A short day

Today, the classes are only 40 minutes long and we have no afternoon classes because of preparations for the Sports Festival. It would give the students and teachers enough time to prepare the school for a presentation to all the parents and such.

The first class today was the 11th grade Ran. We started on something that will get them ready for their Oral test coming up in November. Even though that sounds very far away, it really isn’t. I have to get the students ready in about 4 hours of class time to prepare a speech all in English with them composing most of it without the help of many guides. Everything is a bit rushed with them because they have fewer classes than the other 11th grade classes, but that’s not even the worst part about it. They need a lot more time to be able to prepare for the speeches, but I just can’t give it to them. We started on naming some of their favorite movies before, but some of the students had forgotten their papers and had to start over. When that happens, they take a very long time to re-write and think about what their favorite movie is. I know that some are working hard and some aren’t working at all. That gets a bit annoying because we need to get everyone to be on the same page with everyone else. I think that we’ve got to push them to work a little faster to be able to get more accomplished. I tried to get them to finish up splitting up their favorite movie into three parts. I don’t think that I made a good enough connection with what we are doing with the other things that it could be tied with. So I’ve got to start making better connections so they could get a better grasp on things.

The second period, I had a break, which is really nice to have in the middle of the day. It would have been better to have it later in the day, but a break is a break, so I’m happy nonetheless. I didn’t really do much since I just sat at my desk and ate my breakfast. I thought that I would be recording something for my 11th grade listening comprehension test, but we haven’t finished getting everything prepared, so that would have to be at another time.

The third period class today was with the 7th grade Ran. The activity that we did today was the September September chant and we did a little bit with other sports as well. At first we didn’t have any of the copies that we needed for the class, so we were running around to get copies ready for the class. That didn’t take too long, but it would have been better to have it all ready and prepared before the class started. The other teacher had made a mistake and mixed up some of the classes that we would be teaching today, so she had all the materials for a class that she doesn’t teacher or even lead. We started the class with the topic of family, like we did with the other 7th grade classes. Then we moved onto the topic of the September September chant. They were able to pick it up pretty quick. They weren’t as sharp as the other students, but that’s only because they are in the first year of learning English. But I thought that they had done a great job with having a little experience in English. We ended the class with a lesson on sports. We talked about the different sports that there are and which ones that they liked. I’m not sure if they fully understood, but they were able to understand most of it. They got some translation for some of the more difficult English words.

The last class of the day was with one of the toughest classes to teach at the school. It was with the 9th grade Ran class. They are tough because they just don’t pay attention and don’t really care about what’s going on. They aren’t very interested in the lessons that we prepare, but then I heard that English isn’t the only subject that they don’t like. There are others as well. I think that their English level is good, but only if they really decided to apply themselves. I would think that they would even rival the best classes in high school even. Some of their English sounds like they have lived in a country where English is the native language. They could understand the comprehension part of the textbook very easily that it’s almost a joke for them. I think that we have to find a way to get them more interested in English through a medium that would apply to them best. It was something that involved a little more movement rather than just to sit and listen. I know that I never liked those kinds of classes and I think that this class might be the same thing. CP thinks that a majority of them have ADD and just lack the ability to focus on something. But I think they are just bored and would like something that is challenging them in English. I think they would prefer something that is more active too. We’ll have to come up with a new plan on how to teach this class later. I heard that they really get involved with the English dramas and plays and they love to act, so I think that next month when we are practicing for that, they would be able to focus more and be more attentive.

After this class, I just sat around the office with nothing much to do. Since there is a laptop computer stationed next to my desk, I just decided to type in these entries while everyone else had something to do. I’m not sure what I would have to do today, but I don’t know how long I’d stick around either. So I might even leave school early since I will have to come to school tomorrow too. I just stayed at school till around 4:30pm and decided that I had wasted enough time and would go home. I would have wanted to do something, that’s why I stayed so late, but I just got too bored and the office was getting too hot for me. I mean it was a cool day today, but the office just gets too hot. The students were doing all the preparation work for the festival, so I really couldn’t do anything because I would probably mess it up and they would have to fix it, so it would be better just to have to them do it right the first time. I asked some of my students if I was a good teacher or not and they thought that I was. So I was happy about that. I need to teach them English better, and I only have a little more time to do that, but I’m working on it. I’ve got some ideas that will change the way they think and I think that’s what will make the difference for them.

I came home early so I decided to cook myself some dinner. I wanted to get away from rice since I’ve been eating a lot of rice recently. I just had dinner with bread and some stuff tonight. I was happy that it actually tasted pretty good, that’s always a good thing. I watched another episode of Everyone loves Raymond. It was pretty good.

A busy day at home

Today I got a lot of things done that I needed to get done. I was happy that I was able to do that today too. I think that there has been a lot on my mind and it has been holding my regular duties captive. But I was finally able to get the things on my list to do done today. I didn’t finish everything, but most of the things that I wanted to do today were completed.

I had a chance to talk to my family today. I was helping one of my sisters with her Japanese homework. I thought that was a bit weird that I’m helping my sister learn Japanese since I’m living in Japan. I was talking to my other sister about the laptop that I want to buy and since she will be getting this one that I’m typing this entry on, I needed some advice to what I should do. I really want to make sure that they will be coming since I wouldn’t want to buy another laptop and spend the money that would be unnecessary if they decided not to come. Right now the plan is to come in December, but I think they would like to make a January departure, which would be better for them, but really wouldn’t be to good for me. Since I would be working, I wouldn’t have enough time to take them around Japan or even around Tokyo. January is usually a busy month for me to do things at school.

I finally vacuumed my house today. This was one of the most important things that I did today because I think that I’m allergic to something inside my apartment. I’ve been sneezing up a storm and I’m not sure what is causing me to sneeze so much, but it’s really annoying. I really don’t like it and I’m not a person who is easily to be allergic to things, so this is very weird for me. I also did some laundry, which wasn’t in any dire situation, but it’s always nice to take care of that. Then I paid my rent today and talked to my landlord for a little bit. I found out that my friend will come back at the end of November probably near the beginning of December from Australia. He’ll be here till February since that’s his summer vacation.

I also cooked my self some dinner tonight too. I really wanted to get some fresh cooked meals into my body. I haven’t done that in a long while and felt like my health has suffered because of it. I want to be able to eat healthier, but I’m finding myself stuck to the usual places and it’s not enough to get me to be on a healthier diet track. But cooking for my self is a beginning to it and I’ll be able to cook healthier meals for myself later. I just need to get in the habit of cooking.

During dinner I was watching Everyone Loves Raymond. It’s a hilarious show. I’m borrowing the DVD from my neighbors since it’s all in English and they don’t speak English. So until my friend comes back from Australia, I’ve got to watch all of them before he gets back. I’m really enjoying the show since it gives me something to do and watch while I’m eating. My TV hasn’t been working very well and I don’t get regular TV, which I would prefer so I could improve my Japanese, but I like the comic relief too. I watched 3 episodes today, 3-5 of the first season to be exact. They were very funny today.

I wanted to work on my website today and to finish updating all my journal entries, but never got around to doing that. I’m not really sure why, but I would guess that cooking dinner took a large part of my time, so that could be the main reason.

Not the best day of the year

Something had been bothering me all day today. I didn’t think that it would be bad or anything but something wasn’t right. I’m not sure how this really affected me, but things were just out of place today. I just wasn’t myself today. I had wanted to be ahead of the game today, but somehow always found myself behind. I had set my alarm today for 5:00am, but didn’t really get up till around 6:00am. That was the time I was actually planning to leave my house. I eventually got out and left around 6:30am. Usually it takes me about 2 hours to get to work, but somehow I arrived a bit faster than that. I’m very happy to report that because I really didn’t want to be late today.

After I arrived at school, I had to change into our sport outfits because this week is the sports festival and all the teachers are changing their clothes to match that. I wish I would have known about this yesterday since I was the one of the few teachers that wasn’t wearing a sports uniform. I didn’t bring any to school either. But today I brought it and had to get changed in the morning. I was incredibly tired today too.

My first class today was with the 11th grade Yuri. I think that it started off great and everything was going pretty smooth. We were talking about movies and going over the Gone with the wind lesson that I’ve been teaching the students over the past few weeks. It was a prelude to their listening comprehension test that will be during the next week of class. We also went into what their favorite movies were. Since we only have 40 minutes the time flew by really quickly. The students weren’t really participating and I had to call on them a few times to get them to speak up, but other than that, it wasn’t too bad.

My second class today was with 8th grade Yuri. This was a pretty tame day for them. They didn’t really react to too much today and they were good. The only thing that really distracted them was that I was wearing a sports uniform rather than a suit and they could see the lace in of my necklace. So they wanted to see what I was wearing, which distracted the class a little bit. But other than that, it went by pretty quick and smoothly. We just did a little out of the book on weekend plans and then did the September September chant.

The third class of the day was with 10th grade Fuji. We did a lesson on sports today. Since this weekend is the sports festival. We asked what sports they liked from the book and had them practice the dialogue with their partners back and forth. It was a bit lame to be honest with you and I really didn’t enjoy it all too much, but that was just because I wasn’t having the best day at this point. My day started to turn around, and I’m not sure why at this time. I was asked how often I play tennis and I responded with 2 times a month and thought that was pretty active. Considering that I work 5 days a week for about 10 hours and have to walk home about 30 minutes and walk to the station which is about 30 minutes everyday, I considered myself to be active. And since I have to do two clubs at school, which takes up a lot of time, I don’t really get a chance to play tennis. Since I’m picking up the other person’s slack because they decide that they don’t want to go to club, that’s just extra work for me. So I think that 2 times a month is very good. And that’s only for September and maybe for October. I think that when it’s November I’ll be able to be more active.

The fourth class of the day and when I started to realize my demise was with 11th grade Kiku. At the beginning of this class, I was getting all confused about what was going on. I had made some mistakes that really are uncharacteristic of me. I confused which teacher I was going to be teaching with and when the period was. I didn’t have any of my papers copied that I needed for the class and just was in a daze for some reason. I had a plan of what I wanted to do, but decided that it might be a little bit difficult for them without the complement of another handout that I had prepared. So as I tried to get them copied the printer had a problem. Of course this was perfect timing that both the school’s printers had problems. I think it was a curse on me today. Then in class I had confused what they had already done. Since they had moved from Friday to Wednesday, I wasn’t really sure what we covered and what we didn’t. I realized in the middle of class that we are actually behind. I needed to get them caught up on the lesson so that they wouldn’t have to do a bulk of the work at one time and all at the same time too. I want them to do well and to learn their material. But I just was off and it showed today. I was fumbling around with the words that I wanted to use and what I wanted to do. I was able to pick it up near the end and gave them a lot of time to work on it, but most couldn’t get the work finished in time.

The fifth class was 9th grade Kiku and the lesson was on Sports. In the book we reviewed the talking about the future lesson with the dialogue. We did that for a little bit. Then we moved onto the September September chant so they could get excited about that. After we finished up the chant, there was just enough time to listen to a rap for a few times. The rap was something rather difficult and especially since it wasn’t a listening activity as much as it is a comprehension activity of the jobs and occupations that were listed. The speed of the rap was a bit fast and the words were a bit difficult to hear. So I didn’t think that the students would be able to do it very well, but they surprised us by being able to do at least a majority of it. I was a bit surprised about that. But some people weren’t interested and didn’t do anything. I wouldn’t think that this would be the highest level class in the 9th grade, but it appears as it is.

The last class of the day was with 9th grade Fuji, and the lesson was pretty much the same as the one before it, but some how things just didn’t end up the same. They are a pretty high level class, but they didn’t seem like it today. Things went wrong, right from the get-go and I wasn’t happy with the results. We had done the same things in the last class, but things were much slower. The students were slower in response and they had a lack of motivation that was very uncharacteristic of them. I wanted to push them along because I thought that they would be able to do it, but they weren’t. We started with the book and did a little dialogue, but since no one was responding, I just had to move on. We then went into the rap of “we’re going to be.” It was too difficult for them and they didn’t understand what was going on. They couldn’t pick up the vocabulary or even hear the words. They were trying really hard and just were struggling through it. We had to listen to it a few times and I had to explain it a few times as well. I explained it a little too much and more than I really wanted to. I was getting really annoyed with the situation and I suppose that the goals of the class weren’t obtained because they weren’t discussed beforehand. It would have been nice to know what was going on before I’d have to go and teach the lesson. Not in the middle of class, when it’s in front of students. It makes me look like I’m the one that is not prepared, but in actuality, it was the other person involved. At this point, we ran out of time, and I didn’t get a chance to go to the September September chant, but I don’t really feel that it’s a loss to the students since I probably wouldn’t be too motivated to do it.

I wasn’t really having a good day at this point and decided that the earliest time possible, I’d like to go home and just finish the day. Some times it’s just better to finish the day than to just drag it out. I just wanted it to be over so that I wouldn’t damage anything else anymore.

In English club today, the girls were acting a bit weird. None of them sat in the front of the room and they were all huddled in the back of the room. We didn’t sit in our usual spot to talk and they just got started with their culture festival work. So I set up the room for nothing. So next time I won’t set up the room unless they want it to be set up. I just typed this entry and the previous entry in the time that we did club. I was using the computers in the lab and had set one up for them to use too. I thought that it was a bit useless to have me there, but at this time, it was probably better that I don’t do anything since I wasn’t having a good day today. I didn’t feel to good with everything going on around me today. I just wanted it to be over soon.

I went home and got dinner at Matsuya and just took my time walking home. I didn’t want to rush anything or to make the day any worse so I just came home and went on the computer and took a little rest. That was the best thing for me to do.

A bit out of place

Today had been bit different for me. Since this week is the sports festival week, all the classes are 40 minutes long and I didn’t want to be late so I came to school a bit early. I wanted to make sure that I had everything ready for my classes. I only teach 2 classes today, but I’m usually ahead of the game and also get things ready for the next day so everything is always set before I start and so I don’t have to worry about it.

The first class started at 9:40am, but I arrived to school around 9am. It was weird because that time seems to go by so fast. Before it would go by very slow, but I think that it was because I was feeling good. My first class today was with the 8th grade Fuji. They were good and loud as usual. They did what they were supposed to do, so that was good enough for me. We just did a chapter in the book about weekend plans. Since this weekend would their sports festival. We did a little bit of the dialogue then we did a September, September chant with has something to do with the sports festival so it’s something about the topic.

The second class today was 8th grade kiku, which is the one that I lead. We did pretty much the same thing, but this time the class is quiet and unresponsive. It’s very interesting to see this year when everyone is always just looking at me like I’m some space alien or something. They just don’t respond to me anymore. They used to and the ones that didn’t respond before are the ones most likely to respond now. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I really don’t like it. The loudest person in the class wasn’t here today, so that might have been the reason why it was so quiet, but I think the other reason is that the students are so tired from all the rehearsals and practices for the sports festival that they just can’t concentrate and get with it. It’s very discouraging, and I had a lot of help from the Japanese English teacher today too.

The third class today is with the 7th grade kiku. They are a pretty good class and they participate a little or at least enough so no one is falling asleep. That’s a good thing since they are in their first year at the school and I don’t want them to be picking up some bad habits already. We did a little thing with the topics of family today. We went around asking how many members are in the family and if they have older or younger brothers or sisters It’s good practice for them for the English Fun Faire which will come up this November. The other thing that we did in this class was sports since sports are coming up. We did a little activity with sports today and which sports they liked. We split the room up with students who liked sports and those who didn’t and then we asked who liked which sports. We only did a little of this since the classes were shorter today. I believe that we did a little September, September chant for them to get used to the language. I’ve done it so much that I’m a bit sick and tired of it already. CP believes that it’s a good exercise for the students to pick up fluency and it emphasizes the stress in the English language, but I just don’t like it.

I was feeling a bit sick during lunch today and didn’t eat lunch during lunchtime. I opted instead to get the copies ready for my next class and get all the paperwork that I needed for it. 11th grade Fuji is a tough class and I just happen to have many classes with them this year. It’s something that I’m not too enthusiastic about, but then it’s better for them that they have more English classes because they need it. I needed to get copies for the Gone with the Wind listening comprehension that we would do for the day. I’m usually good with getting things done beforehand, but for some reason, I’ve been falling behind on it. The class ended up going great and I was happy with the result. I guess I was all worked up and worried about nothing. They were responsive and they enjoyed it I think, so that was even better than I had originally thought.

After this class I had a break until after school. During this extra time after school or during 7th period I had my lunch since I started to work up an appetite burning a lot of energy from all the classes even though I had felt sick for most of the day. I think that after I ate, I felt much better. I just sat around and helped the 11th grade kiku girls clean up the teacher’s office by doing a few things. I’m working up my rapport with them, not that I’m not already their favorite teacher, but it never hurts to build extra points with them.

Soon after that I headed to the Language Laboratory to get the computers set up for the club and for CP to use. I was able to fix the laptop that wasn’t working before, which is really a great accomplishment since it’s all in Japanese. I figured out that the reason why the internet wasn’t working before was because windows had automatically configured itself to be the one to hooked up the wireless internet settings, I just set it to manual configure and it worked. Stupid windows mess up everything. Later in club, I was teaching the girls how to use the computer and to print and everything. I’m surprised that they didn’t know how to do it previously, but then I’m happy to be part of a teaching process. So I think for next year, I would be making more of my lessons focusing on the computer and technology. I think that everyone will enjoy it more and it will be more of an enriching experience.

A day relaxing at home

I spent the majority of today at home. It was such a nice day today too. I hadn’t planned to go out so I didn’t. I had enough food to eat at home today that I didn’t even need to leave to get food, which is the main reason why I leave my house on my days off. I just stayed home and worked on my computer a lot. Today was mainly just a research day.

I checked up on the news a lot today too. I was researching for new laptops to buy. I’m really leaning towards the Sony Vaio Type S because of all the cool features that it has up above the competition and all the others are around the same price with all the things that I want on it. I was thinking about even getting a desktop since it would be cheaper and would be packed with even more of the things that I want for a smaller price. But I would like something that is portable in case I would need to take it to school, which some of my lessons later on in the semester require me to do. But if I get it in Japan, I think they only offer it on a Japanese Operating System, which would be something that I’m not all to happy about.

I had talked to AWs today too. We had a pretty long conversation, well according to our standards at least. He recommended that I either get a Toshiba or a Fujitsu since he has a Fujitsu and is very happy with it. I checked up on it and it wasn’t too bad, but I’m just wondering what extra things they pack in there that would be impressive. I haven’t done that much work on researching for a new cell phone although I should. I’m looking at changing to AU or DoCoMo. For the AU there is only one model that I want, and for DoCoMo there are a few that I would consider. But I read on the news today that in December they will release a new model phone, so I was thinking about just waiting till then and then get the latest phone that has the Push-To-Talk feature much like the ones that I had with my Nextel, which I also found out today merged with Sprint. So that was interesting since in the US I had a Nextel and then changed to Sprint only to have them merge. I’m sure they will be releasing new phones by the time I go back to the US and I guess that would be a good carrier for me still.

Yoke and CP's house for Thai food

I only have two plans for today. And that consists of me getting out of the house. I’m really happy to report that. I had gotten up a bit slow today. I mean having this many days off is almost like the feeling I had when it was summer vacation. I mean I had 5 days in a row that were my days off so it will be hard to get back into the swing of things when school starts in two days.

The first item on the agenda for today was the YOKE meeting at 1pm. I have to leave my house around 11:30am to get there on time, but today I left at 12pm and still arrived there even a little bit early. I’m not sure how that works out, but I guess that I was in a hurry and walked really fast to the station. I think that could be the only reason how I could get there so fast because the trains always go at the same speed and arrive at the same times, so that’s fairly standard.

We started a bit late and I was starving at this time since I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch, but I didn’t really have enough time to get something on the way. There were a lot of paperwork today and I think it was fitting since the exchange is only two months away and I don’t feel that a lot of the work has been completed yet. This was going to be long meeting and I could tell that a lot of the membership had been slacking on their duties and couldn’t pull through with their commitments. This will lead to some complications, but overall, I think that it will be fine since the Red Shoes organization isn’t taking the lead, but just assisting YOKE with what they need. I think that they will be able to have everything completed before the program really begins, so I’m not worried at all. There weren’t many people here today too. That was something that shocked me because there wasn’t that many that said that they weren’t going to come. I found out that I would only be available for the program three of the days during the program, but one of them will be for the main day where they get to go visit places and do their observing. I found out that I know two of the people that are coming on this years’ program. I look forward to meeting them again since I’ve met each one of them on one previous occasion in San Diego.

After the meeting which lasted till around 4pm, the guys, like usual, went to get something to drink and eat. YFto and I always seem to be the hungry ones in the group so we just got a sandwich. But the other guys got something light to eat, but the Prez KHma didn’t get anything to eat, only to drink at Café De Crie. We were wondering what that meant, but couldn’t figure it out. I had to jet a little early since I have a dinner appointment tonight too. I had planned to leave at 4:30pm, but didn’t end up leaving till around 5pm. I knew that it would take me about 45 minutes to get there if I took the right trains. But for some reason there was one special train that was leaving the station at the time I arrived there. I’m not sure why there was this train, but it was going to a direction that the line doesn’t normally go to. So it was a bit weird why it was there in the first place and at the time that I was riding on the train. I decided not to take it, but it turned out later that I would end up having to take it anyways to get to my destination of Roppongi station. The whole time I was sending messages back and forth to another teacher. It was a nice little conversation that we had during that hour while I was on the train, but I kept on getting interrupted because my phone loses its signal underground.

I was supposed to meet her at the Almond café place at 5:45pm, but I didn’t arrive till around 5:50pm. I wasn’t too late, but still, everyone here is anal about being on time. It was weird because all the teachers met up at the same place all at the same time too. Most of the teachers didn’t know where it was and for some reason all brought wine to drink. I wanted to be a bit different and bring ice cream. I led the teachers to CP’s house since I knew where it was and they didn’t.

It was nice and we all got involved in the cooking process. It was fun and nice to see. She made everyone Mango cocktails, but it was a bit too strong for me after a little while. I should have drunk the whole thing when it wasn’t so strong. I’m not sure, but it kept me quiet the whole night. I think some people when they drink too much get a little crazy, but I tend to just get more serious. The menu was impressive. There was Pad Thai… which wasn’t my favorite even though it was at my request. There were spring rolls and a papaya salad. There was Thai curry and chicken sauté with a nice Thai sauce. Most of it was pretty good and mind you… Thai food isn’t my favorite. I didn’t want to be the only one that was very picky so I just went with it and ate as much as I could. Oh and for dessert there was a tapioca mixture of some sort. At first it was too much, but after a little break, it was much better. I had a lot to eat, but still all the female teachers ate more than me. That was a bit discouraging and quite embarrassing. I was the only guy and a young guy, I should be able to eat more, but I can’t eat that much anymore.

We had dinner around the sofa area and had a long conversation about many things. We were talking about language and cultures and how things get mixed up in translation. We brought up the term pragmatism, or language in its practical use or how to use the words of the language at the right time. She had some funny stories to tell us and it was all good. She had received one of the cooking degrees from the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand and therefore was a master chef in Thai cuisine. I mean the Oriental hotel in Bangkok is THE Oriental Hotel. Every year it’s ranked the best in the world and that’s where she learned how to cook Thai food. Which is amazing stuff to tell you the truth.

But then came the serious stuff. She brought up the topic of our school and how things need to be improved and how the situation is. She will not return next year to work at Yakumo. So next year, the school will lose both of their Native language teachers. I’m assuming that she will leave in March since that’s the end of the school year, and I will leave in August of the next school year. That’s a bit sad for me because then I’ll have to cover all of her classes and to be honest, I don’t really want to have that heavy of a load. I’m hoping and praying that they will hire a new person to replace her; so I won’t have to do it all on my own. I could understand what she was talking about and all the problems that the school faces with what they offer as opposed to what other schools do. I do feel as if the school is falling behind, but I think it’s our job as teachers to not let it go in that direction. I’m not sure I could do it on my own though. I was excited at first of the idea that I would be in charge and that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, but I wouldn’t want to have so many classes, which would really wear me down and I’d die with the lack of energy I’d have.

I could understand her reasoning for things too. I mean, it all made sense for her since she’s 43 years old and needs to worry about money and retirement since she doesn’t get a pension plan in Japan or Canada. So she will be heading into some financial trouble in the future at the rate she’s going. We all started talking about the school a bit after that and that pretty much took us till 10pm. We had wanted to leave, but it takes awhile to leave as it always does.

I was talking to another one of the teachers as we were going to the train station. I really enjoy her company and our conversations. I would say that of all the teachers at the school, I’m closest with her and I would consider her a very good friend. But she told me some disheartening news too. She was also going to leave the school this March. I personally feel that she’s one of the best teachers at the school, and I’m very sad to see her go. It will be very soon and she needs to leave for her reasons too. There’s a lot of pressure for her working at the school, since no one appreciates her teaching abilities and the older teachers criticize her a lot. And both of the Native English teachers would be making their exits too. But she will leave before me, so I’m a bit bummed out. I also look at the advantage too, and she’ll have more time so we could hang out more and she’d be less stressed out. I think she’ll be very free from all the stress and she’ll love it. Since she just got married this year, I think that she feels very restricted with everything, so I wish her well.

I will probably make a trip to her house soon to have dinner since she invited me last time, but I couldn’t make it. Anyways, I didn’t make it home till around 12:30am. I’m glad that I don’t have work tomorrow.

I finally left the house today

I spent the majority of the day at home because it rained today. I was planning to get out of the house today too. Today was going to be a day of good exercise since I was planning to go play tennis with the tennis club. But since it was raining, they had cancelled it and there wouldn’t be one tomorrow since a Typhoon is coming; something that I’m not to enthusiastic to report. I called the school today, which is a new thing for me and talked to the front office lady and then to the tennis coach. I think that they were surprised that I called, and I am too. I was very confident in my Japanese, and only made a minor mistake. It was only because they use too formal Japanese that I haven’t learned yet. It was an interesting conversation that just ended with me saying “no, I won’t come to school today.” I thought that message was pretty clear. But I knew that today, I’d have to go out anyways to get some food.

I went for a little walk today to the Ofuna area. I was shopping for some DVDs but nothing looked interesting enough to buy. I was looking around the laptops that they had there too and saw how big some of them were. I’m glad that I went to look at laptops in person; otherwise I might have bought an oversized notebook for myself. I think that I’ve decided to buy a Sony Vaio Type S. But the problem that I have with it is that it’s almost exactly like the laptop that I have now, which is the R505DL. Except in the Type S, there isn’t a docking station or a 1.5 inch disk drive, but everything else is about the same. I mean, I’m going to customize it so that there will be some differences, but I’d like for there to be better things, but I guess that I just like this size better. I was looking at the Type T, but I’ve read stories and complaints for people that their hands get cramped from the keyboard being too small. I mean it looks cool and all, but it really wouldn’t be much of an upgrade for me since I pretty much have all those features that are on the Type T. Except that the Type T is smaller and has a longer battery life.

After looking around at Yamada Denki, I decided to go to Yoshinoya today again. Like I always do, but the lady that was taking my order got it wrong again. I was a bit disappointed about that. I think that it was because my Japanese has been getting worse. I haven’t studied it in a long time and I haven’t even heard that much recently. Since I’ve been locked up in my room slaving away at my blogs and my website, everything has been in English. I have even started to only listen to English music too, so this was a rude awakening for me. I need to get back on track with my Japanese studies. The dinner didn’t seem to be enough for me too, which was the most disappointing part of it. So I was thinking about all that during my 35 minute walk home.

When I came home, I did some more laptop shopping online and realized that I might want to buy the laptop in Japan as it might be cheaper to customize it myself than if it were to be bought online from the Sony USA website. Actually they don’t ship it overseas, so I would have a problem with actually getting the laptop. But then again, if I get one in Japan, I’ll have a Japanese type keyboard. That will change my typing drastically since the ones at school cause havoc with my typing. But I guess I ought to get used to it. It’s also about $50 cheaper to get a Japanese one anyways. The thing that makes the laptop really expensive is the 3 year extended warranty. I knew it would be expensive, but it’s going to be really really expensive when it’s all totaled together. Right now, I’m looking at a price of 285,000 yen, which translate to be about $2,850 USD. That’s like a months’ worth of work for a laptop. I’m thinking about financing it, even though I have enough to pay for it in cash. It would be much cheaper to just buy one already pre-made, but then I wouldn’t think it would be that cool to have. I want to get one that’s all decked out and I guess I’m going to have to pay the price for it. I think I would want to try having a Japanese OS, but I think I’ll run into a lot of trouble, so I might have to go to Sony directly and order one that’s customized and with an English OS. That’s going to be big big bucks since it seems that Japanese companies like to take advantage of unsuspecting foreigners. Well, it seems that way in my case at least. But I guess if my Japanese were better, I’d be able to deal with that better. I just have to take the hits and go with flow and learn as I go.

I’m also looking into cell phones, and I’ve seen one from DoCoMo that I like and one from AU by KDDI that I like. I just need to check the prices of the phones and for the plans since I’m about to ditch Vodafone. I also have to check to see how to do that too. But right now, I’m focusing on a new laptop. I was also thinking about getting a PowerBook too, but there are things with the compatibility that I have issues with. Once they release the ones with Intel chips, I think that will pave way for me to buy one and use all the cool features that they have, but for the moment, windows XP will be enough for me. Since I have to buy one before this year is finished.

A day at home

I was planning to go out to do some shopping today, but somehow the only thing I did outside of my house was take out the trash and pay my bills. I got something at the local convenient store so I wouldn’t starve, but somehow I never got around to getting to the shopping that I wanted to do. I was able to get my laundry done today. That is nice since I’ll need some clean clothes for tomorrow.

I just stayed at my computer today. I was chatting up a storm today. I probably talked to about 5 people today online, which really isn’t usual since the time zone difference to the people I talk to. That’s a funny thing all in itself that I hardly talk to anyone in Japan. That’s not a good thing I think and I’ve got to start getting out and getting to talk to people and being a part of this culture. But I’ve been damn lazy lately. I just don’t feel like going out.

I was talking to a friend of mine that I haven’t talked to for a long time. She used to go to the school that I work at now. She paid a visit to the school this summer, but I wasn’t there. She was telling me a lot about her time at the school and what she liked and what she didn’t. It was a very interesting conversation and one that I gained a lot from. I found out what some of the teachers thought about me and I’m happy to report that they like me. I’m really enjoying the situation that I’m in living in Japan and having all the freedom that I have now. I know that I’ve got to enjoy it while it lasts since it’ll all be a distant memory when I go back to the United States.

I worked on my website a little more today and I’m thinking about adding a lot more flash components on the next version that I release as an update with cooler features. I’ve been working on my English site since that’s going to involve a lot of time to put up and to perfect. It’s too bad that right now I’m only focusing on design and not on content, but I’m a web designer more than a content person. Although I think I ought to be more of a content person since I’m an English teacher.

It’s still not nearly complete or barely even started is a better way of putting it. But I’m glad that at the very least, I started. I’m thinking about new things to add to my site to make it more appealing to me and something that I could go back to and find out new information and new things to see. I need to update my pictures link and other things like that. I want to change some content on the pages of my site and to add things that make it look better and more functional. I think that there is too many words and not enough aesthetic spaces to catch one’s eyes. So I’ll be working on that for the next few weeks. I did a lot of research for the Santa Barbara trip that the 9th grade students will be taking and I think that I’ll add that to the website to make it more relevant so I have resources available for when I have to teach those lessons.

A day for my website

I did a lot of updating today. Although you won’t see the results till next month since that’s when I’ll load them onto the net. I was working on something for my English website too. I think that I’ll have pages that are there, even though they aren’t functional, just so I have some placeholders in place. I think that would be better than having them link back to the homepage. I wanted to do a lot more today, but designing the banner for the website took a long time. I was trying to get something to work right, but it wouldn’t work for me. I had to use a lot of designing programs just to get what I got done today. There is still a lot of work and now it’s more on the content side and not so much the design side, although neither side is near finished. I haven’t really had an image in my head yet, but I’ve got some ideas to make it work better.

I talked to one of my best online friends today. I hardly get a chance to talk to her and when I do, I’m so happy. She really is the coolest and one day I’ll meet her. She’s one of those people that is going to make a big difference in this world and I’m very happy to know her. We talked about a lot of things today since I haven’t spoken with her in months. She just got connected to the internet since she had moved and hadn’t bought an internet connection for about a year. So now we’ll be able to talk more readily and more often.

But that was all that I did today. I didn’t get my laundry done like I had originally planned but I think that doing my website was good too. It’s not important to get it all done, since I still have enough clothes to last me through the weekend. Today was a rather cool day too. It wasn’t hot or humid today and it was very overcast too. I like this condition to be sitting at the computer and doing a lot of work. It’s very productive weather for me for some reason. I feel like I can get a lot accomplished in weather conditions like this. Anyways, I just finished typing up some journal entries and it’s a bit past 1am so I’m going to go to bed now. I woke up late today, which is a good and a bad thing. I got up around 11am, so that’s very late since I usually get up much earlier than that.

An exhausting Wednesday

I was tired today to begin with. I’ve been waking up periodically throughout the night, but not because it’s hot and actually quite the opposite. It’s getting cold and sleeping without a blanket isn’t enough anymore, and I had to start using a blanket. I’m using a thin one, but I think that isn’t enough either. I have a thicker one, but then it would be too thick. I think it is affecting my dreams too and lately I’ve been having some pretty weird ones.

The first class of the day was 11th grade yuri. Last year, I didn’t really enjoy teaching them so much since I always messed up teaching them. But this year, I’ve gotten along with them quite well and I’m really enjoying it. Today, I would have to do it on my own since my Japanese English teacher partner wasn’t going to come with me today. The lesson was out of the textbook, which is something I don’t like to teach from, but it went well. It was fairly smooth and the students understood the material and the lesson. Things went well. I did a lesson to help them get ready for the listening test that’s coming up.

The second class was 8th grade yuri and they only had to do a lesson out of the textbook. I think that next year, I might have to rely a lot on the textbook to get me out of a lot of the planning involved with teaching English. We did the lesson on daily schedule today. For this class, they were able to do it and they are a high level class. They have the ability, but sometimes they get sidetracked and start talking about other things too. They aren’t loud as the other classes too, so it’s tolerable. They learn the material and that’s what’s most important.

The third class was 10th grade fuji and they were having a bit of problems today. Well maybe it wasn’t today, but they had problems in grammar class with another English teacher, so there was someone from the first year teachers group or the Red group to come watch to see if there were any problems in the oral class. But there weren’t since they are good students. They were actually very good today too. They participate a lot and really get into it. Today we just played a game with coins and a piece of paper. They enjoyed the game and it was explained to them very detailed and it takes them a bit to understand what’s going on, but once they get it, they get it.

The fourth class was 11th grade kiku and they had me a bit off guard. Since this class is usually on Fridays and will go back in October, they have a different amount of classes than the other students in their grade level. So I had to adjust what they learned so that they would all be on the same page for midterms and things like that. Some of the 11th graders will have more time and some have less, but they will all have the same amount to prepare for the oral and listening test so that it would be fair. Today we did a listening activity using the example of gone with the wind. It was incredibly boring though and I could sense that from the students. I tried my best to make it fun, but it wasn’t. I had to muster through it and finally got to something more fun. I had them compose a little sentence or two to pick which they had preferred more, watching movies in a theater or at home with a DVD or video.

The fifth class was 9th grade kiku and the work was out of the textbook. They are really tired for some reason. I’m not sure why the energy in the room seems dead. They are a really high level class and have great comprehension. We were speeding through the lesson today and I mean blazing fast. I think we’ve gotten further today than any other day. Usually we finish before we get to the speaking practice section but today we finished that section.

The sixth class was 9th grade Fuji. At first, it wasn’t easy to get them going. They were quiet like last week and it’s very intimidating. But after a little bit, they started to participate and get involved like they did last semester. They aren’t as excited about English like they used to be, but I think that it’s only the beginning of the semester and they need to get warmed up to it like last year. We ended a bit faster than the previous class and I think it’s because I just go faster. I try to pace myself, but I usually always go a bit faster than CP does. We weren’t going blazing fast either, we were going a bit slow in my opinion, so I’m thinking that I just left some things out in the explanation and for some reason I ditched things when the students didn’t seem too interested. I didn’t want to lose their attention, since once that’s gone, it’s pretty much hopeless. We just did the book work today and it turned out to be enough for them this time around. I think that they need some extra stuff outside of the book to get them going, but I think that will come near the end of the month, since they will start practicing for their school plays soon and then they will start to study about going overseas to America.

English club was after school today. I went into the Language Laboratory first before the club meeting time and I set some things up. I wanted to get the computers online before the students got there so they would be able to do the research that they wanted to do yesterday, but couldn’t since they didn’t have access to the internet yesterday. I think that they really want to be able to use the technology that the school has, but they hardly ever get a chance to. They were having trouble using the internet and how to use the printer and I had to show them, even though it is all in Japanese. I thought that was a bit weird, but I think they understand it better, when I explain it to them in English. They were mostly just cutting out cardboard pieces for the decorations of the club room for the Culture Festival at the end of next month. They have a lot of work ahead of them and I’m doing my best to help out. I think that they see that I’m in two clubs and I don’t know if they think that I would rather be in the other club than in the English club. It’s hard to balance both and since I’m in the English club more often because I have to be, it doesn’t make it easier. I think that we got a lot finished today too.

I stayed after school for a little bit longer because I wanted to talk to the tennis coach about when practices were since this is a special holiday weekend and the schedules will change a lot. But the coach wasn’t there, so I had to wait around. I talked to a couple of other teachers while he was gone and we just joked around, even though they had a lot of work left. I feel kind of bad that I always take up their time and I never really have anything to do and I can’t really help them either. This was about 7pm too so it’s very late, for them and for me. I left soon after and I met up with another teacher as we both made our getaway from the school. I have a long weekend so that’s cool.

Good, I guess

Today was good, I guess. I have mixed feelings about today. I think in the morning it started out pretty good. I arrived to school about 50 minutes earlier than I really needed to be there and I had enough energy today even though I had woken up at 4am. That’s a bit early I think and I couldn’t sleep very comfortably, but I still had enough energy to get me through the day.

The first class I had was with the 8th grade. I remember them last year being one of the best classes that I had the pleasure of teaching, but this year, they are really tough to teach. I’m not leading the class, but I’m helping out, but it doesn’t seem like any of the students really care anymore. They are just chatting away and not paying attention anymore. I’m not really sure why that is.

The second class I had was another 8th grade class, but this time I was leading the class. They were pretty good today, even though they could have been better. They didn’t participate as much as I wanted them to participate, but you know you could only push people so far. I don’t think I’m having that great of an impact than I did when I first started working at the school, but I think that I’m more personable than I was when I first started working with these students. I’m starting to learn all their names and getting them to work with me as I teach them English. I’m hearing from students that I haven’t heard from before, but I’m not hearing from the students that I used to… so that’s a bit of an unbalance.

The 3rd class of the day was with the 7th grade kiku. We had them go over some more family terms and getting them familiar with the language that they will need for the English Fun Faire coming up in two months. We are really focusing on family at the beginning of the year, so that they could ask the participants a lot about their families and be able to talk about their own. I think that it’s a good thing, but I think the way that we’re teaching them may be a little confusing. I’m not a professional or anything and I highly doubt that I could be any better and that’s why I don’t stick my business in Junior high school work. I think that it wouldn’t be my place to do that.

The last class of the day was with the 11th grade Fuji. They are something. They really are. It was very loud and I’m not sure why. They had to do an event for the sports festival and they were running a relay during lunch so I’m not sure how they still had enough energy to be loud in class. I would have thought that each one of them would be dead tired with all the physical things that they need to do during the day. We had to struggle through the lesson. It wasn’t easy at first and at some points it was a little too quiet. Some times they paid attention and some times they didn’t. When I was pronouncing things for them, they were very attentive. I guess they really wanted to see if they could tell the difference between the V sound and the B sound and the F versus the TH sounds. For the last part, I had them do some group work which is never really a good idea, but I want them to get ready to do more presentations and for them to speak more. I really think that’s my job to get them to speak more and I would like to get them to speak everyday so that they get a chance to, but since I’m being watched, I don’t want to stray away from the standard too much. Although I’m willing to try more things out to see what will work and what won’t. Everyone has a different way to do things and I’m just waiting for my opportunity to really bust loose and go crazy with my lessons.

After that I spent the remainder of my time at school in the Language Laboratory. I was testing out all the laptop computers to see which ones allowed me to sign on. It turns out that out of 39 computers, only 3 would let me log on and of those three, zero let me onto the internet. That was a bummer. So I recruited some help to get the internet problem fixed. I wanted to see what I could do and see if I could fix the problem myself, but I didn’t want to mess anything up since I’m don’t want to be responsible for everyone not having a chance to use the internet. I found out the password to the server too and hacked into that. I was shocked that I got into it and probably shouldn’t have, but we ended up fixing it on a few computers. The problem for me was that the computer that let me logged on still had a problem with the internet and there probably wasn’t anything I could really do anyways to get me online. I’m thinking about taking my laptop to school to see if I could use the WIFI network there and since I know the password, I might be able to get online and use this computer.

We had an English club meeting today too. I was going back and forth with fixing the laptop and doing the things for the club. They were working on decorations today and cutting out letters for the room. They were using cardboard and it made a big mess. Most of the students had to leave early, since Junior high school students must leave by 5pm, although tonight they didn’t leave till 5:30pm. That’s a bit late since it got darker earlier today. I think it even started to rain just a little bit. I think that it’s a good thing that we’ve started getting some things done for the culture festival and since its 6 weeks away I think that time will go by really quickly for them and for me. I just don’t want to fall behind, although compared with last year, they are already behind. They had most of the stuff finished for the last culture festival by summer time. But I think if they got more help that they would be able to finish things much faster. Our membership is a bit low and the turnout is lower than that. I think that next year, there won’t be a high school group since no one will be left and no one in the club is in the 10th grade this year. That would be bad since I’m doing two clubs this year. I will need to get some new members somehow and I’m not sure how I’m going to convince some students to join.

I left for home around 6:30pm. That’s a bit late for me and there was a student from last year that was talking to some teachers. She had a tennis racket so I think that she might have joined the tennis team for a practice or something. So I might see her around again, maybe. I like the feeling when old students return to the school. That’s the best feeling for a teacher to have. So for those of you, who had a really good teacher, go back to the school and let them know that. They will really appreciate it. I know I would and I have gone back to tell my teachers that too. I think that’s one of the reasons why I decided to become a teacher, but the problem is that since I’m going to be leaving so soon, that I won’t get that chance for students that I know to come back to say hi, and if they do, it wouldn’t be for me, it’d be for other teachers. I don’t get a chance to teach seniors this year, and it was the same for me last year. So I haven’t had the chance to teach anyone who has already graduated. And for the 11th grade students this year, I won’t even be able to see them graduate even though I’ve taught them for two years. That’s a bit sad for me since I would have like to see them graduate. I think that those students would come back to visit me too, but I guess if they were to do that, they’d have to come to America, which I think some of them will.

National Holiday - Respect for the aged day

I spent today updating my blogger, and it’s finally all caught up and organized by date. I will find a way to integrate that with my website soon enough and I’m thinking about changing the design altogether, but I’m working on what I want it to look like. So it might take some time before I get started on that.

I took a little walk today to get dinner. I was looking for a few things, but when I got to the store, I had forgotten what I had wanted and just focused on what I would get for dinner. It wasn’t anything important, but then I was a bit afraid that one day, when something important comes up I don’t want to be forgetting it. I’m usually good with these kinds of things so I’m not sure what’s going on anymore. I’m very apathetic lately and I’m not sure why. But I need to change that and get back into the groove of things again or I’ll just continue to decline in my state of mind.

I was talking to some friends too. I haven’t done that in a long while. I need to update more of my blogs, but I’m about to do more than that later on tonight. I was able to wish my friend a Happy Birthday too, so I’m happy about that. We had a little conversation about how I’m out of touch with the world. I can’t seem to grasp the things that are going on in the world and that’s the reason why I feel like I’m out of touch.

I need to push myself to be more receptive of these things. I’ve had a lot of thinking time today. But I’m not being able to focus on the things that I want to be focusing on. The main thing that has been clouding up my free time is my website that I really have no access too. I want to make it very good and add a slideshow with my pictures using flash, but I’m very incompetent when it comes to flash. But deep down inside and ever since high school I always have had this burning to conquer it. I’ve failed many times to get flash to work for me, but this year I feel that since the other things in my life have been falling into place and I’ve tried things again that I’ve once couldn’t do, that its possible that I might be able to get flash going for me this year too. I want to take another stab at it, and I’m afraid that it will be the only thing that consumes my time, but I won’t be able to move forward until I give it a try. That’s the bad thing about this situation, I’m going to have to succeed in it or it’ll take up too much time. It won’t be wasted effort since that’s what I want to do, but I don’t want to burden myself with too much work from trying to get it to work for me.

Open School

Today will be the first day that I’ve actually participated in an open school event. It happens to be on a Sunday too, when I have a long weekend, they put this right in the middle. But I guess it’s a good thing otherwise I wouldn’t have done anything today anyways.

I really didn’t have much of a role because I was partnered with the person who was leading the whole thing and she was doing all the work. I didn’t complain about that since I just had to stand there and look pretty. I did end up having to do a lot of the cleaning and picking up the tables and chairs and moving it from room to room. That’s the labor part that everyone has to do though.

We got bento boxes for lunch and we had pastries for a little snack in between the activities. I think the students really enjoyed the games that were prepared for them, even though English is a bit difficult for them at that stage. I mean they were elementary school students that might be coming to our school next year or in the coming years.

After all this was finished, I joined Nozakichi and the tennis girls for a little tennis. We played very hard and it was very hot. We couldn’t use the courts at school and had to go to a different location off campus. We went to an area in Tamagawa that’s off of the Meguro Street. It’s not very far from school, but it is. The courts were clay and I’m not used to playing on that type of surface, so I had to get used to playing that type since it would only be beneficial for me to learn how to play on different types of courts. I was having mad troubles with my serves today. Today wasn’t a good day for me serving. I had so many double faults that it’s not even funny. I won one match today but I lost one too because of all my faulting. We could have won too, but I made too many mistakes. I would like to blame the sun and the weather and the fact that I just suck at serving, but I can’t and it’s all my fault. I’ve got to get into shape again and I’ve got to get into the groove of things and play more tennis if I want to get better at it.

After we came back to school there were some former students from last year that graduated in March and they came back to see Nozakichi. He had their tennis rackets with him and I didn’t know why really. They had wanted to go hang out with the coaches and it was just Nozakichi and me. We went to Saizeriya with everyone. There were six former students and just two teachers. The students are much older than I thought that they would be. So I’m wondering at what age students enter school and leave school. One of the students that came spoke very good English and I didn’t know that about her. I recognize her face, but I don’t remember her ever talking in class. So I think that was bad on my part that I just never found out her talent for speaking. I think that it’s because we don’t really push our student to speak and they just listen most of the time.

Eriko Umabe (Uma), Arisa (Aribu), Yumi Ando (Anko), Mayumi (Mayu), Yuka, Ami Tamura (Ami Chan), Masashi Nozaki (Nozakichi),

Looking for a new laptop

Today, I chose to take a day off of school. I was invited to come play tennis with the club, but I didn’t really want to. I wanted to take a day off and stay home to finish up typing up entries to this journal and to update my blogger so I could get that up and running with pictures soon. I’m really getting that spirit back to make a flash movie, and maybe even a flash website. I’ve been working on that since high school, but I think that I’m getting to the point, where I’ll actually learn it and be able to put it to good use too. I know the day is coming and it will be soon.

I have been doing many things with my computer today. I had compressed more files and moved some things to make it more streamlined. I edited all my browsers and deleted a bunch of old files that I don’t use anymore. I was also shopping for a new laptop. I have decided that I will give my laptop to my sister so she wouldn’t have to buy a new one. I’ll just fix this one up again and then I’ll buy a new one for myself. I had wanted to wait till Windows Vista was released, but it appears that I will buy a new laptop in December the same month that my sisters and my mother will come to Japan to visit me. By that time, Windows XP will still be the only thing on the market and I’ll have no choice but to get that. I’m leaning towards buying another Sony Vaio. I did a lot of research today on which one I wanted, but I decided that instead of buying it now, I’ll wait till December when they might have a sale because of the Christmas season. They might also have new models. I’m not sure when the release cycle of new models come out, but the last cycle was in May of this year and that’s pretty recent. I want to get an AMD 64 processor, or at least an Intel 64 bit processor, but they don’t really make them for laptops. Or the other possibility would be that they aren’t very popular yet and haven’t found their way onto that many laptops yet. So I think that by December there will be more advances and it will finally be released on a larger scale, but if not, then I still know which one I will be getting.

My specifications will make the laptop be very expensive, but I’ve set a budget of $2000 because when I came to Japan, that was my goal to get a new one. Right now the models I want are a little more than that because I want at least a 2 Ghz processor. Right now, Sony only carries Intel and they don’t have any 64 bit ones on the website. I want 1 gigabyte of RAM and at least 100 gigabytes of hard drive space. I don’t want it to be too heavy, so around 4 pounds would be the limit. I also want a DVD+RW drive. I don’t really want XP since I already have XP, but since I don’t have a choice because Vista is taking forever to be released, I might not even upgrade once it’s released. Not unless I decide to get a new desktop with all the cool features, but that isn’t so likely. Wireless technology is a must, which is why I’m focused on the Vaios since they offer the best in that area.

I’ve been downloading a lot of ebooks on how to make a flash movie and how to use all the video authoring software out on the market now. So I would like to get started on learning how to make all those editing programs work for me. I was going through a lot of my old photos today too. It’s nice to go back and look at pictures after a long time it makes you remember all the good times that you had. Well actually all the good times that I had. I’ve been thinking about the direction my life is heading right now and I’m wondering if that’s where I want to be heading. I know that I really haven’t had touch with anyone lately so it’s a weird feeling. I mean I really am out here on my own and I’m not sure if that’s what I want. I knew from the beginning that I would have to leave everything behind to come here and I’ve already done that, but will I really be able to go any further? I’ve noticed that I’ve started to stagger with my work and I’m not really motivated to do anything anymore. I need something to jumpstart my life again, and I’m not sure what that something could be. I’ve been listening to a lot of older songs on my hard drive today. It was weird that I was just compelled to listen to older songs. I mean I have a lot of songs, but I only listen to 50 of them at a time all the time. I only listen to my favorites and I’ve started to be a little tired of them. But I don’t listen to the radio or anything anymore so I’m not sure where to go to get new songs and what new songs there are too.

Five on Friday

I have five classes today and for me the day started really early. I’ve been falling asleep much faster lately and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m tired or if I’m finally back on a more normal sleeping schedule. But this morning, I woke up at 4am and then went back to sleep until my alarm woke me up at 5:30am. It’s actually not that bad anymore getting up so early only because I’ve worked on getting up at that time. It’s also getting cold at night too. That’s something that I’m looking forward to, but I’m also a bit afraid of it too. I know that when it’s cold, it will be very cold.

It was a bit weird going to school and I was surrounded by students everywhere. I’m not very outgoing, when I meet students outside of school, but I should be and I know it. I just feel a little awkward, but I don’t know why. I mean they were two of my 11th grade students that said hi to me today on the train. They are nice and they have improved a lot since I started teaching them last year. Anyways, I arrived to school a little late, but a little early too. I mean, I wanted to get to school before the teachers’ meeting in the morning, but I didn’t make it on time, but I did come early enough for the morning assembly out on the field today. So they were getting ready for the sports festival at the school by doing some drills and their warm-up routine. I’m not sure if I’ve made a comment about that before, but I’ll make one now. When I first started working at this school last year, I was shocked that everyone knew the warm-up routine, and I think it’s because they’ve all grown up to it. There must be a famous person who started it, but EVERYONE in this country knows the routine, well except for me. Even though I’ve done it a lot of times, I still haven’t been able to remember it, and I just have to follow the person in front of me.

Class started late because of it. But I wasn’t prepared like I usually am. Since it was Friday and this class has the fewest number all semester long, I had to readjust the schedule to fit it accordingly. But I didn’t have any of the handouts ready like I usually do. So, after the class started, I started scrambling to get all my stuff together. This is where a partner teacher comes in handy. CP took over at the beginning while I and other teacher were making copies of the handout that they needed. I felt a little embarrassed since I’m usually on the ball with these things, that I don’t know how I suddenly fell behind on it. I ended up going to class 13 minutes late. But the class paced very well and it was actually very fun to teach. They are a high level class and a fun class too. I’m sad that I only teach them 12 times this semester while the other classes get 16. But I think everything happens for a reason.

The second period was my period off, and then the third period was 7th grade Ran. We did more family member paperwork and the students had to make hints to tell another student and they had to guess it. I think it was a bit too difficult for them, but then again, they were able to do it. So that was good and it seemed pretty fun for them. So the results were pretty good and the class was fun I think. Some students struggled with it, but that’s usual in all classes.

The fourth period class was a mix up. It was supposed to be 10th grade yuri, but it turns out that there wasn’t a schedule change and it was 9th grade ran. There was a mix up on the schedule change and that the schedule didn’t change, but it was marked on my sheet that it did. So we spent about 10 minutes figuring out what we needed to do and where we needed to go, and again we were all late. It was weird because that was like 4 teachers being late for class. The 9th graders are just so unorthodox. It’s almost to the point where it isn’t worth helping out. I’m not very motivated to teach this class, which is why I’m glad that I’m not leading this class. If I were, I think I’d be yelling a lot and probably wouldn’t be me. They need a new homeroom teacher that will be able to yell and get them back on track. It seems like the 9th grade has the most problem students and the students with the most attitude towards others and themselves. It’s a tough group of students to teach, but I guess that’s all part of growing up.

Lunch was ok, but it seems lately that after lunch, I feel a bit weird. Like I feel sick and I’m not sure exactly why either. I guess I might not be getting enough nutrients in the food that I eat, so I’ve got to mix it up a bit so I get enough vitamins and all that good stuff.

Then it was the 10th grade Yuri class. I really like this class because I had a chance to get a long with them last year, when they were in 9th grade. This class is also very spunky, and I like teaching spunky kids because they add a unique touch to the class. Today we were just doing a little paperwork and a little presentation of summer vacation. The paperwork was a little game that they worked on to focus on past tenses. They were pretty good compared to the other 10th grade class that I teach on Wednesday. They were getting really involved with it, so I’m happy to report that. The problem with the class that I had today was that at the end of the class, CP took over and kinda led them at the end. I think that she forgot that it was my class and that I was teaching. So it was a bit weird for me. The Japanese English teacher is one of my good friends and I think that she knew that I didn’t appreciate it, and I think she didn’t either. But it was at the end of the class, so it wasn’t a big deal, but still, my class is my class.

The last class of the day was with another 7th grade class Fuji. I’m supposed to be leading this class as we agreed to that at the beginning of the year, but I elected not to lead any 7th grade classes since I would be leading all the 11th grade classes. I didn’t think it would be fair, so I just sit back and help in this class. The students are probably the lowest level of the 7th grade, but they are a loud group. Of all the 7th grade classes, this class acts the most 7th grade. Like during the class they were trying to bug me. They would grab me by the arm if they needed help on something. They would yell “teacher teacher” at every question. I would have to stand next to them the whole time to help them through making all the hints and things like that. It wasn’t annoying, but it would have been nice for them to be able to do it on their own too. But that’s why I’m a teacher, to teach them to be able to do it on their own right?

I didn’t have anything after school that I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to go home too early because it was a bit hot. So I wanted to wait till it got much cooler before I would start to head home. I got dragged into cleaning up a room for the open school this weekend. And after that, I was making something for the tennis club. It was statistics sheet so I could keep track of errors as well as good points. I did a version in English and then another version in Japanese. It would be for the students so they could track their progress and for them to realize what they would need to work on as the weeks go on. I mean if they make one mistake one time, that’s fine, but if there is a problem that is consistent then we will have to alter their practices to be able to fix that. I mean that’s what practices are for.

I ended up staying very late after school. After I finished the sheet, I went downstairs to watch them practice. Their practices don’t finish till 6pm, but since tomorrow is an open school, we had to do all the cleaning to prepare for the next day. That lasted for about an hour since the other students in the other clubs left early. So 6pm soon turned into 7pm and I was still stuck at school. We had a club meeting around 7:15pm and then the coach told me some news. One of the girls on the tennis team would be transferring schools tomorrow. I thought that was kind of abrupt and much unexpected. The reasons are unknown, but she seemed like a good person. I mean she wasn’t the best student or anything, but I’m sad that she chose to runaway instead of stay and finish school here. Soon after the meeting I left school.

A day of rest and games

Today is one of my friend’s birthdays. I haven’t talked to her in a long time actually, but I’m sure she’s doing well. I think that we’ve got to hang out soon since we haven’t done that in a long time. I really didn’t do much today, which tends to be usual for my days off. I wanted to catch up my journal entries today since I have the time.

In the morning I got caught up on internet games. It took a lot of time, but it was ok since I didn’t have anything to really do today. I wanted to get some stuff finished before school started up again. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to get it done though. I really want to finish my website update, but I haven’t even started on that process yet. I also want to get all my xanga entries up to date too. I’ve fallen about a month and a half behind and it will only get worse with time. I’m reloading all my past blogs onto the blogger website that is hosted by Google. I’m up to February right now, which isn’t that bad since that was only 7 months ago. I’m about half way through uploading all of those. Then I’ll have to add the links to the pictures on that site since I wanted to put pictures in there so it would make more sense, but adding pictures into the text will make it look tacky and will take up too much space, I think just adding a link to the pictures on a separate host would be better. But I’ll have to find out how that goes when I release it next month.

I mentioned my dissatisfaction in my web host server since it is down more than it is up. I’m looking for a new one, but all of them seem to change and nothing seems constant anymore. So I’m not happy to report that either. I think that more reliable one need to come out and then I’ll be happy about my web presence. But for the time being, I really can’t complain because it’s still all free stuff. I’m not happy about the banner bar on spymac, but I could have it removed for $25 a year, which is a little steep since I could get another host for less than a quarter than that and it would offer way more things too.

I ended up doing laundry very late today. I didn’t start till around 5:30pm and it was starting to get dark already. That’s very unusual but autumn is coming, so that could be the reason why it’s getting so dark recently. I was talking to some of my friends and family today. That was a bit unusual too since I haven’t talked to anyone in weeks. I guess that I’ve been enjoying my alone time a lot recently that it’s a bit hard for me to get out of that and to talk to people.

A very long Wednesday

I had six classes today, but I guess that I’ve been getting ready for them a step at a time. Friday’s used to be my busiest days, but now with a schedule change for September, Wednesday is the longest day of the week. It shouldn’t be because I’m supposed to have Wednesdays off of club, but since it’s getting pretty close to the culture festival and none of the girls have done much for it, I thought I’d encourage them to get some things finished for that.

The first class today was with the 11th grade yuri class. It was fun to get to teach them again. I think I like teaching this class because they have a good energy, not everyone in the class, but a class as a whole, they have good energy and it pushes me to teach them better. We did a dictation practice in this class today, and we used a raps lyric sheet and a CD for that. It was fun and I gave out the prize for the winners of the English contest at the 11th grade training session.

The second period class was with 8th graders yuri. I’m not a big fan of teaching the junior high school students. But this class is good. I think it’s one of the better ones in the 8th grade. They are pretty smart and capable of understanding English, but there are some students that don’t pay attention and don’t care. I think that they are just bored and to be honest with you, I could understand them. I really don’t like teaching out of the textbook because I really don’t understand what the hell they are trying to say. It’s a bit difficult for me to teach someone else’s plan or way than for me to make up a new one that would tackle all the necessary things. We just worked on lesson 6 today and talked about our daily schedules. That’s when the students found out I wake up at 5:30am everyday.

The third period class was with 10th graders fuji. In this class, we were working on a handout about their summer vacation. It was the same one we used for the 8th grade, but it was a bit different in what we expect and what the teachers want from them.

The fourth period class is usually my break, but today and because of the schedule change, I had to teach the 11th grade kiku.

The fifth period is with 9th grade kiku. The lesson in today’s class was lesson 17 or health problems. The class went pretty smooth because the students just did it. They weren’t really involved, but they took care of what they needed to do.

The last class of the day was with 9th grade fuji. I’m not sure why, but they were incredibly quiet today. It was a bit weird since they are usually very active and involved in the class. I was weirded out by the silence and non-participation, but I heard that last week they were the same too. It was a bit weird that it happened that way.

Today I was leading half of the classes, which is a bit much for me since I’m used to only teaching one or two for a whole day. But three and club today and yesterday has taken its toll on me. I’m just not as energetic as I used to be and I’m not sure why that is.

Plus I had club again tonight, which makes it the third day in a row. I didn’t end up leaving school till around 7-7:15pm. That’s very late.

A great Tuesday

I don’t have many great Tuesdays under my belt. That’s because I usually teach the toughest classes for me on this day. I have an 8th grade class that is really low level because they just don’t care. And the same goes for the 11th grade class that I teach today. Most of the students don’t really have motivation to learn since they are in the lowest level classes and they know it. That’s the horrible part about it. They separate the classes according to level, so the students act accordingly to their level and some care, and some don’t.

But today, I think that I finally got through to the 11th grade class. I will need some more work with the 8th grade class though. They were pretty tough today because they just were out of it or something. I’m not sure what’s going on with them, but I will need to add some more accountability on them and to start calling on them individually to answer questions, but that could provoke resistance. So I’m going to have to develop a better plan of attack.

I was also with another 8th grade class and 7th grade class today. They were average and those went pretty smoothly today. Since the topic of the day in 8th grade was Daily schedules and Families for the 7th grade. In 11th grade, we just played the Raps CD that CP bought awhile back. I wanted to get them used to dictation and listen well. They will have listening comprehension as part of their assessment this semester so I want to get them ready for that with some listening exercises. I think they will need some work before they can do well on this test, but we will see how that goes.

English club today was ok. I didn’t do much but the students did. That’s what’s more important. They were just planning for the cultural festival coming at the end of next month. They haven’t really started much yet, so that’s a bad thing. Last year, they had more things finished than they do this year, so I want to help them get the ball rolling a little faster so they can do a good job this year, since it will be their last chance to do it.

I left school around 6pm which is a bit early for me and I had dinner at the Chinese restaurant near Hongodai station. It was pretty good and I had wonton ramen. I came home and took a shower and got ready for bed, but I didn’t sleep. I went on the computer and started doing a bunch of things and that really slowed me down from getting some zzz’s. I wanted to sleep early today, since I’ll have to leave for work early tomorrow to get to work on time and I’m tired from not sleep enough last night. I only got about 4 hours because I woke up from a dream. Not sure if it was a nightmare or not, but I just got up. Then there was another huge ass spider in my room again. I realized that they are coming in from the outside and climb up my stairs. I think so, but it was huge and this one was very fast too. That was my problem and I didn’t end up killing it, but I scared it to go outside, well I think I did. I sprayed it with a bunch of things since I didn’t think I’d be fast enough to kill it with a magazine or anything like that. I had a water-proofing spray that I shot it with. I think tomorrow I’ll have to buy some bug spray to get rid of those nuisances like them.

Back to school

It really feels like I’m back to school since I woke up at 5:30am today. I didn’t have to get up that early, but I did anyways. I wanted to get ready for Wednesday when I would have to get up that early for reals. I made myself breakfast, actually it was just last night’s dinner, which was Clam Chowder. Still pretty good. I had a lot of time to check e-mail and all that sort of stuff before I went to school.

I took the slow train today, so I could read a book. I read a lot of it today since I took a local train from Yokohama to Toritsu-daigaku station. It’s my goal to finish it today. I’m near the end and if I take the time, I’ll be able to finish it. It’s been something I’ve been trying to finish for years, and I’m finally at that point where I can actually be able to do it. So I’m happy about that.

I got to school and just sat there for a little while to let everything sink in. I only had two classes today and I wasn’t leading any of them, so it would be an easy day for me.

The first class was with 9th graders. They aren’t the best class and probably the worst 9th grade class according to attitude. I think they have the ability, but just don’t give a rats ass about anything. They simply don’t care and can be very intimidating to other students in the school.

The second class I had was with 7th graders. They were very high level and understood the topic of the day really easily. I was a bit shocked that they were able to do that so easily. The explanation was better today, but still they just understood the family tree very well. I was a bit shocked at it.

I stayed for English club which lasted till 7pm so I couldn’t leave till around 7:30pm. I had dinner at Jonathon’s tonight, so I could get Tonkatsu, which is pork cutlet. At the restaurant I finished the book. So I could start on a new one this week, maybe even tomorrow.

I came home to threw away all the trash that has been piling up in my house. Then I check the internet for email and other news about the recent election. I went onto myspace and found a lot of my high school friends. I was pretty happy about that. But all this took a lot of time and now it’s about 12:30am and I’m getting up in 4 hours, so I’m going to sleep now, night.

Election day in Japan

The only plan for me today is to take care of my blog and my website. I want to give it an update if I have time, which today I actually do. I’m also going to work on a way to integrate everything a little better than I originally thought too and I’m also looking for a new web host… yes again. I’m happy with spymac, but it just has a very big annoying banner at the top and that’s what I really don’t like. I would buy into the service, but it’s a bit more than I would want to spend for hosting my website. It just doesn’t offer all the things that I need in a community host. I think I might load up a computer game to do that for a little bit because I need to relax for a bit, but I should just plan for the next week since it’s the beginning of school and I want to be able to get everything finished and planned out so I don’t hit too many hurdles in the middle of the road. I made myself some Clam Chowder and then watched the first matrix today too. I really caught up on my blog, but haven’t started on my website yet. I have been looking around for a new host, but haven’t found one to my liking yet. I think that they’ve been getting more expensive and don’t offer that much like the used to.

Guys night out with Red Shoes

Today was a guy’s night out. I didn’t know that it was going to end up that way, and I think neither did any of the other guys that were there. We decided to meet at 7pm under the Cial department store and everyone was actually early. We walked around Yokohama station for a little bit to look for an izakaya to have dinner and drinks. We intended to go to wara-wara, the place that we met last time for the Red Shoes group, but this time it was packed. So we went looking for another place. We stopped off at maybe 6 places before we found one that had enough space to take in 6 people, but we had to wait till 8pm before we could go in. It was at Amataro, near the Soveil Movie Theater.

When we were finally let in, around 8:20pm, we immediately ordered our food and drinks. We were all starving at this point and since this was my first and only meal today, I was really hungry. The past few days had been filled with eating too much and today, I didn’t get adjusted fast enough to not eating at all. I’m very extreme when it comes to matters like this. We actually ate and drank a lot since it was only the guys of the group. We just kept on eating non-stop for like 2 hours and drank quite a bit since the beer glasses were big. The food wasn’t bad at all; it was actually pretty good I thought. I’m glad that I had a chance to eat my share and it was a lot too. I’m surprised that I drank so much, but I guess I’ve gotten used to it now since I’ve been drinking a lot lately. I don’t think that’s a good thing too since now I feel like I’m craving alcohol to drink.

Something a teacher told me yesterday was if you pass a certain point, you’ll start to like alcohol, so don’t get carried away. She’s a hard-core drinker and has a high limit and she warned me about it, but I think I’ve already passed that point. I’ve even gotten used to beer, which I absolutely couldn’t stand before, so I’m not sure what’s next anymore.

Something that I wanted to point out was that I was annoyed with two of the people there and the worst part of it was that I was sandwiched between them during dinner. I’ve been very irritated recently by the littlest things, but they were pushing their luck, and all this was before the alcohol was coming. I think actually when they were drinking; they were better and less annoying. It all started when we were walking to find a place eat dinner. They were just bugging me because they assumed that since other people are Americans we were friends or something. Japanese who eat at T.G.I. Fridays are automatically my friends because they are Americans. I know they were just joking, but I didn’t like it. They were speaking out of their asses and being very dumb about it. They kept on making stupid assumptions about Americans and it goes to show how narrow-minded they are and how they have no greater grasp of the world. But I really can’t blame them since they live in a society where less than 1% of the population is foreign-born. And I’m assuming that among those that live in Japan that are foreign-born, a majority of them are here in Japan teaching them English. Anyways, it was just annoying, not that they aren’t annoying just because, but today it was worse.

After dinner, we went walking around Yokohama station again. We decided to get a drink at the convenient store and go hang out by the train tracks. It was something that you could see in a movie like Stand by Me. It was pretty interesting, but there were a lot of Sea Slaters there. It was a bit gross since we just had dinner, but they don’t bother me as much as they bothered other members of the group. We stayed there till around 12:20am and then we all had to leave to catch the last trains home.

I hitched a ride with YFto, who lives in Konandai. Not that I really needed a ride or anything, but he offered and insisted that we go together. I think he wanted to try to speak English and he’s getting better. He is in fact an English teacher for Elementary school students, so I think that’s what he was up to. In the car, we were talking about gas and navigation systems. People in the U.S. complain about gas being $2.50, but elsewhere around the world, the price is much higher. For example, gas in Japan is around $4 per gallon. Well it’s about 115.36 yen per liter, and well, you’re smart enough to convert it aren’t you? I’m not, but that’s my guess. The navigation systems in Japan are very important since streets don’t have names and you could easily find yourself lost without one. I could only find my way around because I have a good map in my head of landmarks, but not of street names. In the U.S. they’ve got to start equipping cars with this kind of technology. It’s just so useful, and I’m not just talking about the navigation, like TV and radio, and MD’s and CD’s and a whole range of other things.

I didn’t get to sleep till around 3am for some reason, but I was just tired and hit the sack soon after.

Going back to Tokyo and Shabu-Shabu

On the way back to Tokyo was a tough schedule. After all, we had spent the past two days with a rushed and altered schedule because of rain and just because things changed. Today was mainly a day for cleaning, and it was a shame that the students didn’t get a chance to see Mt. Fuji again. The male teachers woke up later today than we did yesterday. Not because we were more tired, even though we were, but because we wanted to. We were supposed to be out of the cabin by 5am, but we didn’t leave until 6:15am. We needed to clean the cabin because we’d be leaving soon. And we watched over the girls playing games, but there weren’t too many of them playing so we had other things to do too. Breakfast started at 7am, so time seemed to go by really fast.

After breakfast, it was just packing and getting everything in order. We brought a lot of stuff to the Gotemba location and then we needed to put everything back. So after breakfast, we needed to scramble to find and pack everything before the closing ceremony, which was around 11am.

At the closing ceremony, awards were given out. I had to give an award for the English contest for the top three groups from two days ago. They all did a really good job and I was happy with the results. It was a good closing ceremony, except for the part where I had to say something about the trip… in Japanese. I had to do it in front of all the students too. That wasn’t very fun though. Then we grabbed lunch before we started to head back to Tokyo.

On the bus back to Tokyo, I had noticed something that I didn’t notice before, but they have a big boy burger there. I haven’t eaten there in a long time and haven’t even seen one in a long time in the U.S. and in Japan. That was pretty cool, at least I thought so.
I kinda stuck around school after we got back for a little while. We didn’t have anything to do for about an hour and a half. The trip took a bit longer since there was traffic on the way back. We arrived at school around 4:30pm and then dinner with the teachers who went on the trip was 6pm.

We went to the shabu-shabu place for the evening. We had the usual dinner, and it was delicious and it was to the point of stomach bursting full, like all the other events at the school where we eat a lot. Everyone kept their speeches short as did I, so it went by pretty quickly.

Dance, Walk Rally and Campfire

Today was the meat of the whole trip. It took up the most time and had the most activities to cover. And the day started really early. We needed to get ready and be out around 5am to watch over the students who were going to practice their sports. So me and the other male teachers got up early to go to the soccer field where the tennis courts are close to and watched some the tennis girls play as well as some of the other students playing their respective sports. Soon after that was breakfast. It started at 7am so all the students needed to be out there and ready to eat before the days’ events.

After breakfast, all the students needed to go back to the soccer field because we would have to get ready for the school festival and they needed to practice their dance. It was very interesting to see how they teach the students the moves and how they prepare for the school festival. They learned it by sections, and they teach all the students at the same time. I couldn’t even imagine how to teach 144 students the dance all the same time. It’s hard enough to teach 30 students at one time. Before we concluded that, we played some games on the soccer field. It was just a bunch of contest games against other students in the other classes. The weather was beautiful as they usually are after a typhoon. The skies cleared up enough to get a great view of Mt. Fuji. It didn’t last very long because of clouds, but I did get to see it. They did a bunch of track styled games and I also think it was a precursor to the Sports Festival coming up next month. After that, the morning activities were concluded. I did get some great pictures of the students and Mt. Fuji in the background. It was awesome to see that.

We then had lunch since everyone worked up a sweat from all the running around and all the dancing. Lunch was very quick with ramen being the meal of choice. The teachers needed to leave early because we were doing a walk rally, which is a scavenger hunt, where the students have to walk around the compound and to located landmarks and other things and find their way to and from a location collecting clues along the way. I was partnered up with a P.E. teacher and we had a location next to a community center. We sat there for about 2 hours and I tried to talk to her with my broken Japanese. She doesn’t speak English at all, but I talked to the students as they came by. We were somewhere in the middle of the course. After all the students passed by, I took the opportunity to go through the rest of the course and follow all the points on the map and figure it out. I think that my course was pretty easy since I finished the whole course in about 45 minutes, while some students took about 4 hours to finish. They got lost of course and I’m sure they had a hard course too. That was the main attraction for the afternoon.

The next thing was to get ready for the evening activity. We were going to do a great big campfire some where on the grounds. So the male teachers needed to get that ready. It was a lot of moving of the sticks and ply wood needed for the fire. One of the teachers had been a Boy Scout when he was younger so he knew how to construct it so that it would last longer and be a pretty great big fire. Somewhere in between set up and the beginning of the campfire was dinner. After dinner finished, the campfire committee got together to get some of the entertainment ready.

The campfire was great. I really enjoyed it. It had singing by all the teachers and performances by students in every 11th grade class. You could really see the closeness of the all the students. Some more students professed their love for me tonight too, which freaked me out for a bit since it was in front of the headmaster. But I’m sure he didn’t think much of it. I’m a very popular teacher with these students and I think he knows that. I had VIP seating as I was sitting next to the headmaster the whole time and it was only us two on the tarp, everyone else had to sit around the stadium seating on the concrete. It was a good way to end the trip. Students had a lot of glow sticks and were singing and dancing. I’m not sure what the purpose of the trip was, but I think it was accomplished. Today, we took care of the physical work out, and yesterday we focused on the mental aspects.