Nothing much / Happy Halloween

I spent the day in front of the computer today looking for a new computer. It’s been a really frustrating experience so far. It’s supposed to help me get my mind off of things at work. Right now I’m contemplating asking for a raise. I’m on a contract that clearly states my wages, but I hope to increase it so I could at least afford a better computer than the one that I want. It would also be nice of them because then I would have enough to pay my escalating bills which includes health insurance which is something that the school should already pay.

It got really cold today for some reason. I’m not sure if my house always gets this cold when I’m not here, but it was really chilly today.

I needed to go out to pay bills and get something to eat. I was planning to take a walk, but got caught indoors because it was so cold. It’s really starting to feel like winter, even though I don’t think winter really comes until December.

Cultural Festival Day 2

Today was the concluding day of the culture festival. I was really looking forward today for some reason. I wanted to take a lot of pictures so I could finish up my collages of all the classes. But today I was a bit hesitant to take many pictures because I thought that I would end up taking pictures of people that I took yesterday and have many duplicates. But I went with it anyways.

I was in the ECC room more often today than I was yesterday since I wasn’t in the ECC room at all really. At the beginning I was just advertising our room to the first few guests that came through the main entrance. The thing that I didn’t know was that I wasn’t supposed to and not allowed to advertise for any particular room. I kind of figured that I wasn’t allowed to, but I was wondering why it took 30 minutes before someone came up to me and stopped me. I would have thought someone would have come up sooner to say something. I mean there were teachers all around and a bunch of students too.

I met a lot of old students, or students who graduated last year. They were surprised when I remembered their names, and I was too to be honest with you. I got lucky I suppose. I took many pictures with alumni and I’ll make a special collage with them in it too. It was a weird feeling to see them all again since they are all wearing make-up and have dyed hair and all types of jewelry. These are against school rules, so current students aren’t allowed to do all that, but when they go to college, the rules change and so does their appearance. It’s good and I’m happy to see them and see them change and mature into ladies.

In the afternoon, things got busy for me. I had to run around from all the buildings to catch certain performances from the English classes that I taught, and from the senior events since it’s their last year and I haven’t seen most of them lately. I wanted to catch a live concert performance from the seniors in the music room and then I wanted to see the English dramas since I teach them. So there was about a gap of about 1.5 hours where I was just running around checking some things out and not in the ECC room. I don’t think they needed my help and today the girls had a bit of an attitude towards things. I’m not sure if it was resentment or something, but it wasn’t a good feeling.

After the festival, there was a student festival, where all the classes would perform something on stage. It was really quite interesting, even though I don’t have any photographs for video from it. I should have taken some, but I just didn’t.

After that, we were still in the gym and two of my students in the 11th grade sang a song to audition for a performance at the English festival in December. They are what Japanese people call a “talent,” so they could be seen on TV or heard on the radio. I have never given them more attention than any other student and since they are my students, I just treat them like my students. But this was the first time that I saw them perform and they really do have talent. Of course they were pushed into doing it by their homeroom teacher, which happens to be the VP of the school. She usually teaches those students who are talented and has built her homeroom class full of the basketball stars and other things like that.

Finally, we all had dinner at a place that we always have after the culture festival. The food tasted better than it did last year, even though it was probably the same menu as last year. I just wasn’t sitting in an awkward place as I was last year. It was much more pleasant, although it was a bit more boring. I had my co-worker that I talk to a lot sit next to me, so that made it much better. I saw that one of the new teachers was in a bad position and seemed very bored.

Culture Festival Day 1

Today I was just a tour guide for EK at the school festival. We did a lot of walking around today and took the time to look at most of the decorations and on all of the floors. We saw all the rooms and then we saw the two performances today too of the 9th grade dramas for Annie and the Wizard of Oz. EK saw how popular of a teacher I am at the school since every student kept on calling my name and wanted to talk to me, they were a bit curious as to who the other person with me was. The funny thing about it was that they didn’t think that EK was Japanese, since he spoke English with me the whole time. He was late this morning too, when I told him not to be, and I didn’t get a chance to work in the ECC room. I felt really bad for the students because the layout of the room changed last night and none of them knew and were shocked to see it changed this morning. I think that the stress level was running very high today. I just needed to get my mind off of things. The girls today were very interesting and very energetic. I found some old students that I had recognized and they were surprised that I recognized them too. Actually I am too and surprised that they could speak English fairly well. It’s very encouraging for me and for them I’m sure. There were a lot of game rooms and many things to keep busy with so that was fun and giving the tour also gave me the excuse to go around instead of sitting in one room helping out. Since it’s a two day festival, I think that one of the days I could just go around and the other I could help out more.

I think that it was a bit of a hassle to take EK around today, but it wasn’t something that was so hard for me. I just felt as if I was letting some of the students in the English club down since they said they needed my help, but I’m sure that they didn’t. I will help them more tomorrow since I saw all the exhibits today. They were pretty good today and everything worked out perfectly. It was supposed to rain today in the afternoon, so we were a bit worried about the things that were going to go on outside like the field show and all the cheerleading performances. The band played some good songs that got stuck in my head afterwards and I asked around to find out the names so I could get the songs later. We didn’t have much to clean up since there would be another day for tomorrow too. I left a bit early after the event was over. I think that the students just checked the exhibits and to make sure that everything was in working order for the next day.

But now the next thing that is bothering me is my computer situation. We then went to Shibuya to check out the Apple Macintosh store there. I was really tempted to buy a PowerBook, but still hindered with the incompatibility with my windows stuff. They are very stylish and have a lot of the technology that I’m looking for in a computer. It’s mobile and packs some power, plus there’s that new little mouse. They just released their tiger OS too, so they have many points that are good. But the reason that I’m holding back is the software package. I already have a lot of Microsoft products and I would hate to have that all go to waste since I’d be switching platforms and they don’t have any that I truly like either. I’d have to buy all the software at a later date, which isn’t very appealing to me.

Then, after we left the Apple store, we ate at an Italian restaurant in the Seibu shopping store. We had pizza and pasta set. It was ok, probably wouldn’t go there again. It wasn’t something that was incredibly special and the service was less than average. I think we got a deal on it though, so that was a good point to point out. There was a travel agency on the same floor and they had some brochures that I haven’t seen before that I thought would be a great addition to the collection that I have for the 11th grade students to plan their going abroad trip. Some included many African countries. I think that would be eye-catching for the students and it will expose them to a different kind of experience to think out of the box. I’m not sure any student would pick it, but I think that if they have the option, they’d look at it and have their eyes and minds open to new things. That’s the point and purpose of the lesson. It was a long trip back home since I live far from Shibuya. But it was a good day and it will probably be the same for tomorrow too, but hopefully it won’t rain like it did today.

Talking to Family

I talked to my family about the trip to Japan. They will most likely come on Christmas and leave on the 5th of January when I’m not even in Yokohama to be with them. I think that’s pretty much final though. I think my family is really starting to get excited about it and they should be since it will be fun. I haven’t planned anything for their trip yet and I’m starting to see that I’m falling behind on everything else too. But I don’t feel very motivated to change that course either.

I also decided that getting a Mac wouldn’t be feasible for me since I’d have to get a whole new set of hardware to go with it and it would end up being too expensive for me. So now I’m looking at getting a PC so that I could use the webcams and everything else that I have. I’m not really happy about that since I was set on getting a powerbook. I’m a bit disappointed since I won’t be able to get it. I’m still looking for ways to make it happen, but at this point, I don’t think that it will.

I made spaghetti to eat today and then I got sick afterwards. I’m not sure if it was the gift of processed fish that made me ill, but it was something that wasn’t good.

I took a long walk today to the grocery store. I needed to get some stuff from the 100 yen store so I could make a CD for tomorrow’s school festival, but when I came home it still didn’t work. I got some things that would be useful for me in the coming days, but then I realized that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, so that was a bummer. I think that I’ll have to go to school early to see if I could use the schools’ computer to burn it and if not, I’ll have to find another way with only 30 minutes left before the school festival begins. But I’m sure that I’ll figure something out, even if I only have a limited amount of time.

CNto's Birthday and plan for Taiwan

I slept for 14 hours from the time I got home till today. That’s a long time and a lot of sleep.

I talked to a lot of people today, which was weird. Many made comments about the computer I’m planning on buying in December. Since I had changed my mind from 12 – inch Apple Power book to Sony Vaio Type S, many people asked me why I changed. The reason why I will change is because the power book isn’t compatible with all the things that I have like my webcam and printer. I could always get those on the side, but then I was looking at the price for all that. It was beginning to become too expensive for me to do that so I decided that staying with a PC would be better. I haven’t heard anything good about the Virtual PC software from the Apple store online and at the store in Shibuya. I like the feel and the look of the power book, but the Sony Vaio Type S just fits what I need. Since I’m getting it customized it will be exactly what I want. Some of the features will be Bluetooth 2.0, SUICA port, 120 gigabyte hard drive, 1 gigabyte of ram, upgrade video card with 128 megabytes dedicated to that, wireless network card built in with b\g\a standards put in, 13.3 inch screen, extended battery so it will be up to 7 hours and be a 2.0gigahertz Intel M processor. It will have windows XP pro so I could get the English version OS by changing a few things. All this for under $2500. It’s actually much cheaper than if I were to buy it in the U.S. and I think that it’s a little better since I’ll have a Japanese keyboard, SUICA port, and a better warranty.

I talked to some people about my trip to Taiwan. It was necessary to get some details out of the way. I think that talking to a lot of the people involved would be very useful for me. I need to send some more confirmation e-mails to make sure that I get more details and for me to give more details too. But since this was just the beginning I didn’t have much to go on.

I invited EK to have dinner with me, so we could talk about our trip. We needed to find out what we would do and how long we were going to stay. We had dinner at a Yakiniku place near Yokohama station. I picked Yokohama station because I needed to get my commuter pass renewed. It was very good and I enjoyed dinner very much. I had Yakiniku with some alcohol, which is weird, but very enjoyable for me. We were walking around Yokohama station for a long time and I hadn’t eaten much today, so I was beginning to get a big headache. I’m not sure if it was because I was getting really really hungry or if I was annoyed with something, or if it was just the pressure since the temperature and weather is changing. But I’m glad that we found a nice place to have Lamb Yakiniku. It was very good and probably a bit more expensive that I would have liked, but still worth it.

Then he had coffee at starbucks and I was working on a rough draft of the Taiwan trip. I think we decided that we would see who would come back to Taiwan and be able to visit us. It was weird because I was just sitting there for a little bit of time and then punched out a preliminary draft of what we should do during the trip. It didn’t take me very long to get a good first draft ready. I included a lot of things that we wanted to get covered and I think that everything will fall into place. It will include meeting up with all my friends there and even inviting some people that I thought I’d never talk to again. But that is another story. I think that the plan will be pretty good and it would be nice to see everyone again. I’m really getting excited about it. It will be fun.

Today was only 11.5 hours – Alex’s Birthday

That wasn’t so bad really. I just got three hours of sleep before this day started and then had to work 11.5 hours. I mean after you get started working days like this, you’d get used to it right? So I was pretty sleepy today and all throughout the day.

The first class I had today was my class with the 11th grade Yuri. I went over what would be on their test. They are pretty good and much better than I previously thought too. They did the listening activity very well and then I had them come up and speak. They’ve done it many times, so I feel for them. They will have a difficult time with it I think. We ran out of time too, it takes more than 10 minutes for them to get everyone up to speak. That’s important information to know.

The second class was with 8th grade Yuri. Today they were very tired and we did some stuff in the book about the communication goal and then having them write their own speech about themselves.

The third class was with 10th grade fuji. Once again they were a bit quiet and didn’t offer much response. It was a tad eerie. I really don’t like them being so quiet. We worked on the topic of weather, but we didn’t have the heart to let them know that it will rain on Saturday for their Cultural Festival. Then we did something out of the On Air communication book. I used it at the beginning of the year with the 11th graders.

Fifth period was with 9th grade kiku and we did the English play for the Wizard of Oz. They were pretty good today too. There was one girl who was slurring all her lines and didn’t stop or pause. That would probably be the only thing that really got my attention.

Sixth period was with 9th grade fuj and we did the English play for Annie. Today they were much better and more alive, but still very soft-spoken. It was hard to hear and I was in the first row watching them, so they’ll have to be louder for the performance on stage.

Seventh period was the time for the Clubs and classes to get some extra time to work on cultural festival stuff. I didn’t know that at first, so I didn’t help them yesterday and the day before. But today I helped out and let them know that we couldn’t use the room that we thought we were going to use. So we had to move all the cardboard and things like that.

After school I watched the 9th grade fuji class on stage and they were better. They were in costume and did the actions better. I got to hear Annie sing her song in the middle which I didn’t see before. It sounds lovely, but I don’t know what she’s saying.

After that we began work on the English club stuff. After we had moved all of our stuff from the L.L. on the third floor to the room that we will use for the cultural festival, which is room 105 on the first floor, we got bumped out because of a parent-teacher meeting to the third floor and in the advisors homeroom class. So that was a lot of moving around. We did some more things with cardboard and then we worked on coloring the cardboard with paper. We made the finishing touches with the reports too.

I left pretty late, I was aiming to walk to the station with another teacher, but I got held up and I think they just left before me.

an 11 hour workday

Now that’s a long time to be at work. I started work this morning at 9am, which is much later than usual. Actually I suspect that tomorrow will be the same and might even be longer.

I only mention it because I was very hungry as I left work today at 8pm. I wanted to go home so I could get some rest from today’s work. I think that I needed to get some rest because I was sleepy from this morning and not getting enough sleep.

I had four classes today that seemed to go by really fast. That’s something very odd for me. We are on 40 minute schedule this week so classes are shorter, but you could really feel them go by really quickly.

The first class was 8th grade ran. They were loud and not really paying attention like usual. It’s a bit frustrating to have to deal with this week in and week out, but that’s the kids’ attitudes at this age. We worked on the textbook today and focused on horoscopes. They had to finish up the communication goal and then they needed to make their own script for a speech they will give in the next class.

The second class was 8th grade kiku. They were better than the last class with attitude and some of them really get involved. You’ve just got to push them the right way and they’ll do it. They are by far the lowest in English ability, but they are the highest in effort shown. At the beginning of the year, no one would have guessed that because of the students in the class. The big shock in this class was that we didn’t have to tell them a lot for them to already know what to do. They already knew what they had to do for the speech writing. They started to compose their own sentences instead of just filling in the blanks, which is what most of the lazy students have done over the past year. So there is an improvement from last year to this year.

The third class was 7th grade kiku. They worked on the hobbies paper from before. They got a new one today and we were going over it in class, but ran out of time near the end and they ended up just copying it. They didn’t really get to understand any of the information that was discussed on the board.

The last class of the day for me was the 11th grade fuji. They were pretty good today. They needed to get more work done and weren’t as loud as before. I wanted to cover what will be on their oral test on November 8th. I needed to be very specific with what I expect from them so that they know what I’m looking for. But I know that most of them won’t change anything after I’ve told them what I expect. It’s one of those things that I know I’m going to try, but I already know the natural given response.

I stayed for the 7th period class, and watched the Wizard of Oz in the gym on stage. They were pretty good, but they need some work. They have to work on some of their lines and to slow down a little bit. They have some of the attitudes necessary to make it a good performance, but it’s a bit hard to understand their English. So that’s my job to fix it.

English club was a bit long today too. This was the reason why I couldn’t leave till late. They were working on decorations today. Some of the students were working on reports. I ended up doing both. I had to help with making ships because one of our movies is Pirates of the Caribbean. Then I help to make a family tree chart for Star Wars Episode One. It’s not very complicated and one of the few things that was in English so I was able to help with that. I also helped a couple of 10th graders in my Friday class with some computer issues. I’m glad that I was able to help them because the laptops at school are all in Japanese, but I was able to figure it out and to actually be of some help to them.

I had dinner at Yoshinoya today because I know that I would get home very late and not get to bed as early as I wanted, so I needed fast food. When I came home, I talked to one of the teachers at my school. She had called me to talk about something. It was a bit strange, but we’re friends so it was nice to talk to her. We talked for about an hour and I found out some news about some teachers that I was completely oblivious to. So now I’m enlightened by the information. I really enjoy my conversations with her. I kind of wish that we would have more of them though.

tired on Monday

I was so sleepy today. I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I think that is a bad thing. I was sleepy on the train to work and all day at work too.

I only had 3 classes today and I didn’t think that I’d have to use a lot of energy to teach the classes. Usually on Mondays I don’t have to do much, but since the schedule changed, I have to lead a class fourth period.

The first class of the day was 9th grade Yuri and they did their English drama for Heidi. It wasn’t very good at all. They didn’t have the flare that they had last week. They were a bit boring this time and they didn’t add any energy to it. They just said their lines, well most of the time since some of them forgot them. That’s really bad since they’ll have to perform this weekend. I’m not sure if they are just tired of doing it, or just plain tired from all the preparation work.

The 4th period class was 11th grade ran. I just did a demonstration of my speech today and to cover the topics that were going to be on their test. I wanted them to get a chance to see it in action. I messed up on my speech though, which is a bad thing.

5th period was with 7th grade yuri. They understood the hobbies assignment better than the other classes, but that still isn’t saying much since it was confusing to begin with. Most students just did it, but they only copied it from the examples on the board. I don’t think I could really do a good job with it either since it is a bit difficult.

After that I was working on making handouts for the next section for the 11th grade, but I just got stuck. I didn’t know which one to use so I just printed everything out and then tried to see what would work best and in which way. But I couldn’t get it all right and I think that it had to do with me being tired and I couldn’t think straight. It was also hot in the office today too. I think that it peaked at 27 degrees Celsius, which is ridiculously hot for fall.

Then for English club, all I did was help to cut out some of the decorations and letters for some of the words that we will use for a display. It was pretty easy and I showed up late since I was working on making my lesson plans. I didn’t leave school today till around 7:30pm-8pm, which is incredibly late for me and for the students. They were just trying to finish up on their reports and I think that they are happy to have me around to help with the cutting of the cardboard since it is much harder than everyone thought it would be.

I was able to talk to one of my co-workers today, for a little bit of time during the English club time when everyone else was just re-writing the reports. I think it was a good conversation, she let me know that she’s going to be a part-time teacher next semester and that we have a plan to meet on November 1st to see a movie. The first of the month is always a movie day for everyone, so that’s what we’ll do too. I think that she’s very stressed, but she’s thinking about a lot of things too and I’m just wondering what it could be. I’d like to help her out, but I think I’ve got issues all on my own.

Yoke meeting and Charlie and the Chocolate factory

I only had one thing to do today, but little did I know that it would turn out to be so much more than that. I had awakened later than I thought that I would since I wanted to do laundry today in the morning. I started that around 11am and needed to leave by 11:30am to get to Sakuragicho station by 1pm, but I had finished everything a little early and got to the area about 15 minutes early. So I decided to get lunch at Wendys, and I think that it’s a little bit more expensive than I thought it would be. I only ordered a hamburger but it was double what I thought it would and should be, but I think that it might have been overpriced because of the location of it. It’s located in the landmark tower, which is the tallest building in Japan.

I got to the meeting area a little early too and ran into a lot of old friends. It was a pretty good meeting, but I felt a bit out of it because they were asking me questions that I didn’t know how to answer appropriately, and that’s very uncharacteristic of me. So now I’m wondering what had happened since I’ve started living in Japan. How I been losing what I’ve been known to be skilled at?

Even EK showed up to the meeting, and it was after all the people were looking at me to get a hold of him. I think that everyone has been worried about him, so they asked me to do it, but then he showed up. The timing was impeccable and it did save me a lot of work.

After the meeting we took APa to Bic Camera to exchange a laptop bag because the bag was too small for his laptop, which he says is top of the line Dell Experion. He told me that the laptops in the US are much better than the ones in Japan because last time he was in Japan, he was looking for a new laptop to buy here.

We were late for a dinner meeting with the YOKE crew in Chinatown. We needed to test the meal that the delegates will have next month. It was pretty good, but I thought it was average for Chinese food. But everyone liked it and I enjoyed it too.

After that we took APa to Shinagawa station because he needed to go back home, since he now lives in Gifu. That’s a bit far from Yokohama, and it was fun to go with everyone there. Then everyone had to go home, so EK and I went to hang out in Kawasaki. I kept on telling him that I wanted to watch a movie and he kept telling me that he was hungry. So we went to the movie theater to see what’s playing and I think that he wanted to see Charlie and the Chocolate factory more than I did because I can’t deny that I didn’t want to see it. The first theater that we went too didn’t have an English version that was a late showing, so we went to another. They did and it was very cheap only around 1200 yen. So now I know that all movies after 8pm are that price, so I might go to see movies more often.

We grabbed a bite to eat after we got movie tickets. Actually he got some food and I just had some French fries. We were talking about taking a trip and we decided that we’d both go to Taiwan together. That works out perfectly because I’ll be able to meet up with friends there and I’ll have someone to go with and take pictures for me… hehe. I think it’s always better to go with friends. I’ve realized lately that I don’t have many close friends anymore and probably no one that I could call my best friend. But then I don’t go out much, so I think that I will need to do that more often or I’ll go crazy.

The movie itself doesn’t stray from the original too much, but it is weirder. I liked it, but it was weird, but very Tim Burton. I didn’t like the oompa loompa songs in this one as much as I liked it in the original. But that’s pretty hard to beat.

After the movie I came home and showered and typed this entry. I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt today doing a very summer style since today was such a beautiful day. At night was a bit chilly but it reminded me of nights in San Diego, so I was cool with that.

Family will come on Christmas, Shin-sugita

I spent the majority of the day at home. I was just reading the news of the day, but today seemed to be uneventful since the news was based on yesterday’s events. Nothing really caught my attention too. I was pretty interested in the open-source topic about the new OpenOffice.org suite.

I talked to my family for a good chunk of the day. We talked about a lot of things. I found out today that I don’t have any pets anymore. My house is completely different from the last time I saw it in March, all my friends have changed and my sister is annoyed with my other sister because of a silly bear. I also found out when my family will come to Japan. I think it’s pretty much final since all the other days are booked, but the problem is that I might not be able to take them out on some of the days because I might be on a trip for school on some of them.

Then I left and decided to get dinner in Shin Sugita. I’ve been there a few times, but today I walked around outside and saw things that I never saw before. I think it was good. I went around and did a little shopping too. I wanted to check out some of the models for cell phones and laptops that Kojima has, but they didn’t have a very good selection of things that I wanted.

Friday, a rather good day

The first class today was 2nd period with 11th grade kiku. The plan is to give them their movie report papers. I was able to get them their papers and most were able to finish. They have a unique characteristic about them that they always complete their work even though it’s not the best. They will do enough to get the job done and it will get their message across, but I don’t think they pay much attention to grammar. They are a good class though. We were lucky that we got most of them checked before class finished. They have about 3 weeks to memorize their speeches to be able to present them in a well-organized manner. I think I’ll be a bit stricter on the grading for this test because the listening test was a breeze for most of the students.

The 3rd period class today was 7th grade ran was a day of hobbies. We spent the whole class working on a piece of paper that we worked on before in other classes that listed hobbies that went with the appropriate verb. I think it was too hard for the 7th grade level and the English ability would have had to been at least high school. The explanation was a bit hard to follow too, but we pushed the students to do it and do their best to get it done. During the last few minutes we practiced their English drama for Beauty and the Beast.

The 4th period class was 9th grade ran. The only thing that we did today was practice the drama for Annie. They were damn good. It came as a shock at how good they actually were. I knew going in that they really like to work on the English drama, more than they like English, or any other subject matter, or even school. But they were adding in their own lines and tell each other how to say the lines and act it out. It was really self-teaching in this class, and they did a very good job. I would say the best in the Junior high school. They did need some help at some points, but they were pretty spot on with all the lines and with all the gestures. They were a bit scary how good they were with playing the antagonist and protagonist.

At lunch I gave a listening test for one of my students who got a perfect score. As much as that’s good for her, that’s bad for me because I made the test too easy for them. But at first I thought that it might be too hard, but later I realized that it’s too easy. So the next test will be very hard to compensate for the easiness of this one.

The 5th period class was 10th grade Yuri was about weather. I know that it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but it’s important. But today we sped through the lesson in the book. I mean we did cover a lot of information today. We covered like 6 pages in the text book, when we usually only cover one or two. And then we played the weatherman rap CD and that’s where we finished. They were doing well today and trying to speak English with each other. They did a very good job and I think that is one of the reasons why today is a good day. I wasn’t prepared to teach this class, since I wasn’t really motivated myself to teach such a poor lesson, but I do what I have to do.

The last class of the day was 7th grade fuji. We also did the lesson on hobbies today. It took up the whole period because they didn’t quite understand what they were supposed to do today. They had the sheet of paper, but they got it before we could really explain. It was difficult for them to get started because sometimes they just don’t care about it. But they were able to do it, at least for the most part, but some of the students have to finish for their homework. At the end of the class we did the English play for Beauty and the Beast.

After school I just had to hang out for a little bit. The beginning I was giving a listening comprehension test for the students who were absent on the day that it was given originally. That only took up 10 minutes and then the students were free to go to their clubs. I on the other hand had another 1.5 hours left before English club started. I was just doing various things to kill time before English club started. All we did today in English club was fix the mistakes on the reports for Batman Begins. They forgot to leave space for a picture, so they had to erase and start over again. We managed to finish it today, so two of the 4 reports are finished. That’s good and I think that the club is making very good progress to complete it for the Culture festival.

I came home and stopped by Saizeria to have dinner. It wasn’t very bad at all, but there were too many students there and I think that contributed to the noisiness of the restaurant though. But I was only there to eat anyways, so I didn’t really mind.

another day at home

I wasn’t really motivated to do much today. I had wanted to go out and do something, but something compelled me not to. I’ve been getting very lazy right now and it’s really taking a toll on me mentally and physically. I’m not happy about it either. I slept in very late till it got warm and it actually did get warm today. The sun was shining and it would have been a perfect day to go out and do something. But instead I just stayed at home and did nothing.

I watched a movie today after making dinner which really only consisted of a sandwich. But I made a lot of them that I couldn’t even finish it. I wanted to make another dish too, but I couldn’t get around it finishing it or even starting it for that matter. I watched the last episode for everyone loves Raymond for the first season. I can’t believe that I’m done with the first season already.

The movie that I saw today was Bad Boys 2, which was very long. It was over the top too, but I liked it. I’m not sure why it had to be so long and its story is completely unrealistic, but it’s a Michael Bay film and it’s pretty usual to have a lot of action and stunts that are completely fake, but it looks cool.

I think I’m getting closer to making a movie about my first year in Japan. I’ve got some ideas and I think that I’m going to use a simple program to put it all together. I need to do more research on that.

And another thing, I think that I’ll be going to Taiwan next month and I’m pretty sure about it. I want to see my good friend ALiu since I haven’t seen or talked to her in a long time. I wanted to see how she’s doing since I couldn’t be with her after her car accident in July. I’ve thought about my friends a lot lately and the things that are going on in their lives. I’m wondering if it was a good idea to come to Japan and leave them all behind like I did. Since none of my friends really read this, I’m wondering what I’ve done with my life since then. I moved because I wanted a better life, but I already had a good life to begin with. So now I ask myself, what’s next? I’ve been asking myself for the past year and a half and I still have no idea how to answer that.

A regular Wednesday

I was a bit late to get going this morning. Since Wednesdays are the only days that I have first period now, it’s when I need to leave the house when it’s dark outside still. It’s really cold at that time so I cough up a storm because of the thin cold air. It’s really hard to breathe at that time of day.

I managed to get to school before class started, but not by a lot of time. I usually get to school about 50 minutes before class starts in case there is a delay with the trains that I need to take. But that also guarantees that on days like this I won’t end up being late for work. I got to school around 8:30am, when I usually get to school around 8am on Wednesdays. I had to get all my stuff ready since I start off the day with my class. It’s a bit weird for me because of the 5 days I have work during the week, I start the day being the lead teacher 3 days a week. It’s not really good for me because I haven’t gotten into the swing of things yet.

My first class today was 11th grade Yuri and I just did what I did yesterday. That was giving them their papers for their movie report. They were really good today and it was almost strange. It gave me more confidence in what I’m doing, but it was a rare case that things went very smooth today. Things didn’t go that smooth yesterday even though I did the same thing. So I’m wondering if it’s the students or if it’s me. I want to know that if it’s something with me, how I can change it so it’s much better for everyone. I know that some students are better than others, but I’ve got to find a way to balance everything.

The second class of the day was with 8th grade yuri. It was weird how we started the class, but things were otherwise normal. We did the lesson on horoscopes today and they just followed along in their textbooks.

Third period was with the 10th grade Fuji class, and this class is just eerie. It’s very creepy because they are the epitome of a good class, but it’s strange because of the feeling that you get being in the classroom. They listen very attentively and they are very quiet that you could hear everything very clearly. Some of the students understand, but it’s very unsettling how they are all there, but they aren’t there at all. They take notes when they aren’t told to and they want to learn, but aren’t really skilled in English. It’s only weird, I guess, because of all the other classes that we’ve had this week were very loud and some were the opposite. But it was a good start for today.

Fourth is off for me so I just chilled and opened up my souvenirs that I got from all the other teachers from their school trips. I got some new things to decorate my desk with. I want to change things around in November and to make my desk more student oriented having pictures of all the classes from the past year and all the festivals this year. I want to get more pictures with students and of every class and every grade so that the students wouldn’t feel left out. I think I’m going to make a collage so that people can come to my desk and check it out. I think the students would like it and it’ll give me something to show off.

Fifth period was with 9th grade kiku and we just did the wizard of oz today. They were pretty spot on, but some need to memorize their lines a little better. They are gifted in English and at least like to play their roles in English dramas. I think it’ll be harder to get their attention next year when we don’t have English dramas to pull them in. But I could always use the equivalent to teach them.

Sixth period was a bit strange for me because we had a new teacher in the room today and she’s replacing their homeroom teacher for 9th grade fuji. The new teacher is tall. She’s cute too, but her English level isn’t as high as the other teachers. She seems nice and is a graduate student right now. She made a mistake and thought that she was coming with us for the class during 5th period, but in fact, she needed to come with us to this class. She seemed very nervous in front of students as I’m sure that’s natural. She’s probably never really been in a teaching situation with two native English speakers whose personalities are different. But I think it’s a good way for her to get adjusted to life at our school. She doesn’t have much of a role in teaching so she could watch and learn, and since I’m leading the class its more pressure for me to get everything understood correctly and effectively.

In club we just worked on finishing the reports because like last week and the week before we were booted out of the L.L. because it was being used for an after school class. So we were in room 105 waiting for the reports to get approved, which they were and then the students started writing those. CP left early today, which is around 5pm, but I stayed till around 7pm. There were a lot of students that needed to leave early too, but that’s ok, since I think we are a bit ahead of schedule and I think that we’ll be all ready and prepped up for next week since it’s the last week and everything will be prepared for the festival.

I had dinner at MOS burger and ate a bit more than I think that I should have. I got the usual thing that I always get when I go there, but it was a lot today. I really felt stuffed as I left the restaurant. I know that I can eat a lot, but lately it seems that I can’t get it off either. That’s bad, very very bad.

a usual Tuesday

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. I had my usual 4 classes and they were their usual selves. I did have breakfast this morning at home instead of at work, and that caused me to be very hungry before lunch.

The first class was 8th grade ran and they were loud today. I had to take a paper away from a student because it was work from another class. I don’t want to be doing things like that, but it was really getting on my nerves today. Since the Japanese English teacher never helps in this class. She actually adds to the noise that the students make because she’s just having a conversation with them instead of encouraging them to listen. That’s bad on her part and it really does take away from the students. It’s a shame because they have the possibility to improve their English to such a high level too, but they just don’t give a shit to study or even pay attention. And I know that there are many things that contribute to this too.

The next class though was another 8th grade class. Kiku is the lowest English level, but at least they pay attention and they try. I have one of the toughest students in this class, but in this class, she’s working very hard, so I’m happy about that. Last year when she was in the 7th grade, she was almost expelled because she kept on destroying school property and being disruptive in class. She didn’t care about anything and I felt for her homeroom teacher who was having many difficulties with her, but this year she’s a changed person. She hasn’t broken anything in a long while, and she’s really trying in my class. Today she asked to sit in the front of the room so she could see better, she forgot her book, so I let her borrow mine and she was taking notes and everything. I mean no one takes notes at this school, so I was shocked to see her taking notes. It’s a contrast because the students who could speak English and are very talented take it for granted, while these students bust their butts and really make an effort to learn. It really shows.

The class after that was 7th grade kiku. At first I thought their English level was very high, but now I just think that they are just fair. From working with them at the Hakone Seminar over the summer, I realized that they need a little more work. We started something different with them today since they have more classes than the other classes do. We did a little activity with matching verbs to go with the right activity. It wasn’t explained very clearly since I don’t really understand the point, but I think that they did the best that they could. Although I feel that it wasn’t really their best work. I don’t really think that today they were trying really hard. We pretty much did this for the whole period and had them in groups to work in matching verbs with activities.

The 11th grade fuji class today was a bit out of control. I think that I don’t like it when my 11th grade classes are out of control. All I did today was give them time to work on their speech manuscript. Some students started composing it today and finished it today, which lead me to believe that I’m wasting a lot of time if I’m spreading it over a couple of weeks. CP thinks that I’m too nice to them, but I’m just making them do things in steps, but I think for the next section I’m going to have to push them a little harder and not give them so much time to write and memorize. I need to add some thinking activities in there and to get them to communicate better. It was getting very hectic with the papers too. I needed to make sure that I got all the papers so that I could trade papers back and forth and so they would take the necessary steps. But I’m being too anal about the steps and I think that on the next test, they are completely responsible for their own learning. I think that I’m walking them through it and holding their hand when I shouldn’t be. So I’m going to give them a little rude awakening on the next section, but it will be more research oriented and be in partners. That in itself should make it harder.

English club after school was very productive. Most of the girls in the club showed up today and we finished a lot of things. I think that we will really be able to finish before next weeks’ deadline and we will get everything together in time. So I’m happy about that. I got to leave earlier today so I got dinner at Bamiyan. It stopped raining on the way home, so that’s good too. I just know that today was a day that I needed to reflect on how I’m teaching and that there are many things that I still need to improve on.

The beginning of a schedule change

I have three classes today and one that I’m leading. It was nice to start very late in the morning. Since I’m used to getting up so early, it’s nice to be able to sleep in for a little bit. So I took my dandy time and of course, I end up getting out of my house later than I wanted to because I just lag in the morning.

The first class of the day was with the 9th grade yuri class. The only thing that we were going to work on today was the English drama for the cultural festival. They only get two practices in front of the native speakers and since it’s coming up in two weeks, they’ve really got to get on it. They were actually pretty good. The only thing that stopped them from being perfect was the fact that they didn’t memorize their lines yet. They just need to get that and I would think that they rank up there with the best performances. They have the attitude and the gestures and even the attitudes. They are doing the play for Heidi, and this is the first time that I’ve seen or heard it at the school or ever for that matter. I thought it was pretty good, although I don’t really follow the story.

The second class of the day was my 11th grade ran. It was 4th period and I really haven’t gotten my groove back. I think things are a little bit hectic and I’m not sure how I’m going to go about fixing it either. I think that everything that I planned went perfectly, but when the other teacher suggested something and I couldn’t really not listen to her, it messed things up a little bit. I wanted them to finish writing their papers and then at the end give it to me so that I could correct them. But they finished faster than I thought that they would finish. But at the end of class, I just had everyone give me all their papers and I would figure everything out in the teacher’s office. I really never did figure it out, but I think that things will just work out in the end. I think that some students will be better than others with the organizing of it and start to memorize it. But I don’t think that things will work out as perfectly as I thought it would have.

The last class of the day was 7th grade yuri. I was a bit spaced out in this class because the lesson was a bit boring. Since I wasn’t leading and it was after lunch, I just kind of spaced out for a little bit. That’s very usual for me after lunch. The girls in this class are good so I didn’t need to worry about them for anything. They figured it out and I think that the lesson was too easy for them. We were working to get them caught up with the rest of the 7th grade classes. We were working on the topic of sports and if they liked sports or not. At the end of class, we did a little of their English Reader’s theater for the English festival in December.

English club was a bit long today too. I didn’t have anything to do, but the girls that showed up had a lot of work to do. There really wasn’t anything that I could do to help them either. They were working on posters since it was due the next day. They needed to work to get them finished in time. I must say that their drawings are very good and I’m impressed. I didn’t end up leaving school till around 7:30pm and that’s really really late.

I got dinner at Yoshinoya and got home as fast as I could in the pouring rain. I needed to get some rest so I could start out tomorrow with enough rest.

A calm day at home

I don’t really have plans today. I really need to get to my laundry though. I’m running out of clothes. I downloaded the new version of AIM triton beta, still filled with spyware. It’s got a lot more than the last version and it’s hard to get rid of some things in the program. I talked to some old friends that I haven’t talked to in a long time. They are really pushing me to send them postcards, so I will get that ready soon and have them mailed soon.

The rest of the day was just updating my blog. I really didn’t get far with it either. I only finished the ones for today, and it’s not long and yesterday. I wanted to get all of October finished then I could try to get the older ones finished too. I’ll want to take my disk to the Language Lab to catch up so I could finally update my xanga.

Around 4pm today there was a fairly big earthquake. It shook my house for about a minute, but I think that everything seems to be ok. I haven’t felt an earthquake like that in a long while. But it wasn’t anything that anyone would be afraid of. I think the biggest one I’ve felt was when YSki was here for summer and we were out and about in the Kannai area, which was pretty big.

I ate the spaghetti today, it was ok too. It wasn’t anything great, but if I were to eat it all yesterday, but it was enough to get me full and that was its purpose. I also watched two episodes of Everyone Loves Raymond. One of them was really good and the other was ok. Then I enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate. It was a nice day of nothing in particular to be honest with you.

Hanging out at MTki's house

I really didn’t do much today since I woke up really late. I didn’t get up till 3pm. I just kept on sleeping, I woke up a few times, but ended up going back to sleep. I think it might have been because I was so tired from the day before.

I made lunch after I was talking to my family. They have decided when they will come to Japan, so that’s very good. The time has been set for December 21st to January 3rd, but then I forget about the teachers’ trip to Kyoto this December. I’m hoping that it’s before my family comes to Japan, but I’m not sure that it will be. I think that it will coincide and that won’t be good for them or for me. The whole time I was talking to my family, it was all about the trip they will take in December. They have set the date and will probably buy the tickets very soon. Now that these things have come up, I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it.

Then I made myself a spaghetti dinner. I bought a lot of spaghetti so I have to eat all of it before next year when it goes bad. So this will be a common meal that I will make. I started to get everything cooked and ready and popped in Bad Boys II to watch on TV, but then MTki invited me to have dinner at their house. So I decided to go since that would be better for me to have dinner over there and save the spaghetti for tomorrow. I think that it will still be good. I had everything ready and I even tasted it and it was good. I’m happy that I’ve started to cook for myself, it’s really something that I didn’t do in the U.S. but have started to and now I’m really beginning to take care of myself. I think that I’ve saved a lot of money this way too.

They had oden and other types of food. There was this very delicious salad and tofu. I really enjoyed dinner over there. I was able to eat a lot of food while I was there since I’ve had some practice a few days before with all the eating on the school trip. Some of the foods that I had were different in taste than I had before. I thought it was very good although everyone else thought it was just average. But I think that it’s because they know what it’s supposed to taste like and I’m not in tune with their tastes. Since some of them like some pretty nasty things like natto. There was a lot of conversation and I stayed there for a long time. I think it might have been for at least 5 hours watching TV and movies and talking some of the time. We had some ice cream and then I left to return home after I spilt a glass of water on myself trying to get something. They were going to go karaoke, but I decided that I wouldn’t go. I had enough smoke in my lungs to last me for the rest of the year. It was pretty bad and I realized that when my mom meets them in December, it probably won’t be a good thing. But it’s ok; everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

Then I came home to type this entry and to shower. I needed to get all the smoke out of my hair and off my body. It was a little strong for me today. I also wanted to get all the dog hair off of my body too. That was it for the day, pretty simple and nothing really exciting. Oh yeah, I would mention that I did see a bit of Bulletproof monk today, but it wasn’t really that great. I couldn’t really hear it either since everyone was talking a tad bit too loud for me to hear.

Trip to Parque Espana, the Spanish Village

I had a nice time today. After last night, I had such a good rest to start today. I was so happy and relaxed you couldn’t believe it. We had to all get up by 7am, but I woke up a little earlier, around 6:30am to be more exact. I woke up even before the alarm went off and just chilled in my room for a little bit. I took my time to get ready and wanted to get out of the room early enough to go downstairs to mail a postcard to myself and to my family. I don’t have many people’s addresses so I couldn’t send any more than that.

We all had breakfast in the room that we had dinner last night. It was your traditional western style mixed with Japanese breakfast. It was pretty good for hotel food, but last night’s dinner was pretty good too and then after breakfast the students got all packed up and ready to leave. There wasn’t that much time from the end of breakfast to the time we all had to be on the bus so everyone was rushing for a little bit. We took the bus to the Spain Village, even though it was next door, and I mean less than 300 meters away. We took the bus because we wanted all the students to carry their stuff onto the bus and leave it there. I think the bus took us further away from where we were before which is really weird, but it took us to a place where we could get our class pictures taken. I took a picture with 11th grade Yuri, pretty much the same as last year’s picture, but there are a few new students in the class. The background was the park’s entrance, which isn’t too flattering, but it is a nice picture. There are some other people in the background too, but there’s nothing we could really do about that. Then we got ready to go into the theme park.

I rode on the Pyrenees one first. It was pretty good. The whole day I only went on 3 rides, but that was enough for me. Once you go on the fastest ride there first, the rest don’t seem to measure up. It’s nothing like Magic Mountain, and it’s more like Knott’s Berry Farm way back in the day when they only had a few rides at the park. After the ride, Mr. Suzuki and Ms. Katsuyama and I just rested for a little bit. It was pretty hot during the midday and I thought that it was unusual since the forecast said that it would be raining today. We chilled right out in front after taking some pictures and getting some video taken for the yearbook. We then talked to some students before we needed to leave to get some lunch. I thought that lunch would start at noon time, since that’s when normal people eat lunch, but we actually had it at 11am.

In the late morning we had lunch. It was a nice Ise lobster with steak combo. It reminded me of the lunch I had in Okinawa from the style of them cooking the steak and lobster. It was damn delicious. I still think that the one from Okinawa was better, but I don’t want to take anything away from how good this meal was too. It was nice and fancy and they dressed us up in bibs and everything so that we wouldn’t get all messy eating. How thoughtful of them, but it really was delicious because you can see it all getting cooked right in front of you. The smell was awesome and my mouth was just salivating just watching the chef prepare it. It was enough food too, and not too much. I thought that was good since the VP told me that I had to go on more rides since I only went on one by the time we had lunch.

We went on a ride very soon after lunch. Mr. Suzuki and I went with a group of girls in the 11th grade Fuji class. It was the Gran Montserrat ride. It was pretty good and it wasn’t enough to get me sick, although I felt a bit ill before the ride. I think that most of these girls are clued in that I know a little Japanese. I think that they think I know Japanese very well. But I think their English is better than my Japanese. They’ve been suspicious for a long time and since I’m going on all these trips with them and all the teachers only speak Japanese, I think that they believe that I speak Japanese. It’s a bit of a dangerous situation.

Then there was a parade in the middle of the day. It didn’t last very long and it wasn’t really spectacular or anything, but the people there were actually from Spain. So I was able to speak a little Spanish with them. That was pretty cool. I took many pictures, they didn’t turn out well, but I did take them. After that since it was so hot, I chilled out a little bit.

The last ride that I went on after the parade really sucked. It was horrible because there was a lot of stopping and starting and it wasn’t very stimulating because we had to wait a little while for it to start. The operator was waiting for more people to join, since the theme park was really empty. So a lot of time was wasted just sitting there and then it was a herky-jerky ride and your head would get tossed around like a ping pong ball. It reminded me a lot of Disneyland’s Space Mountain, but not as exciting and not as good.

I had a bad headache after that and that lasted for most of the way home and then some. It was nice to get some sleep on the train, even though it was a bit awkward because I was sitting next to one of my students and she’s on the tennis team. I’m glad that we were able to talk for at least a little while. I wanted to talk to her more so that she could speak more English, but my headache just wasn’t going to go away, so I just had to take it and get some rest. I didn’t get to talk much since she took a nap too. Actually a majority of the students took a nap on the train back to Tokyo. We took two trains so some went to sleep and got up to go back to sleep again. I think at this point everyone was a bit exhausted.

After the trips, most of the teachers met up at Tokyo station and then there was dinner. We had dinner at the building next to Tokyo station actually closer to Yurakucho station; it’s a place near MTka’s workplace. It was very nice and of course we ended up eating a lot. I had a very good position because of where I was sitting. I wasn’t sitting at a table with all the important people and sat next to the newer and younger teachers. So I really enjoyed my dinner there. The food was good and the conversations were good too. I had fun and a lot to eat, and then I was glad to be at home after such a long day. I mean I had to take the train for over an hour to get to my home station and then walk home and it started to rain a little. That wasn’t very fun, but when I got home and showered, I was glad that it was over and finished. I had fun, but just my body couldn’t take it anymore. I think it might have been because I was really relaxed yesterday.

a busy Wednesday

Today was very hectic and almost too busy for me. I didn’t end up leaving school till around 7:30pm and that’s really late since I have to get up at 4:30am tomorrow morning. I had to get up at 5am this morning to get to work on time. I was lucky that I actually made it early since I left my house late. I did a fast walk to the station and got on the right trains to get me to work on time. I had noticed that from the first class, things were very different. One of the teachers that I work with, actually one of the Japanese English partners that I have won’t be coming back anymore. At least if she does, she won’t be teaching with me in the Oral classes. That’s a bit sad, but I’m happy for her and their family.

First period was with the 11th grade yuri and we covered the movie verbs. Usually when I did this lesson, there was a listening test right before it. But today that didn’t happen so I had to drag what normally would be a 20 minute lesson into something longer. But the students weren’t really participating so I had to give them more time to work. So I did that and then had them present a little at the end of class.

Second period was with 8th grade yuri, and we had a substitute for the Japanese English teacher. We did the rap for American Cousin practicing for the British Hills trip for the 8th graders tomorrow, but some of them didn’t seem interested. They were quieter than usual and I think it’s because of our substitute. She’s a bit strict and doesn’t seem very friendly. She is nice to me though, so I have no problems, but I could also understand the students. She’s usually yelling at the students to not run in the halls. She’s been at the school for a long time and actually was a student at the school back in the day too. We finished the lesson with a paper for British Hills.

Third period was with the 10th grade fuji and we started a new topic on weather. The class was very dead today. I mean there really wasn’t any reaction at all. I’m glad I wasn’t leading the class, although my first two classes were very quiet too. I didn’t think that the lesson was all so exciting myself, I mean how much fun could talking about weather be right? But they were really too quiet even for me. After that, we tried a little wake up with the Weatherman Rap. It was a bit too fast for them to catch most of the words but they were able to do a little bit of it and at least get exposed to it.

Fourth period was off for me, so I did a lot of my grading during this time. There was an open school session, so people were walking in and out of the office. My goal with the grading was to finish it by the end of the day so that I could get it back to the students and that would be more stuff off my desk and it would give the students a lot of time to finish it too.

Fifth period was with 9th grade kiku. We just started working on the English drama and this class is doing the Wizard of Oz. They didn’t get a practice in last week because of a mix up on the schedule with the other teacher. I felt like we were wasting a bit of time making a lot of corrections in this class and it was too late to change things because they already started memorizing them. So I thought it would have been better just to go with it. But I’m not sure my partner thought the same way. She was pushing it too hard as if it was easy for them to snap out of it and to change it really quick. But they were on target and did a fairly good job. It was the first time that any of the teachers got to see them perform and they were pretty good.

The sixth period was with 9th grade fuji. We worked on the English play for Annie today. They were great today, but they hadn’t gotten any of the changes that we made last week since the teacher was absent and hasn’t seen the class for a long time. Last week, I just had them go through it, but I didn’t do any correcting. Since today we had a new teacher join us too, it was better for them to go and then fix things after the scene. I wanted to make some changes to some lines and only squeezed in part of them. Some students openly accepted the changes, while others said it was impossible. I’m glad that it all worked out and it went smoothly. I really enjoy teaching this class, so it was all good. Their song was wonderful too. Although I personally like the somewhere over the rainbow song better, the students in this class sung better.

After school I was working on finishing up the grading. Then I started to alter my class schedule since the teacher will be leaving, a class went from Friday to Monday, which completely changes the dynamic of my syllabus. So I needed to make a new one. Then for English club, they were working on their things. I helped cut out some batman symbols. It wasn’t very good at all, but at least it was fun.

It took a long time to figure out the schedule and to get everything order, since I was on my own to do it and I just figured that it would work best to keep it close to the old one, but just alter a few things here and there. It worked out with only having 2 extra classes instead of 5. But that won’t come until 2006, so there is plenty of time to figure it out then, since I feel the schedule will change again.

I had dinner at McDonalds tonight. I haven’t eaten there in a long time. Come to think about it, I haven’t eaten at a restaurant in a long time either. Then I came home and started packing for the trip to Iseshima. I was talking to my friend CNto for a little bit. We were mostly talking about a mutual friend of ours and their situation with someone. It’s a bit difficult, but I think that in the end everything will work out fine. It’s almost midnight and I have to get up in a few hours so I’m going to get some shut eye.

a pretty typical Tuesday

Nothing exciting happened today. So I don’t really have much to report. I’ve been a bit more annoyed with my teaching partner and I think all the Japanese English teachers agree with me too. It’s distracting when I’m teaching class and it is for them too.

The first class today was the 8th grade ran. They were inattentive like usual and didn’t really care today. We were focusing on getting them ready for British Hills since that will be on Thursday. We listened to the rap for American Cousin again. We worked on a little worksheet that went with the song. We didn’t go into that for very long before we moved onto the next thing. It was pretty good, but nothing too special. Then we went over some vocabulary and other things. We finished with a dialogue in the book.

The second class was 8th grade kiku. They were surprisingly loud and talkative today. I was really about to give up teaching this class and I really didn’t want to. After a little bit and all the distractions from my teaching partner, I kind of gave up in the middle and didn’t teach with the enthusiasm that I usually teach with. I’m letting her affect my teaching ability and I really don’t like that. We didn’t get that far in this class. Since they are lower level I had to go a bit slower for them to understand and that usually means that they aren’t able to keep up or even do the same activities in the other classes.

The third class today was 7th grade kiku. They are usually a good bunch and that was no exception today. We worked on sports and I thought we were going to start doing something with music since we had a music handout, but it didn’t end up that way. I really have no idea where they are going with this class since the syllabus still hasn’t been figured out. I think that’s a bad thing for the students to have the teacher be so disorganized and not know where the class is going or even what direction. I find it very hypocritical to be nagging on me that I’m not going where I want them to go and to have someone always in the back of the room telling me what to do, when she has no idea where her classes are or where they are going.

The last class of the day for me was 11th grade fuji. They had their listening comprehension test. They struggled a little bit more than the other classes, but most did well or fairly well. I didn’t think that the test would be that easy, but it was very easy as it turned out. So the next test will have to be much harder so the points will be different at the end of the semester. I also gave them time to finish up writing their summaries for their speeches. It looks like for most people their speeches will be very short.

After class, I noticed that I was finished for the day. It went by really fast today and I’m not sure why. It just zipped on by and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad either. I didn’t go the English Club meeting till and I absolutely had to. I wanted to avoid contact with them for a little while.

The trip back to Tokyo, Canadian Thanksgiving

The day started pretty early since we’d have to get up around 4am to start on our trip back to Tokyo. I got dropped off at Den-en chofu station. I’ve never been there before. It’s not a great shopping area, but it’s a nice looking area. Then we took the local trains back home. I was dead tired by this time. It was only a group of 4 of us making the trip that early in the morning.

I arrived home around 7am and then just hit the sack. I was a bit tired and really couldn’t do much. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry or tired or just sick, but I think that rest would be nice. So I took a nap till around 3pm, then I would have to get ready to go to the Canadian dinner in Harajuku at Good Honest Grub. The time changed from 6:30pm to 6pm. So I’m in a bit of a hurry now to get ready and go. I want to get a haircut today too.

A little update: I was able to get my haircut today and I did it really quick. I cut my hair and took a shower all under 30 minutes before I had to go. That’s really fast since I usually take much longer to do both. I didn’t do that bad of a job this time too. It’s not perfect, but it’s not noticeable either. I left after I called my English Dept. Chair because we were going to meet at the station.

I arrived at Shibuya station a little early, so I decided to walk to Harajuku. I ended up being a little late, but that was ok since the restaurant isn’t too far from the station and we had some time to talk. Oh yeah, there was big news yesterday that I didn’t put on my journal, but one of the teachers at my school is pregnant. That’s great news since she’s one of my closest friends at the school. But that means I won’t be seeing much of her anymore since she’ll be gone after March and she’ll be at school on and off. This will complicate things at the school, but it’s wonderful for their family, so I’m happy for them. They were one of the first couples to make me feel welcomed at the school, so I’m a bit sad to see that I won’t be seeing much of her.

The dinner was pretty good. It was a lot of food, but from the first look only. I think that since we were the last to get our order, it was a bit small, but still enough to get me really full. It just looked like everyone around us got more, but no one could finish it. Everyone in our group could finish, but our group was only 3 people. I thought that there would be more people going, but it turned out to be a bad weekend for everyone since they were all busy. We had a good conversation about things and the scoring of tests, which evidently we still haven’t figured out yet. I tried a Canadian Bloody Caesar, which is similar to a Bloody Mary, and it was pretty good. It had a nice kick to it that I really enjoyed. We didn’t do anything afterwards since there’s school tomorrow. That was pretty much my day. It was a day of sleep and then eating only one meal.

Okutama

Today, the only plan was to go to a part-time teacher’s BBQ in Okutama. Do you know where Okutama is? Me either, but I learned that it’s actually in the Tokyo area and considered part of Tokyo. It’s a mountainous area famous for its campsites and BBQ facilities. I woke up really early today when my e-mail on my cell phone rang at 7:30am. I had slept late last night to get ready for such an event since I know that we won’t be sleeping till very late.

I left my house around 10am to get to Shinjuku station by 12pm. That was the meeting time for a part of the teachers going in the first group. It was pretty interesting to tell you the truth. I met one of my co-worker’s husband there. Then we took a two hour long train ride from Shinjuku to Okutama station via the Ome line.

Since we were the first group to arrive, we started getting things ready for the BBQ. It was supposed to start at 2pm, and since I only had a little breakfast today and no lunch, I was getting very hungry. But we were getting things ready to eat, so that was good, but you know that when you get things ready, it takes forever before you actually get to eat.

We ate for a long time after the cooking started. I think it started around 3pm and lasted till around 7:30pm. Then half of the group left to go home, while the other group that was staying the night, or the group that I fell in, would go to the Onsen to take a bath.

When we finished with the bath, we went back to the lodge to get some more snacks and drinks. We did this till around 1am. Then we all went to sleep. But we had to get up early to go back to Tokyo since there were things other teachers had to do there even though it was our day off. I had to get up at 4am to go back to Tokyo.

home all day, it was humid today

It’s been very humid lately. I really don’t like it because even though I’m just sitting at home, I’m not very comfortable at all. Plus I start to fall asleep easier when it’s humid hot.

I didn’t do much, but just stay home today. I thought about getting my hair cut, but I think that I’ll either do that on Monday or sometime next week when I manage to find the time. I need to do it before I go on my school trip though. I think that’s the when I want it done by.

I watched I, Robot today. It’s an interesting movie. I liked it, but I think that’s because I like all movies. It was good though and it was good how they tied everything together in the story. I like those kinds of movies where everything makes sense in the end and it tells a lot of the story. I’m a techy kind of guy, so I like movies involving a lot of technology and the concept of Artificial Intelligence. That’s part of the reason why I liked the movie.

I cooked some lunch today, but realized that I was missing some ingredients, but I made it work out anyways, so I’m happy about that. It was very simple, but I wanted to eat something with it. I had it, but it already went bad, so I thought that it would be better if I just passed on that instead of eating things that are expired. I found that a lot of the stuff that I have had already expired, so I’ve been spending a little bit of time to trash it a little at a time. I don’t want it to stink up the whole place either, but there are only so many days I can throw out the trash and all that other good stuff.

I watched a lot of episodes of Everyone loves Raymond today. I think that they aren’t as good as the first few episodes, but they are still funny. I like the humor that Ray has and the way that they all act well together. It’s really good how they do it.

I went out to get dinner tonight and to get a new supply of drinks in case there was an Earthquake and I needed something to drink, I have a large supply for myself to last probably a month. So that’s good for my emergency kit. I still need to get a new 5 kilogram bag of rice. I’m running a bit and dangerously low on that. But I’ve got a lot of stuff that I need to get rid of before I begin to buy more stuff.

a bit annoyed

I don’t really get annoyed easily or that often, but this week has been, well annoying. I had six classes today and it was really full.

I knew that I’d be fairly busy today, but I never thought that it would be as busy as it was today.

The first class that I had was with the 11th grade Ran. They had a listening test today so I had to start that today. I thought that it was very easy for them, which is bad since I needed to have this test to differentiate the top students from the lower performing students, and I think most of them got a perfect score which is really not good. But it’s because their English listening abilities have improved. I think for any of the other classes in the school, it would be a difficult test.

The second class today was with 11th grade Kiku and they pretty much had the same lesson as the previous class. They had a listening test today and then we worked on storytelling verbs to describe the movie using those terms. All the examples were there for them to work on.

The third class was with a 7th grade class, Ran. That’s a big jump to go from the highest level high school class to a lower level junior high school class. But since I wasn’t teaching this class, it wasn’t that big of a change for me.

The fourth period class shocked the teachers a little bit. It was the 9th grade Ran class. They are a very unruly group, but today, they were top performers. They really like to act and they did a great job today with the practice for the English drama for the cultural festival.

The fifth period class was where I started to get really annoyed. I wasn’t annoyed with the students; I was getting irritated with my working partner. This 10th grade Yuri class is usually a high level performing class, but they lacked the energy today, like most of my classes today actually, but my partner was just pushing them too hard on it. She wasn’t patient with them and kept rushing them and blaming them for things that weren’t in their control. She also let me know that she wasn’t going to give them a mid-term test because there isn’t enough time. Sure it’s partly the fault of the scheduling of the semester, but then I was able to pull it off with the 11th graders, so there’s no reason why they couldn’t be able to do it since I think they have the potential to be better than my 11th grader students.

I will make a new paragraph since I think it will be a lengthy venting session. During the break after the class, I had a little venting session with another teacher that was working with me in that class and she brought it up, which made me feel better because I wasn’t alone on it. She knows that my partner is out of place to do what she did, but we both can understand it too. She was pushing the students too much and doing a lot of blaming on them that they couldn’t do something but it’s our jobs as teachers to be able to give them the tools and guide them to be able to do it. She’s being too critical of them and of me. She always talks while I’m teaching. It’s like she’s a backseat teacher teaching from the back of the room. It’s not only distracting for me; it’s distracting for the students. It doesn’t only undermine me teaching, but it takes away from what I’m doing. It doesn’t show that she has respect for me teaching and if she’s the boss that everything has to be her way. I just know that I’m able to produce results and it’s clearly visible that they are able to do things that only a year ago weren’t able to do. But I guess it doesn’t seem to be enough. I understand all the excuses that she gives for the reason that she’s the way that she is, but for me, an excuse is an excuse and there’s no purpose for it than to be destructive.

The last class of the day wasn’t any better working with my partner. It was only the 7th grade and it wasn’t a high level class, but she just didn’t have the patience with them. It’s very dangerous I feel to be impatient with students. This Fuji class is a fun group, usually loud and unique in their own way, but they aren’t able to speak or understand English the way that other classes can, and I understand that. Each class needs to be taught in their own way or it won’t work. But what my partner does is to try to conform the class to the lesson plan, instead of the lesson plan to the class. I know that that’s what I do to conform the lesson plan to the class, and I know that not many teachers do that, but I think that’s what really makes the difference in teaching.

I was finished with work by 4pm since the girls for the English club cancelled on me today. So I decided to join my other club and help them out. They have a tennis tournament on Sunday that they really need to get ready for, but I didn’t think that I’d be able to help them much. I just needed to release some of my pent up energy with some hard serving and fast swings. I think it worked really well and my serve improved a lot today too.

I ended leaving around 6:30pm. I don’t know how I managed it, but I had a seat on the train from Yokohama station to Hongodai station. There was some sort of an accident and no one was riding the train. There were many delays, but I didn’t care because I got a seat and took a nap on the way home.

I got to eat dinner watching two more episodes of Everyone loves Raymond. I wanted to do more on the computer tonight, but since I’ve got a long weekend, I think I’ll enjoy just staying up late typing this entry and playing games online. It’s almost 1am and I’m a bit tired though. So I think I’ll just get some sleep so I could keep to my strict sleeping schedule. But this weekend might mess me up since I’ll be going on a little camping trip to the mountains with some co-workers.

a day of reflection

I just wanted to catch up with my journal entries today. I did a lot of downloading of National Anthems today. I’m not sure why, but I like them a lot. I have the Japanese National Anthem playing over and over in my head since the Sports festival. It really has something that you’d get emotional to hear. So I’m thinking about incorporating it into my website as an intro to my site, but I’m not sure how I’m going to do that too.

I did a lot of research for my laptop again. I went from the Type S to the Type T, but I might go with the newest one TX, but I’m going to wait it out for a little bit. Right now all the specs for the Type T and TX aren’t exactly something that will get me out of my house and to the Sony Headquarters asking about how to customize it. Right now it’s just average and something I’m not too excited about. I want them to get more storage into the little machine, which would be ideal for me since I’m a downloading maniac. I’m thinking about going to Open Source products too. Now that Google and Sun Microsystems are working together, I think that it’ll spawn a whole new brand of technologies and I want to get some of the latest stuff, if I’m going to have to get something.

I’m also trying to wait out the HD-DVD and the Blu-Ray fight over the next generation of DVD players. Since I’m getting a Sony Vaio, it’s pretty obvious I’m supporting the Blu-Ray technology. But I’m not sure when those players will be produced for the Vaio. So I’m thinking about waiting for that. The problem that I have with this is that it could be a long while and I’d be waiting till about the time that I leave Japan for that. I don’t think that I could go that long without a computer at home. I will use the computers at school, but there’s no guarantee that those will be there forever either. So I’m in a bit of a dilemma.

I was planning on getting out of the house today, but that all ended up with me going into the next house to do my laundry. That was it. I wanted to get some groceries done, but I couldn’t do that because I don’t have enough money to. I just need to go to the bank and cash some more money, but that would mean that I’m just spending more than my allotted monthly budget, and that is getting dangerous. I don’t like to over spend, but this month was a rare exception because my friend / co-worker was getting married and then I went shopping at Costco for things that will last me a long time. So I needed to spend more money on that.

I decided that I would make dinner tonight too. I ended having three meals on my day off and I can’t remember the last time that happened. All of which I prepared too. So I’m happy about that. I’m actually able to cook and feed myself, but I think I’m getting fat because I’m not going out and walking the long distances to get my food like I usually did. I made something simple tonight, it was only spaghetti, but it was good and something nice to eat and watch some Everyone Loves Raymond. I watched two episodes tonight. I’m shooting through them, they aren’t as funny as before, but still very funny.

So the reflection that I was thinking back upon was the concept of friends. It has been on my mind for a long time now, but just recently I’ve been thinking about it more. I’ve been using Friendster and MySpace for a while now, well since 2003, which really isn’t that long. But I’m trying to understand the concept of why I do it. All I get from people is chain letters and bulletins that usually don’t make any sense. I guess people are just bored, but it’s nothing to the effect of talking to my friends or catching up with them. But putting up tests to see if they read it, and if they do, they are considered a true friend to post something back. I don’t post anything back and want to see if that’s the deal-breaker and if that will truly end a friendship because I didn’t put up a bulletin. I wonder what friendships are really based on. I used to think that it is someone that you could tell anything to and that they would keep a secret, but then again, you could go online and do the same thing to a completely random stranger and it would be the same. I guess I only bring this up because it seems like all my friends are either feuding with each other or with me, for reasons that are beyond me because I’m not understanding why. Life is complicated, but I think that it is only because people allow it to be. I, personally, like a complicated life only because it keeps me busy, but nowadays, I prefer to enjoy the simple life. I really feel at peace living in Japan and I’m really glad that I made the decision to come, but it came at the price of leaving all my friends behind. Anyways, since no one reads this, I’m safe on that side that I won’t offend any of my friends because no one responds. But then again, I don’t either, so it’s a taste of my own medicine I suppose.

another fairly good day

I couldn’t sleep very well last night, but I think that really didn’t matter to me too much. I got up early to get to work early today. I managed to get on the faster train to work today, so that was lucky. I mean I had to run from one platform to another to get there on time. I really didn’t need to get on the faster express train, but since I usually always miss it, I wanted to try to get on it today. I left the house later than usual, but still managed to get to Yokohama station with enough time to get on the Express train. I arrived at my station much earlier than I thought that I would get there.

I guess that I don’t really need to run next time, but then I hate to waste time at the station too. I got to school early enough to get lunch and breakfast before I got to school. I made it before some of the usual teachers too who are their early.

My first class of the day was with the 11th grade yuri class. They had a listening comprehension test today. We started with this test since I wanted to get it out of the way. All I had to do was just press play and it would just do everything for me. They understood the rules of the test and it’s very simple. I think the test was a bit too easy for them, but I think that it will be difficult for the other classes. This is a high level class and I didn’t really give them too much preparation time for it, so I think that they will do fairly well on the test. The test was meant to differentiate the top students from the lower performing students. After the listening test, I had to introduce them to the three parts of a story bit. They were a little confused and then I realized that if the highest class can’t get it, I need to drop it and go with something simpler. I decided to go with, just explain the movie to me. We only had 20 minutes left I the class, so I made them do it for homework and to bring it next week.

The second class was with 8th grade yuri and we just did something out of the book and from the raps book too. I’ve noticed that we’ve been using the Raps book too often lately. I mean I think it’s a bit much. It’s a good exercise and something to get the kids interested, but I think if we do it too much, it’ll lose its effect and won’t be so interesting the next time that they hear it. They did one that is called American Cousin. It’s about the singer, who is from Britain and his cousin living in America. It’s to get the students interested in learning British English since they will be going to British Hills next week as part of the school trip. I thought it was good to get them going on the rap, but I think that they got a little confused or a little bored with it after all the work that went with it.

The third period class was with 10th grade fuji in which we did another activity using the Raps book. I like the book as a teaching tool, but I think using it this much in one day isn’t very good. I’m starting to get annoyed with it a little. Since we’ve been talking about sports last week, we did the Active Rap today. It was a good activity, but I think that since this class is a lower level, they were struggling through it. They were having a lot of trouble with it. They really weren’t able to figure out what some of the blanks were and they don’t have the thought processes to link things together to get the answer. That’s something that if I had the chance to, I’d teach them how to do it. But since I’m not leading this class, I really can’t do much about that. I do have a chance to do it for Friday’s class though, but I think they are a higher level too, so that should be different. And they have fewer classes. Something that I brought up to the other teacher was the fact that the lessons aren’t building anything. There’s no point to them other than to learn about past tenses. It’s important, but that’s not our jobs at Oral communication teachers to work and focus on grammar. I brought it up that last year we were focusing each lesson on preparing for a test and an oral presentation so that they would actually pay attention to what’s going on and study harder. I mean, last year when I was leading the 10th grade, we were working towards a demonstration speech at the midterm point and then a final debate for the exam. It was a bit rough and things weren’t very smooth, but that was only my first teaching experience. But I don’t see any progress on that, and I don’t see where the lessons are going to teach anything beyond a scattered objective of nil. So I’m worried on behalf of the students because both the other teachers that I’m working with will be leaving in March of next year, while I’ll be around till August. So when they advance to the next level, I’ll be expecting them to do well on tests, even though I know they haven’t been prepared for them.

Fourth period was my break and it was short lived since we have only 40 minutes today because of an open school event after school. The lucky thing about this is that it’s the class right before lunch so I had an extra 40 minutes tacked on for lunch. More students started talking to me today. I thought that was good, because they wouldn’t before. They would only talk to the teacher that sits in front of me. They were asking me if I loved her, which is an interesting question to ask since she’s married. Then they continued to ask if I loved other teachers. I kinda knew where this was going, but the other teachers told them to go away and to leave me alone. These are two of my students that I teach in the 8th grade kiku on Tuesday.

Fifth period was with 9th grade kiku and we were supposed to do the play today, but we didn’t. I thought that we’d fall really behind on practice for the cultural festival if we didn’t practice. I didn’t think that was a good idea. I had mentioned it to the other teacher that we should be practicing for the school play, but she brought up that they practice enough with the other teachers that it would be a waste of time for us to do it in Oral communication class. We did the rap again and then a worksheet that went along with it. It was for preparation for the English Fun Faire and to get them going and educated about occupations. I didn’t really like that idea about blowing off the English play since it was actually printed on the lesson plan sheet that was approved before the semester started. The reason being was that the other teachers decided that and that my partner decided to change it because she thought that they get enough practice for the play. But I think that she didn’t understand that they actually don’t have enough time to practice with the native speakers or English teachers for that matter. She doesn’t understand how busy the teachers are, so I needed to step in and remind her.

Sixth period, because I was leading the class for 9th grade fuji, I decided to change and do half the class on the rap and the other half working on the English drama. There are a lot of mistakes in the text since they made some changes. I felt bad because I should have looked for them earlier before they started to work to memorize their lines. I think that it was my fault for not catching those mistakes earlier and I take the responsibility for it. I think that will set back the students for another week to re-memorize it and there isn’t that much time left before the cultural festival at the end of the month because they have a lot of events going on this month. We did get a lot of practice finished and I think we went through it half way before class finished. It was a tight schedule because classes were only 40 minutes today. I’m happy that I decided to take things into my own hands and take charge of what needed to be done. At first my partner didn’t agree, but I had to let her know that she was mistaken about when the plays were to be done and how much practice the students get. They actually have 15 days before the school festival and many of those days are filled with school trips, weekends, and days off. So there really isn’t enough time. I’ll have to come to school on my days off to get them extra practice.

After school we had English club. We were booted out of the Language Lab today because they had an after school class from an outside teacher teaching English. So we needed to move our operations to CHda’s home room. We only occupied a little corner and all we were doing was the decorations. It was a lot of cutting of cardboards today and we made letters for decorations. I think the club might need to scale back the plans a bit to make sure that we could get everything finished on time. I realized something tonight too. One of the students that never comes is really good at breaking the ice. We need to keep her in the club more and to get her more involved. She’s a good student, but not the sharpest tool in the shed. The reason why she doesn’t come is because her grades are very low that she doesn’t qualify to be in a club. But she came today and I think it helped out a lot. She was talking to the 7th graders and it was good. She really knew how to break the ice and to get the girls talking, even if it was only in Japanese, I think that the 7th graders had a good impression of her and I think that they will come back more often. I know the other girls too, even though I don’t teach their class. They are from the painfully quiet class.
I had the finish the New England clam chowder for dinner and watched an episode of Everyone Loves Raymond.

a fairly good day

I had a fairly good day today. Things went back to normal and I think that having things good and prepared is good to get things going right.

I only had 4 classes today, so it wasn’t so bad and I got to sleep in a little. But I ended up being a little late since I couldn’t get up early enough to walk to the station. I had to catch the bus and go the more expensive way.

I arrived to school at just the time that I wanted to arrive to. I think that it was perfect timing. I think that me having a lighter lunch is also a good idea too. I don’t feel so sick afterwards. I think that since the weather is changing because of the seasonal changes, I’m starting to feel a bit weird and sick a little.

The first class of the day was with the 8th grade Ran. They are a loud group of girls. The lesson of the day was about Weekend plans.

The second class was 8th grade Kiku. The same lesson as the last class so I pretty much did the same thing. But this was when I realized I was having a good day. The students were actually a bit better than the class before this one. That meant that I’m really getting to the students because at the beginning they weren’t very interested because they didn’t understand much, but I can tell that they are really trying to learn now and to the other classes are actually getting worse because they think they know it and don’t care as much. So all the classes that I’m leading are making a lot of improvement and that’s something that I really would like to see more of. We went a bit slower and I introduced things a bit more so that the students would get a better background of what I was talking about. I think that I’ve got to get used to that more since I tend to forget that they have no idea what I’m talking about most of the time.

The third class of the day was with the 7th grade kiku. One of the students had given me a picture from the Hakone Seminar from the summer session in August. I thought that I was really nice of her since I’m not leading her class and I have never talked to her. But I think that it was a nice gesture by her. Another teacher gave it to me and told me who it was from, so that was cool. I was happy about that. The lesson of the day was still sports, but which they found to be better and if they liked watching or playing sports and which one they liked to play or watch. Then after that we got started on the Aladdin drama that they have to memorize for a festival that is coming up. I’m not sure exactly which one it is, but I’m guessing that it’s the cultural festival at the end of the month. All the students will be paying attention for that since I think most of them like to act and role play.

The last class of the day for me was 11th grade fuji. A lot of girls in this class are crazy. Just crazy, and the class started off right after lunch so of course as I walk in everyone is still eating and it’s a mess. The chalkboard wasn’t erased and it was just terrible. We got started on the lesson about their favorite movies and I wanted them to start to compose a bit of it using some examples and splitting it into at least 3 parts. I know that I was asking a bit much of them today, but I would rather push them to get all that I can, than to assume that they couldn’t do it and just make them do less. I think that it wouldn’t be fair to the other classes if that was the case, so I’m pushing them to do more. They like my class and they like me as a teacher because I get along with them very well. I just need to be stricter with these things and to be able to get them going on learning. Composing is very difficult for them because they aren’t used to doing that in English or even in Japanese. So I think that at least making them go for it will be good practice for them as they get ready for their exams. I think that I’ll start to introduce more things to help them get ready for their Entrance Exams next year.

After that, I had a class off, but I went to the L.L. and worked on some stuff for a little bit. I wanted to get some lesson planning finished for my Saturday classes. I have been working on something that would involve her getting started on a project. But I’m not sure what kind of project that I want her to do yet. I want some of her opinions on the topic and I want to see where she wants to go with it.

Then there was English club. Only one student was able to make it today, which is really sad and she was very late. We went over the outline of what we still need to do for the cultural festival and put some deadlines on when we need to finish them. That was it for club today too.

Then after that I started to make the Oral Communication listening test for the students. It will be their first and we’ve gone over everything that will be on the test. I expect them to do well, even though it was meant to differentiate the top students from the lower performing students. So it needs to be a bit difficult so we could spread out their points. I think that during the Oral test, most of the points will be fairly standard since I don’t want to discourage them from speaking or even trying. It was pretty interesting, but I hate to listen to my voice on a tape, it just sounds weird.

Then I left to go home. I saw another episode of Everyone loves Raymond tonight. It was funny, but not as funny as the other ones. It was good though, so I enjoyed it. I was watching while I was eating my New England Clam Chowder. It was a nice dinner and a perfect finish to my day. Then I showered and started typing this entry. I still have a lot of catching up to do, so I think that I’ll have to take some of the editing to school so that I could finish it there. Since I’ll have more time because the schedule changed to have 40 minutes in each class tomorrow and the number of classes dropped back to 5 because of a schedule change to the original from April.