School and BBQ

The school I'm at this week, Higashi-Chu, told me to go home after being there for about 15 minutes this morning. Today they have all students coming in for a presentation, like Minami-chu did last week, but unlike Minami-chu, they didn't plan on having me introduce myself to the whole class. I can do it in September, they say. We didn't schedule it for today. You can go home!

Now, theoretically, going home should be nice, but I really don't know what to do with myself at home for the whole day, so I'm spending a little time at the internet café to start out. I thought about asking them if I could just stay and watch, but I had a feeling they wanted me out of the way. They mean it kindly, because I won't entirely understand what's going on, and none of them really have time to lead me through it. Besides, I'll be going to a bunch of assemblies once school actually starts, so I'll probably get my fill then!

I've got a massage chair in the internet café. The 15 minute massage was nice, but it's rather uncomfortable for actually using the internet!

So last week, I went to Kita-chu every day and spent some time looking up ESL games and activity ideas on the internet, copying potentially useful pages from my bilingual picture dictionary, working on my self-introduction, which will be the cornerstone of my lesson plans for the first month at least. Remember, I rotate between three middle schools and visit all of their English classes, so I have to teach the same thing over again seeral times, but I also get to reuse and perfect my lessons as I go along.

However, I have trouble sitting at my desk and coming up with lesson plans for 8 hours every day, so I also study some Japanese and chat with the teachers. They too seem to have at least some free time; while they're certainly busier than I and know what they're doing far more than I do, they also take very long lunches and spend a lot of time looking busy, I suspect. Having to go to school for the entire summer still seems a little excessive to me, but I'm also glad to get to know the teachers a bit before classes start. I've gotten particularly friendly with some of my fellow English teachers; Suzuki-sensei at Kita-chu is a notable example. She took me out to lunch a few times, and she really uses her English as much as she can. On Friday we both stayed a littler later than the other teachers, exchanged contact information, and showed each other pictures of our boyfriends ^_^

This past weekend I was refreshingly busy. After learning that I was rather homesick at first, my new Japanese teacher, Kaji-san, has taken me under her wing. She took me to lunch with another of her students, Olivia, on Saturday, and then met up with me later on in the day to take me over to the wedding reception we both attended. A former ALT (Assistant Language Teacher: my job) Dennis, married a Shikokuchuo native, Yukiko, earlier in the day, and despite having just met me the week before, they were kind enough to invite me to the reception as well. It was in a small concert room turned beer hall, which is apparently a very popular thing to do in Japan during the summer. As could only happen in Japan, it opened promptly at 5 and closed at 9pm, and they really kicked us out by 9:15. However, they had good food and drink, and it was a very nice atmosphere.

There was a very nice group of local young foreigners like myself and young Japanese girls around the same age hanging out together. They were planning a BBQ for Sunday, but the weather was supposed to be bad, so they didn"t know what to do. Someone mentioned that they usually hold parties in Erin's apartment (now mine) but they didn't want to inconvenience me. I said, "why not?" and that's just what happened! Two Japanese girls, Aya and Sa-chan, went and got all the stuff and starting preparations right around 2pm, when I came home (Kaji-san had brought me to her monthly tea ceremony class that morning and then to lunch). We had two hot plates and make yakiniku, basically grilled meat, along with some vegetables. There were probably around 10-12 people in all, 50/50 foreigners and Japanese, but it was a great bunch of people. Since I let them use my place, I didn't have to pay for the food, help clean up or anything, and I had tons of leftovers in my fridge. Not bad!

There's a typhoon passing by eastern Japan, hitting some areas harder than others with intense rain and mudslides, but so far my town has just gotten some heavy rain, and even that was less than I expected would come from having a typhoon in the area.

Sorry for the long, sporadic posts so far; I promise I'll do shorter posts more often and with pictures once I finally have internet. Cheers! or, as you say in Japanese, kanpai!