Half Day to get ready for sports festival
It was nice because the school only had class in the morning, but today I only have two classes and they are in the morning so it really didn't affect me since I have to be at school at 8am and can't leave until 5pm anyways.
My boss also talked to me today. She assigned me something to do. She asked me to make lesson plans to teach English to the Junior High School, and to teach the Non-English Teachers at the school. I think that's a pretty big assignment, and I can do it in any format covering any topic that I want. I think that's a test to see if I'm a good enough teacher or not. It's a pretty big assignment because other teachers get to see what I'm capable of and I'm sure that all the Japanese English Teachers will be there to watch me do my thing. It seems like a lot of pressure and it has been since I've been racking my brain to come up with clever, inventive ideas to make it work faster and more efficient. I've got a good plan so far, but I believe I can make it better.
But today was busier than usual since we were all getting ready for the sports festival tomorrow. Our school is a little different because sports month is actually October, and there's a national holiday to celebrate it, but we are doing it early. I think today was the first day that I started to be incorporated into the school and the staff. They invited me to do some work like carrying stuff. Which wasn't that great, but still it's a start that they are trying to talk to me at least.
Most of the staff don't speak English, so it's a little difficult to communicate. I still don't let them know how much Japanese I know so they communicate in English. They are really trying hard. The setup didn't last too long for me since all the students do all the preparations. The teachers just took care of all the big stuff.
After school, one of my friends in Yokohama called me to hang out. So I did since it was free dinner at his place. He lives pretty close to my house too, which was kinda strange. Actually a lot of my friends live near me even though I'm far from the city. On the train, it was so weird, I was stuck on a weird portal that I just couldn't get on the right train to get to the right place. I don't know what happened, but I didn't end up getting there until an hour and a half later than I expected to be. I must have been confused or something. I took the right train to get to Yokohama Station, but then I got on the wrong platform, because I was used to using the one normally to get home. But that didn't even take me to the right place, and I ended up passing it. So I had to wait at Ofuna, but then I got on the wrong train again going the wrong way. But this time I didn't know why because I was on the right platform and everything. So I ended up at Kita-Kamakura. So I had to jump platforms to go the other way, but there were a million students there because of the Big Buddha Statue, and I'm sure they were on a school trip.
Finally I ended up at Higashi-Totsuka to meet up with my friend KHma.
He didn't show up until about 10 minutes later because he had to walk there. We walked to his house, and were talking a lot about Universities in Japan. Tokyo is ranked one, Keio ranked two, Waseda ranked three, and he mentioned 4th and 5th, but some how it escaped my mind. Most of the students at my school will most likely go to these schools. My friend KH said that people who go to these schools are very elite. It says a lot about my students, but then I see them everyday, and I don't see what's so elite about them.
Anyways, we got to his house, and we were welcomed by his family. Very nice people indeed. They offered me apple and potato pie. As weird as that sounds it was really delicious. I was lucky to get two slices. We were talking a lot about the San Diego - Yokohama Sister City Exchange that will be coming up. I was trying to give him as much information as I could, but I know that many things have changed since I left San Diego. I rely on the voices of my friends to see what's going on. I want them to actually gain something from the experience and then take it back here so We can do something to change the way Japanese look at foreigners and to develop an organization that will look to solve some of societies problems. I would love to help them out if they really want to get things started and it's more possible now that it's the perfect time to do it. I really hope that things turn out better than I think, but who knows. It's still a tough call. After dinner and the chat, his dad drove me to the station and I walked home for the evening to get ready for the sports day festival tomorrow.
