Mondays

Classes this week were only 40 minutes because there is a festival two days during the weekend. Everyone is preparing for that. I keep mixing up the times of when the classes start and finish so sometimes people end up having to wait for me, I've written it down so I don't get it all mixed up anymore. Not to mention this was the second time that they changed schedules on me. That means this week I will be seeing some classes for the first time. But at least I get more senior classes and less 7th grade classes.

The seniors are getting ready to finish off school. Their classes end at winter break which is Mid-December. From there they are just cramming for the Entrance Exam, so my class schedule will change I'm sure. I'm teaching 4 out of 5 senior classes right now.

I like teaching high school. I'm divided whether I like teaching Junior High. Right now, the 8th and 9th graders aren't bad and their English ability is actually higher than most of the high schoolers, but the 7th graders have been a pain to deal with the maturity level.

The first class that we had was the 8th Grade. The topic was horoscopes and zodiac signs. The 8th graders pick things up quickly. We got into a big discussion about how come all Japanese people know their blood type. I don't know mine, and I really don't care to know. I guess that they categorize everything and that they assign certain traits to certain blood types.

In the teachers' office, I asked the teachers around me what their blood types were, and it was quite interesting where the conversation was headed. I found out that the teacher in front of me was A and the one next to her is B, and the teacher next to me is A. I asked the person behind me, but he said that he didn't know. Most of the people with the 7th grade as a home room have a B blood type. B is typically the selfish trait and deemed bad in Japanese society. A are more of the anal people that have things organized and orderly. The AB people are people who are a tad on the weird side. O people are people who are open and friendly. They are the easy-going people. That's the basic description of the blood types according to the teachers around me.In English club today, they were just preparing for the School Festival making "Candy-Lanes" or candy that are tied together. They will be selling it for 100 yen, which is about a buck. I had an interesting conversation with the Advisor.

It was nice to be honest with you. I haven't had much contact with other teachers usually because none of them speak my language, but the advisor did. She has a lot of things on her mind and it clearly showed. I felt as if she needed to let out something and since I happened to be there and I don't talk to anyone usually, that her secrets would be safe with me. So I thought that was pretty good. She's a blood type A.