A long Saturday

Today just took forever to get through. There was a lot going on today. I had two classes today, first and second period, which meant I had to get up at 5am today. That's so hard to do because it's very cold in the morning. I was freezing and was surprised that it wasn't snowing outside, although there was a lot a frost outside.

I felt as if I left for work late today today too, but I managed to get there pretty early. Earlier than most of the teachers. The problem was when I got to the teacher's office, I didn't have the wire that I requested from another teacher for my class. I use a projector and my laptop so I need a wire to connect both of them that I usually get from a history teacher, but she wasn't there early at school so I was in a bit of a difficult situation. But I asked another teacher to get it for me so I was all setup and ready to go before class started. It was a really close call too because it was right before class started that I finished setting up everything.

The first period was basically covering the fishes and doing a bit of review. I did get started on some new things and about how to use the information that I taught her previously. I think that learning information without learning how to use is is a waste. So my main purpose was to teach her how to use it. I started on reviewing the fishes and then how to create an effective conversation.

We didn't finish everything in the first period, so I finished up during the second period. I showed her how I used it on her and then she started to realize the effect that it had. I purposely made the lessons tailored to her and her alone, so she understood it and how it worked. I think that she will be more suspicious of things later, but I think that it will be a lesson that she learned in a way that she wouldn't soon forget. I brought up how to communicate, but next time, I'll show her how to make and retain income. I think that will be of great interest to her.

After school, I wasn't doing much. So some teachers asked me to help them carry some tatami mats from one room in the gym to the 2^nd floor. It wasn't that easy since it was all nasty and sticky and heavy. After that I played tennis with the tennis team. It was fun to play with them today. It was nice and COLD outside, but the new clothes that I bought were good enough to keep me warm. It was a good exercise. I got hit in the head today with a ball though, and I made fun of a student who hit me. But I was perfectly cool with it. It didn't even hurt, which was the weird thing since I'm sure that it was a hard hit. After club, we had to clean up the grounds, so I was talking to the students about things and how they liked the oral communication classes. Some of the students I taught and some I didn't. The ones that I taught said was good, and the ones I didn't didn't want to comment. So I'm seriously considering about changing the way that I teach some of the classes that I do. I think that it will be a good time to start to introduce Bryan style teaching. Since I only just follow along with what the other teacher does. I think that I'd like to break away and do my own thing. I only have one semester left, so it's really my last chance to do what I want.

The teachers soon left to go to eat Monjya-yaki, which is the Tokyo style of Okonomiyaki. It was pretty interesting and I liked it for the most part. The part that I didn't like too much was the too much eating. There were about 5 dishes that were cooked and then Okonomiyaki and then a anko-crepe for dessert. I was stuffed like a turkey. It was really bad since I was so full. We ate non-stop for about 3 hours from 7pm-10pm. I mention the time because once we left, it took me about 2.5 hours to get home. On the way to the station, I was talking to one of my close friends that is a teacher, and she told me that the other native teacher will stay for another year. I kinda figured that she would from the way that she was talking. So next year, I'm going to have a harder time to do things my way, but I'm still going to do it anyways. I'm a bit sad since I know that my friend will be leaving the full-time office and going to be a part-time teacher. At least she'll still be around, which is a good thing for me. I think that later she will have more time to hang out too, which will be good. The other thing about today was that I didn't sleep until 4:30am. I got home late and then jumped on the computer and took a little nap at the kotatsu before I crawled into bed after that.