder if they do Daylight Savings Time here? I doubt it. If they do, I hope somebody tells me about it when it happens! On that subject, my watch stopped a few days ago, and it’s driving me crazy. I have to keep pulling out my cell phone to see what time it is, and I am a habitual clock-watcher, even when I don’t have anything to do.

I have a new watch at home in my desk drawer, a Christmas gift last year, so I called home to have Mom send it in my next shipment. How many hours till it arrives? I don’t know, but I’ll be wishing for a watch every 15 minutes until it gets here. Of course I could buy a new watch here, but they are very expensive, and the one from home is basically free if I can just wait for it. I have no idea where to go to get the battery replaced in the old one; I’m pretty sure I can’t even get the thing opened without special tools. I’m doing more and more every day, and learning more and more in the process, yet it’s silly little stuff like a bad watch battery that make me realize just how limited I still am here.

And that’s pretty much it for today. I’m going to sit here drinking coffee and reading my Haiku book until bedtime. I noticed at the library they have a whole section on Japanese literature translated into English. It looks like “The Tale of Genji” is one of their classics, so I’ll have to put that high on my future reading list. They also have several other books on haiku; I could come home an expert on that if I wanted. Weather permitting, tomorrow I’ll be back to the library with a list of topics to research for next week’s classes. When I came home tonight, it didn’t feel like I had done very much, yet here I am, two thousand words later, still rambling about my day in what might be my longest blog report to date. I guess there is something to be said even for the boring days without an adventure!
…

[Sunday morning addition]

No, that wasn’t all. I spent another hour and a half learning to use iMovie, the movie-making software that came installed on my computer.

Yes, it’s short and stupid, but don’t those titles and transitions look nice? It’ll give me something to do with my photos once it starts getting too cold to run all over town. Maybe I can even make some kind of presentations for classes with it. I don’t know yet, but it was fun.

September 28th, 2007

Fukuyama

Marc and I got up and out earlier than usual this morning to go downtown to the government building and pick up our foreign registration cards. There was no problem or anything particularly interesting about that except that it’s the first photo ID I’ve ever had that I actually like. Then again, I took the picture myself and submitted it as a passport photo. Too bad you can’t do that with a driver’s license back home!

On the way back we ate at a place called Cho-Co-Cro. Marc had okonomiaki, while I had something that I am going to call a “breakfast pizza” (ham and cheese and egg on a pizza crust) and some kind of hollow roll with ham and cheese inside (Like a hot jelly donut with cheese instead of jelly). It was really good and I will try it again sometime.

We then walked back to Okayama station and met Mrs. Y there, who rode with us to Daimon station, which is on the outskirts of Fukuyama. The ride took about an hour. There, we walked about 20 minutes up another freakin’ mountain to get to the school. What is it with Japanese and schools on mountains? Anyway Mrs. Y walked up the mountain like she was a born mountain goat, while Marc and I are both wheezing and sweat-soaked by the time we get to the top. That’s always a good way to make a first impression, right?

When we get there, an American who went to the same university as we do, but has been teaching in Japan for over 20 years, met with us and showed around the place. There are also two other people there who teach English, one other American and a guy from Australia, but he talks funny (hah!). The problem is that they don’t have any idea what to do with us. They were just told that two new guys would be joining them, but they didn’t know for what purpose, how long, or even why. They all seem nice enough, but they’re also pretty busy, so what we will be doing there is still a mystery. I suspect it will be lots of observation, rather than interaction, but I guess that’s OK too. They have something else they all need to deal with next Friday, so we have the day off next week. We’ll start the week after next. We will be arriving there at 10 in the morning, but how long we’ll stay or what we’ll do is a mystery. We don’t even know for sure at this point if it will be every week, or just once a month, or anything in-between! When we finished discussing all the things that non of us can answer, the walk down the mountain was easy enough and we rode home, arriving back in Okayama around 4:00.

I had considered going straight to the library to apply for a card, but since I didn’t have my computer with me, I decided against it. By the time, I could pick up my computer and head back there, it’d be after 5:30, and they close at 7:00. I’ll do it Saturday or Sunday. It looks like tomorrow might actually be the first day of autumn- it’s supposed to be in the upper 70’s and cloudy all day. I think my plans to return to the beach are off for Saturday at least!

September 27th, 2007

New Classes!

This was a long day, and it looks like the first of many. I had a meeting at 9:00 with the professor I was supposed to meet last week and didn’t. He seems like a nice enough guy and should be easy to work with. He gave me a textbook that his class uses and told me to create a 40-45 minute lesson for each week to go along with the book. Sine he’s following the text pretty closely, I won’t have to dig very hard for topics, which seems to be my weak point right now. After I finish my lesson, he will take over and teach the rest of the lesson in Japanese. I only have this class on Mondays, so there are only 13 classes the entire time I am here. I’ll work on the lesson over the weekend; no problem.

After that meeting, I had an actual class to teach with another professor here. He gave me the wrong text to prepare for last week, and then he brought the wrong CD to class with him as well. He even gave me the wrong room number to meet him; fortunately I caught him coming up the stairs! So this week wasn’t much of a lesson. It was the first day of class, so he went over the syllabus and course requirements, in Japanese, of course. About halfway through, asked me to introduce myself, which I did. He then had each of the students (about 30 of them) ask me a question. They all asked in Japanese, which the professor translated; this doesn’t look promising for an English class, but they all seemed interested in me personally at least.

The very first question was from a group of girls “Do you have a girlfriend?” When I answered no, they went crazy. I think this might be fun after all! Unfortunately, later in the class someone asked how old I was, and I forgot to lie. So much for college girls! (Or maybe not, they still hung around after class to talk).

At some point I mentioned I had been to Hiroshima, and someone asked me about the Atomic Bomb, “Do you believe it was necessary to use the bomb to win the war?” Gak! I had the same question from an old man yesterday. Both times I gave the answer that “We didn’t need to use the bomb to win, but with that technology available, someone would have used it somewhere eventually and that maybe we all learned something from it.” Personally, I think the Japanese at the time were desperate and fanatical enough to defend Japan to the last man if they could and that the using the Atomic Bomb probably cost less lives in total, but no, I know better than to say that in a classroom. Of course it wasn’t a good thing, but like most terrible things, I think a lot of good eventually came from it. And besides, I’m not a historian, so who cares about my opinion?

Eventually the questions ended, and he let the class go a little early. We talked about next week, and he gave me a copy of the right text for that class. He wants me to go through the text and pick out on important or interesting sentence from each paragraph and talk about it in detail. My portion of the lesson needs to take abut 40 minutes. It seems like a good enough idea, but the texts are pretty short, so I may need to do more to fill the time. This is my regular Thursday class from now on.

I then came home for a few hours before Japanese class. I sat on the couch to read my Japanese textbook and fell asleep. Fortunately Marc woke me up when he finished his class with the same professor doing the same thing immediately after me. The days are getting longer and more stressful now that there is actual work to do. I’m glad I got most, if not all, of my planned sightseeing done already. The work really starts now.

In Japanese class, the teacher handed out some worksheets and wanted us to write the answers in Japanese. Yeesh! I know the vocabulary, and I can read the hiragana just fine now, but putting the words into hiragana is really tough. I can match the letters to the sounds (reading) just fine, but matching the sounds to the letters (writing) is a lot harder than I expected. I think I’ve said before that I have no real interest in learning to write in Japanese, but at this stage, I can see the value of this kind of exercise. I guess I’m not as comfortable with hiragana as I thought. Actually Marc finished at about the same time, so I guess he is picking it up pretty quickly- maybe faster than me since I practiced this stuff before coming over here. Uh-oh!

And that pretty much wraps up today. I’m going to read the Haiku book a little bit and go to bed early. Tomorrow, Marc and I will go downtown to pick up our Foreign Registration cards and then head to the train station early to meet Mrs. Y and go to Fukuyama with her. She’s never been there either and ants to see the Elementary school we will teach at for herself. I guess this is a new client for the company. It’s easy to forget that I work for an “education conglomerate” and not individual schools, but it’s all business if you get far enough into it. So anyway, tomorrow we are visiting and meeting with the elementary school that we will both be visiting on Fridays. Since we aren’t leaving until noon, and it’s a decent train ride, I expect it’ll take all day tomorrow just for travel and a few meetings. Normally, we’d leave much earlier than that and hopefully get home early.

Saturday I am hoping to return to the beach one more time before fall hits. It was actually a little cooler today (mid 80’s) so fall is really coming. But not this weekend I hope. I also want to go to the library this weekend and get a library card as well as get someone to show me how to get the Internet working there. You need a library card ID to make the computer work is why I ha problems last weekend. I’ll have my foreign registration card, so that should be enough to get started. And, of course, I now have lessons to prepare for next week.

September 26, 2007

Let me start by saying I went to bed last night around 11:00 pm and was still agonizing over Kindergarten at 2:00 am. Finally, I just decided that I’d do the same thing I did last week and only change it a little. It worked last week and everyone was happy, so I figured the worst that could happen this time was that I’d be called “repetitive.” So I took my paper and crayons and we started out “reviewing” by drawing a face just like last week, only this time smaller and faster. Then we moved on to arms & legs, feet and hands, body and so forth. So I basically just expanded on the material from last week and used the same process to do it. Once again, everyone was happy. Whew.

After the Kindergarten classes were done, I asked the principal for suggestions for next week. It took a little bit of back and forth until he understood that I was asking for ideas. He didn’t help much; I a starting to realize that his limited English may be more of a factor in the way I perceive his attitude than anything else. He’s not tough and strict; he just doesn’t know what to say to me. He may even be a little intimidated by me. Whatever. Basically, he didn’t suggest any specific activities, but did mention a few subject areas, which I really already knew. Still, he mentioned them in a discussion about next week, so I’ll work with it. Here is the list:

Names of Seasons
Colors
Weather
Shapes

Now in my opinion these kids already know colors pretty well, even the littlest ones. That’s not to say that “easy” stuff doesn’t have its place. No 2 year-old wants a constant challenge. Names of seasons and weather are easy enough to work with a little bit, but for a half hour? “Shapes” looks like the best target for next time I think, but I’ll have to come up with an activity. I am NOT going to wait until 2:00 am next Tuesday. He also suggested repeating the face and body parts next week; I guess today wasn’t too much repetition. I suspect from now on I’ll plan to do something new every other week and review/repeat it the second week. Repetition and review is important to them, and a whole lot easier on me too.

If anyone has any good activities for any of the four subjects above, send ‘em in and if I use your idea, I’ll send you a fabulous prize! OK, I won’t really, but I’ve been asking for suggestions so often lately that I want to make it sound good.

The afternoon class had another new student today, and all the regulars showed up, so I had five of them. Things went quickly and smoothly, and everyone left happily. I was supposed to go to an art museum with one of the students during the break, but she forgot her pass, so that’ll be next week instead. So this time, I wandered back over to the Peace Park and remembered to take my camera with me. I have a HUGE number of pictures from this place in the gallery. Take a look.

Then during the evening class, the new student who came to last week’s afternoon class came to try the night class instead. He’s more in line with them by age, but I think he’s quite a bit more advanced in English than they are, so I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. Time will tell. And then I came home without incident. Basically it was a good, trouble-free day. And on top of all that, there was a nice breeze today as well.

Marc, on the other hand, has had a stinker of a day. While I only have the three-hour support center group in Bitchu-Takahashi, Marc has that as well (on Wednesdays), but in addition he has two regular classes to deal with. One of these, he described as an easy class that he wouldn’t have to prepare for. That’s not unusual, I’d say my Wednesday evening class is about the same; no real work involved. But his other class… heh heh.

Apparently the intern who was here before taught the entire class herself without any input from the “real” teacher, who didn’t even show up much of the time. Marc is expected to do lesson plans and actually teach the whole course on his own for real. Really, that was what I had in my mind coming over here, and I wouldn’t mind doing that. I think it’d be fun, but then again, I am interested in actually being an English teacher when this is all over. Marc has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to be an English teacher, and from what I remember from the TEFL Classes, that’s probably not a bad thing. Tonight he realized that he’s going to have to work his butt off for this class. Not only that, but he doesn’t get home until around 10:00 in the evening. We actually ran into each other on the little train coming home.

Another thing we both learned as we compared notes tonight. My Kindergarteners are younger than his nursery school kids. The children at the kindergarten are 2-3 in the young class to 5 years old I the upper class. Marc’s nursery school children are 6 and 7 years old. We just realized tonight that in Japan the two terms are backwards from what we thought. The nursery school comes after kindergarten. Why? I don’t know, that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s obviously correct.