Elementary School Visit #3 - Ainoura Elementary School

So today I had my first visit to a "real" elementary school (real being that there were more than 15 students!). I had three grade 6 classes to teach - and they were wonderful! They asked lots of questions and seemed pretty enthused about the games and such. I also did my self-introduction for about the 50th time - and I think the biggest hit of every class is the picture of Daisy, and my Sens jersey! (Thanks Nevil & Auntie Naomi!). But the best part of my day was when the whole school was practicing for their Sports Day next Sunday. Now in all my years of teaching drama and dance, I have never seen such synchronization and enthusiasm from that many kids! All 400 students, from the 1st to 6th grate were perfectly in line, doing all the movements and dancesteps on time and to the beat and chanting along. It was absolutely incredible! Now Evy and I have produced our fair share of good shows with Drama & Dance in the 6 or so years in which we did it (not to toot our own horns or anything), but they were nothing in comparison to these "Sports Day" shows! I can't wait to go to my junior high schools' next Sunday! It's times like these that I wish I had a video camera or my camera recorded sound!!

On another note - last night I had my very first Japanese date! Okay - maybe not a "date" persay, but more of a "group hang". Jenny, Nicola, Claire and I met up with some j-boys they had met previously to help them practice their English. It was a lot of fun! We met at Starbucks and then made our way to an isakaya for a drink. They were really funny and kept us entertained - mainly with their interpretations of the English language...but we won't tell them that...And surprisingly, they were pretty cute as well - although one was really short and we didn't notice until he stood up...but hey, what can you expect?!

And as you can tell I've survived the typhoon - Sasebo wasn't hit that hard, but just south of us was pretty bad. I spent many hours locked up in my apartment eating far too much, watching too many episodes of "Friends" then I care to admit to, cleaned my apartment, and sadly, succumbing to my natural dorkiness and did a puzzle. Oh - and listening to the new John Mayer and Justin Timberlake cds....good times...

Hello all!

So I’m quickly settling into the working life! It’s a little weird though – working a “9 to 5” job, and having all my evenings free! No restaurant jobs, NCAC to go to, or no papers or studying to do! All this free time…

But I’ve been occupying myself! I have signed up for Japanese lessons once a week – although I think I might sign up for one more…I could definitely use the practice!! I’m also looking to odori and koto lessons…hopefully becoming a little more “cultured”.

I’m currently experiencing my second typhoon – and it is supposedly a lot bigger than the last one. I’ve been cooped up in my little apartment all day – but thankfully got some much needed cleaning done and found a connection to the internet! It was raining really hard at times, and the sky turned almost a shade of green at time…which was pretty cool! But it wasn’t too bad in my area…apparently in other parts of the island there was really bad flooding and people were killed. Well maybe that was in my area, but I have no idea – I live in a little bubble in my apartment with no tv or radio that I can understand! But the long weekend wasn’t a total waste – we had a pre-typhoon party last night at another ALTs house around the corner from me, and Friday night we went bowling! My first time at 10-pin…not my best game. But we had a really fun time!


Work has been great so far! This week was really quiet as the kids have testing, so I didn’t teach at all this week. Lots of time to study Japanese and work on my English board! I’m such a geek and took a picture of it…but I was pretty proud! The teachers all seemed to like it – although I haven’t heard much response from the kids yet…so we shall see how that goes!

My favourite teaching experience so far has been visiting the elementary schools! The kids are just too cute! The past two schools I’ve been to have been on islands – so the population of the whole school was about 15 kids! Very sheltered, but they were really sweet and a lot of fun! My last visit, after lunch the kids all went into the gym and started practising on their own their brass band. They played “Sukiyaki” over and over and over…but it was really cute!

Then as I was leaving the island, about to catch the ferry, the kids all ran down to the pier and told me to watch them…and they all ran to the end of the pier and were waving and calling out my name as the boat pulled away! How sweet is that?? So nice – but I visit my first elementary school on the mainland this week, and it has 400 students…so it will probably be the exact opposite of these schools! But I’m still looking forward to it!

Exciting news is that my family has just booked their trip to Japan in December! Looking very much forward to that!

The only other news that I can think of right now is my trip last weekend to Fukuoka. Wait - let me rephrase that - my trip last weekend to the Costco in Fukuoka! Sadly, I didn't get to see anything at all there, except for the Costco - but let me tell you, it was definitely worth it!! I bought lots of food that I couldn't find here (granola bars, popcorn, MARBLE CHEESE! etc) and had their wonderfully delicious pizza. It was just like being back home! Plus they had really cheap photo printing. It was about 21 cents - but in Sasebo it seems to be around 37 cents. But it was a really good time - we had an interesting time fitting everything back into my "super off roader"...but it all worked out in the end! I'll have to go back again sometime soon so that I can actually say that I "saw" Fukuoka!