Hotel Nikko Tokyo

I felt as if I woke up late today, but I probably didn’t. I was rushing to get to work, but I didn’t have a first or second period, so class didn’t start for me till 10:50am. I wanted to get some things done before I got to work though. Since I checked my mail last night upon arriving at home, I got my electric bill. The electric bill was over $75, which is ridiculous for just 2 people. I think that having a roommate might have added to the bill a little bit. Usually it isn’t over $30, but in this case it doubled. So in the morning I had to get to the bank and get some cash.

When I got to the bank, I had trouble again with my passbook. I think I’m going to give up on it and just stop trying to use it. I’m not sure how it works, but I don’t really care either. As long as I have more money in my account than I can account for, I’m cool. I pulled out some cash so I could pay that bill and just to have enough to pay for food and such.

I then went to work and the first class was an 8th grade class. They were pretty good, which is weird. There was a parent of a potential student who was watching over the class. The lesson was on fast food. It was making me and the other teachers very hungry. I started to miss IN-N-Out a little bit too. And Jack in the box too. We weren’t getting too in depth with it because they don’t really need to know all of it till next year when they will be going to America to eat all the things that we were talking about. Plus they have some of those places here in Tokyo too.

The next class was the 11th grade. Their lesson was just to complete the report that I had introduced to them 2 weeks ago. Some were getting too into it. They had all bought some movie guides that outlined the movies that they wanted to report on. I told them that all they needed was just 3 main points, but some of the students had so much trouble just finding three. I thought that was interesting. Others were getting out of hand giving too much information. I had reminded them that they did have to memorize it. It was quite a spectrum of skills in the room, but I think it should be interesting to listen to. They have till Monday to turn them all in and have them all graded and given back. I’m happy that I won’t be grading them and turning them back to the students. From what I’ve heard from the other teacher is that many of the English teachers will be leaving the school. I find that sad and encouraging at the same time. I think it’s good because I could start to formulate what I want to do with my classes with more freedom, but then again, I already have that freedom. I find it sad because these are such great teachers. I mean they are really really good English teachers and I give them much respect. They are really flexible and have enough expertise to help and still be encouraging. So I think overall it’s a bad thing that so many are leaving and some are going to part-time. I knew that it was coming, but from what I’ve heard that it will happen in March. I don’t know the stress that they have undergone to get them to that point. Since it’s not really traditional to leave your work after you have obtained it.

After that I had to go back to grading and correcting the assignment that I gave the 10th graders. That took an enormous amount of time and once again stretched many hours. I don’t know how it took so much time to do. I think it was only 120 papers or so, I think I’ve got to develop a way to go faster. Some of which were really interesting, but most of it was the same. I think that I’ve got to be able to do it much faster because I think in the future there will be more papers and since I’ve got all the grades levels to do, it should be much faster.

Today I was just taking my time because I had to wait around till 6:30pm anyways. At that time I would be leaving to go to the Hotel Nikko Tokyo in Odaiba. That’s the place where the school will celebrate the birthday of the Headmaster of the school. It was a nice lavish event filled with many activities and much food. I don’t think that I took advantage of the food and ate enough. The night was filled with music by the music teacher at my school, who plays wonderfully and a full on magic show.

I want to mention the magic show because we had a world-class magician perform. It was pretty cool to sit that close to the action. I was practically front and center for the whole show, meaning I was sitting with all the top dogs, with the exception of the headmaster himself, but with all of the head of departments. The magician was some name who escapes me at the moment, but his sons are incredibly famous in Japan. His sons are just little boys and do a wonderful magic show. They were on TV many times and I even knew about them and I hardly ever watch TV. But they are famous in Japan. So sitting up close made it all worth it. It was pretty interesting to see, even though you could spot how they do some of the magic tricks, you really couldn’t guess how they did it all. But it was cool to see. The last act was really cool too.

After all that, there was another after party that only a few teachers were invited to. My host, the English Department chair didn’t realize that and was a little offended when her boss told her to take me to the third floor to Ocean Dining. She had thought that I could take myself, but hadn’t realized that not everyone was going to go, so then she realized that she did need to take me to the 3rd floor. It had a great view of Tokyo. It looks like a mini-New York City. You can look at pictures on the website of the incredible view from the Hotel to the city. http://www.hnt.co.jp/english/. I thought it was pretty cool, but realized that it lasted pretty late. So late that in fact I didn’t have a train to take me home to Hongodai. So they decided to foot the bill of a taxi ride home. I bet you couldn’t guess how much the school had to pay to send me home that one night. But the total was around $215 from Odaiba to my front door. Now that’s pricy! That’s the most I’ve paid for any ride except for my airplane ticket. Of course in a plane you’re going a much further distance than from Tokyo to Yokohama. It was a ridiculous amount to have to pay, but I’m grateful that my school paid it for me. I love working at my school and there is NO doubt about that.