The real work begins...
It's been 'bout a week now and I feel I'm due for another update.
NEW CAR! \(^o^)/ Totally unexpected... after work monday we were at the fukushikaikan discussing bills and whatnot with the supervisor, and outta nowhere he asks us if we would be interested in taking an old ALT's car for FREE. The catch: shakken's due at the end of October (shakken: yearly required auto check-up that costs b/t 1000-3000 bucks. A lotta people just end up dumping their cars since it can be cheaper to just buy a new one!) At that time we gotta fork up the money for the check-up, insurance, and rental fee OR just dump it to find a cheaper one.
Here's Ivy's first behind-the-wheel in our new Toyota Fun Cargo.
thats what the car is called, a fun cargo.
And what luck! my International Drivers License arrives the very next day :D perfect timing.
Later that night Ross stopped by to show off his new car which he coincidentally got the same day. It's a honda civic! jealous.
Later that evening I had my first "eikaiwa" or english conversation hour with my student. He's an older man with near perfect English so mostly we just chatted for an hour and 1/2. We meet at a cute little family owned restaurant by the river with pink walls and lil' cartoon illustrations in the menu.
On Wednesday I went to Chubu Elementry first to introduce myself to the whole staff. It was basically just another small speech in Japanese in front of a large group of people followed by a Q&A. I'm getting pretty good at public speaking! Later in the day the vice principal from Seibu came to my JHS to show me how to take the public bus to Seibu Elementry. It costs 360 yen one way! good thing i can drive now. The school is way up in the mountains, so it only has a grand total of 27 students! I teach 6 grades- one class has only THREE students. sweet When I arrived they were in the middle of eating lunch prepared by the lunch lady, who cooked eveything from her own garden! After introducing myself again and answering their questiosn they let me try her pumpkin cakes and vegie salad, delicious. Later I got to join in on some of the kids summer Koto lessons. (Koto is that Japanese string instrument that lays flat) I learned how to play "sakura" and sight-read a few other pieces. they were all quite impressed :P
Thursday I spent the morning at Chubu preparing this semesters syllabus for grades 1-6. They want me to teach them "Do-Re-Mi" the first day! It took me years before I understood what that all meant... I suggested something like, "head shoulers knees and toes" or "when you're happy and you know it", but they were dead set on do re mi. go figure
Friday was the much anticipated first day of classes. The day kicks off with an opening ceremony, in which the new teachers are introduced and get to make a speech. This included me and one other office lady who talked for a total of 35 sec... My speech ended up being around 5 min, since I did it in both in English and Japanese.
Principal introducing me in front of 256 stony-faced Japanese students.
Sports Day is coming up on the 9th- all the students having been prepping for it like mad. The past month the 3 teams, red white and blue, have been coming up with a character to represent their team. At opening ceremony the kids got to reveal their characters to the school. The White Team's was God:
After the ceremony classes began. I taught three, one of them being more of an activity hour. The first two were my self intoductions- what I've been planning for the past month. It went pretty well- I gave them worksheets to fill out as I talked so they could follow along and awarded to stickers to those who got it right. It was fairly simple- question 9 was "I like to _ _ _ _" answer: draw. Then I juggled for them since my JTE said its pretty much nonexistant here. I ended the class with a Name Bingo game where they had to introduce themselves if their name was called.
That night I went with Ivy to her Yoshie welcome party. We had dinner at a local place nearby. During dinner we happened to run into all the male teachers from my junior high, out for a beer together. Pretty funny :D In Japan teachers often go out drinking together on weekends. The ones organzied for the whole staff are called "enkais"- my first enkai is next weekend.
Yesterday a few of us decided to make a day trip out to the beach in Ishikawa Prefecture for a change of scenery.
We got rather lost on the way up but it was totally worth it. The weather was perfect.
one of ivys pics
and we got to take our Fun Wagon on its first road trip :)
francois toyoto and our toyoto parked on the beach
NEW CAR! \(^o^)/ Totally unexpected... after work monday we were at the fukushikaikan discussing bills and whatnot with the supervisor, and outta nowhere he asks us if we would be interested in taking an old ALT's car for FREE. The catch: shakken's due at the end of October (shakken: yearly required auto check-up that costs b/t 1000-3000 bucks. A lotta people just end up dumping their cars since it can be cheaper to just buy a new one!) At that time we gotta fork up the money for the check-up, insurance, and rental fee OR just dump it to find a cheaper one.
Here's Ivy's first behind-the-wheel in our new Toyota Fun Cargo.
thats what the car is called, a fun cargo.
And what luck! my International Drivers License arrives the very next day :D perfect timing.
Later that night Ross stopped by to show off his new car which he coincidentally got the same day. It's a honda civic! jealous.
Later that evening I had my first "eikaiwa" or english conversation hour with my student. He's an older man with near perfect English so mostly we just chatted for an hour and 1/2. We meet at a cute little family owned restaurant by the river with pink walls and lil' cartoon illustrations in the menu.
On Wednesday I went to Chubu Elementry first to introduce myself to the whole staff. It was basically just another small speech in Japanese in front of a large group of people followed by a Q&A. I'm getting pretty good at public speaking! Later in the day the vice principal from Seibu came to my JHS to show me how to take the public bus to Seibu Elementry. It costs 360 yen one way! good thing i can drive now. The school is way up in the mountains, so it only has a grand total of 27 students! I teach 6 grades- one class has only THREE students. sweet When I arrived they were in the middle of eating lunch prepared by the lunch lady, who cooked eveything from her own garden! After introducing myself again and answering their questiosn they let me try her pumpkin cakes and vegie salad, delicious. Later I got to join in on some of the kids summer Koto lessons. (Koto is that Japanese string instrument that lays flat) I learned how to play "sakura" and sight-read a few other pieces. they were all quite impressed :P
Thursday I spent the morning at Chubu preparing this semesters syllabus for grades 1-6. They want me to teach them "Do-Re-Mi" the first day! It took me years before I understood what that all meant... I suggested something like, "head shoulers knees and toes" or "when you're happy and you know it", but they were dead set on do re mi. go figure
Friday was the much anticipated first day of classes. The day kicks off with an opening ceremony, in which the new teachers are introduced and get to make a speech. This included me and one other office lady who talked for a total of 35 sec... My speech ended up being around 5 min, since I did it in both in English and Japanese.
Principal introducing me in front of 256 stony-faced Japanese students.
Sports Day is coming up on the 9th- all the students having been prepping for it like mad. The past month the 3 teams, red white and blue, have been coming up with a character to represent their team. At opening ceremony the kids got to reveal their characters to the school. The White Team's was God:
After the ceremony classes began. I taught three, one of them being more of an activity hour. The first two were my self intoductions- what I've been planning for the past month. It went pretty well- I gave them worksheets to fill out as I talked so they could follow along and awarded to stickers to those who got it right. It was fairly simple- question 9 was "I like to _ _ _ _" answer: draw. Then I juggled for them since my JTE said its pretty much nonexistant here. I ended the class with a Name Bingo game where they had to introduce themselves if their name was called.
That night I went with Ivy to her Yoshie welcome party. We had dinner at a local place nearby. During dinner we happened to run into all the male teachers from my junior high, out for a beer together. Pretty funny :D In Japan teachers often go out drinking together on weekends. The ones organzied for the whole staff are called "enkais"- my first enkai is next weekend.
Yesterday a few of us decided to make a day trip out to the beach in Ishikawa Prefecture for a change of scenery.
We got rather lost on the way up but it was totally worth it. The weather was perfect.
one of ivys pics
and we got to take our Fun Wagon on its first road trip :)
francois toyoto and our toyoto parked on the beach
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