Assembly for the seniors

Today was ok up until the end of the day. I feel like I’m being challenged for some reason. It’s like the kick that you get when you’re down. Why does it always have to come all at one time and all of a sudden? I should have expected it since it tends to always show up grouped together.

I got up in enough time, but went a little slow to get ready and all. I got to school right when I wanted to. I went to a different convenient store to get breakfast and lunch today. I wanted to change something from my normal routine, so that was it for today. I bought some stuff that I normally don’t buy, which I think is a good way to jump start my passion for life again. I seem to be dead for some reason and I have lost my desire to become more. I just feel dead.

I think that I was feeling this way because I just felt a little sick. I think that the medicine I have been taking have been making me feel a bit ill. It went away after a little bit though. Then we went into the gym to join in the assembly. I really didn’t see much since it seemed to go by really quick. All I really remember was that when I first walked in, they were showing a video of the students when they first joined the school to last years trip to Kyushu. It was good to reminisce about the time they have spent at Yakumo. The next thing I know, they had a break. When we came back from the break, I was ushered on backstage and I needed to change for the teacher’s skit for the seniors.

While I was changing, I could see a bit of the video that the clubs made for their senior members. When I finished changing though, the senior dance team went on stage to perform. They were pretty good. Then it was the teacher’s skit. It seemed to come up really quickly. I was a “Hollywood Star” and the theme was based off of a popular drama on TV called “hana yori dango” or boys over flowers. I never understood what went on stage. I never read the script either since I knew beforehand that I would have to make up my lines on stage since I would have to speak in English. That seemed to finish in a rush too.

Then we went back upstairs to change back and it was the cheerleaders doing their number. The cheer team is really large since it’s an all girl’s school; we have a lot of cheerleaders. But for some reason, that seemed to go by really fast too. It wasn’t as long and didn’t drag on like I usually feel. That finished in a hurry too. And then we took another break. I went back to the office to just sit around and do nothing before we would go back.

Then it was the brass band performance for the students. I should have taken my camera for that. They performed “Sakura” by Kobukuro, which is a very famous song recently since it is featured on the drama N’s Aoi, or Nurse Blue. But it’s a good song. I wanted to record it and show it on my website. But I wasn’t properly prepared for it and I lost my opportunity. I think that maybe for their brass band concert at the end of next month, they might perform it again.

After that, the students and teachers had to prepare for the graduation ceremony tomorrow. They did a lot of rehearsing just for sitting and standing and bowing. It was a little ridiculous, but I think that that is a unique thing about Japan. They make sure everything is in unison and take care of all the details. It was pretty interesting to watch, at least for the first 30 minutes. After that I returned to the office to get some lunch. I had something that tasted like yogurt and I really have learned that I don’t like yogurt. At least I didn’t get sick from it. The headmaster also bought everyone Sakura mochi, which is something that we usually get before graduation. It was good and I think that I have gotten used to the taste of it.

I ended up cleaning my desk and getting a boat load of information about the upcoming month and the scheduling. My schedule had changed once again, which makes it a total of 10 times this school year. My desk is finally very clean and I’m ready for the move, when we move desks for next year. I have to work some things out with the other native English teacher and to confirm if she decides to leave or stay. We will have an additional two classes on March 14th, so I’m not sure how we will work that out. I think that I’ll let her decide since she hasn’t taught the 11th graders this year.

After that, I stuck around longer because I wanted to give some gifts to people. I am almost finished with giving them all out, but I still haven’t finished. I did give a big chunk of it away though. I think that it was greatly appreciated. I waited around for that though, which could have been a big waste of time, but it didn’t turn out that way. I had to fix the email account for the school too. The VP had asked me to do it, so I couldn’t really refuse, but I’m surprised that she asked me to do it.

I left school soon thereafter. I met some students at the station and they embarrassed me on the train, like I knew they would. That’s why I try to lay-low when I leave school. It was starting to get really cold at this point. I don’t know why it’s so cold all of a sudden. It’s a bit weird for me. I came home directly and started getting things ready for dinner. I wasn’t hungry, but I wanted to start things early, so I could just do it right away and not be hungry while I started preparing dinner. I went over to pay my rent before it started to rain.

I made dinner tonight and it was really good. I have really started to take a liking to cooking. I think its pretty fun and I’m glad that I could do it and make it taste good. I really can live on my own now. That was the final testament for living on my own. I was watching TV and found the show N’s Aoi, which seemed pretty boring. So I stopped watching it. I cleaned up and then went back to the computer.

I ran into a bit of a problem today. UCSB told me that my application was still incomplete, and I only had till Friday to complete it. I guess I misunderstood something on the application and didn’t fill out something. I need to send my transcript to the school by fax to the admissions lady. I really don’t know how to do that from here, so I tried to solicit my sister to helping me do it. After a few hours, I thought that I should shoot a message over to one of my counselor friends at Grossmont to help me out. So I will have to wait on that. I have also lost my motivation to go to school again. I think that I don’t see the point in it and that’s why I’m not motivated. I just don’t see it being a smart move for me. It just doesn’t make economical sense to me. So I’m a bit shaken about that. Ok its midnight now and I need to get some shut eye before the not-so-stimulating ceremony tomorrow. I enjoy it, but its not stimulating. Good night.

I give up !!

I was working on my website a lot last night. I was making minor adjustments for things that will probably happen a few months from now. The next release date is planned for April 13th, but it might come sooner if Spymac decides to release their “new” servers and host my damn website. I was thinking about getting upgraded to their club since it is rather inexpensive, but I think that I will make a decision once they get it up.

The dryer last night was going on for a long time, so I didn’t get to sleep until much later than I thought I would. But it was ok since I didn’t need to get up early for anything.

Third period with 9th grade yuri was the last class that I would have with 9th graders this year. They will be leaving for Santa Barbara this week and this was the last time I’ll meet them before they go. The topic for today was about fast food. I think that it was pretty tough to get through it. They were driving the teachers crazy because they were so loud and annoying. I think that they better enjoy their trip to America and that they come back eager to learn English, otherwise it will be really tough to teach them. We had them look at the McDonalds menu and then the In-N-Out menu. They needed to do a role play in front of class too. They needed to order and learn how to say what they wanted. They were able to do it, which is a good thing. They did get stuck on to go or for here, but other than that, they were pretty good. It’s important to get them up and speaking in front of the class.

Fourth period with 11th grade ran would be the last before they head to Kyushu. We did the Jeopardy game and it would be the last time that I do it for such a large class. I think that I need to re-think how to approach it. They liked it and we finished the whole thing. Like the other classes, there was one group that ran away with the most points. I think that it was more evenly distributed, but still it was a landslide. Some groups never scored, but I think overall most of the groups had an opportunity to guess and speak. I think that it is a good game, but I need to work on some things to make it easy enough for everyone, yet challenging too. I think that those students who are gifted with English usually do better, which was the point of me putting it together, but I think that it alienates those who aren’t able to understand and work with it and be a little discouraged. We were in the L.L. today for class which was pretty cool. I had to bring the projector from the first floor to the third floor, which sucked a little.

Fifth period with 7th grade yuri was about animals still. We had them unscramble some words, even though it was never explained to them. They were able to figure it out though. I think that was the good thing. But I think that was only special for this class. I don’t believe that the other classes would be able to do that. They don’t have the ability. Most were able to figure it out all the animals’ names that were unscrambled. Some of them were never introduced. Then we did an animal bingo game where they had to match all of them in order to get a bingo.

I didn’t stick around till after school. I took off from school immediately after I finished all my classes. It was really really early actually. I think that it was so early that it surprised my department chair when I told her that I was leaving. I think that she didn’t mind since I never have any work to do and if I did, I would finish it really quickly anyways. I went shopping for a little while in Yokohama. I went to Don Quixote and Tokyu Hands. I found something that I needed at Tokyu Hands, which was a new strap for my briefcase. So I don’t need to get a new briefcase, although I probably will need to soon anyways. It is starting to fall apart and the zippers aren’t working very well.

I got to Hongodai station and felt like I wanted to cook tonight. I had a lot of time so I went to Fuji supermarket and bought some stuff to cook and other things from the 100 yen store. It was good, but I felt a little weird spending a lot of money today.

When I got home, I met up with my neighbors, who immediately invited me to have dinner with them. I didn’t want to turn them down, so I decided to go with them instead of cook. We went to a nice little noodle (soba/ udon) place that I’ve been to before. I haven’t been there for a long time, but I remember it now. I ordered Curry Udon, which was absolutely wonderful. I really liked it. But I didn’t like having to eat dinner wearing a suit while everyone was wearing their casual clothes. I felt a little out of place. I was having dinner with a couple that just got married last month. During this time, I found out that two of my friends also got married or will get married soon. I think that it is all coming really fast and too fast for me. I have been thinking about that recently and now it’s the pressure that is killing me.

After dinner, we came back to their place and I stayed till around 11pm. We were watching boxing; it was a match between Mr. Tokuyama and Jose Navarro. I usually don’t like boxing, but I got into it. They were having snacks and things like that. Soon after the match we were watching SMAP x SMAP. I haven’t seen that show in a long ass time.

I felt really bad today. Not physically, but mentally. I really felt as if I have given up on a lot of things. I feel helpless to the point, where I don’t want to do anything to change my current situation. I mean I really feel like I have given up. It has mostly stemmed from work. It really has sucked the life out of me. I know that it isn’t good, but for the rest of the school year, I will be leaving early and arriving only when I need to. I won’t stick around for anything longer. I think that is a bad policy to have. But I think that when April rolls around I will be better. But I’m not sure about that either. I would like to take a trip to Hong Kong in March and hopefully I’ll get to see some other places too. I think that I also have decided not to pursue HY. I just don’t think that it will work for me. The distance is the problem and the communication problem is something that I would prefer not to deal with. So I’m back to square one on that. I think that I will spend the next month on myself and work to find some new people in my life. I feel defeated… that’s not a good feeling to have. I lost motivation to teach and to have an enjoyable life in Japan. I just want to do something new and leave it as it is. I don’t want to work to improve it. I think that CP is driving me crazy and work sucks because of her. But it’s also my fault for not doing anything about it. Damn I’m such a pussy about it. I don’t want to rock the boat and therefore I suffer and lose because of it. Nice guys do really finish last.

Updating my blogger

I’m finally all caught up. I haven’t been able to be on top of this for a long time. Thanks to the help of my new mouse, I was able to catch up all my journal entries since I’ve been living in Japan. As I am typing this right now, you can read about every single day that I’ve been here. I need to work on some things to add pictures and things like that. I think it will be easier to get all that stuff up afterwards, but just to get the journal entries on the net was hard enough, so I wanted to do one thing at a time. I think that I will be working on a new template for this page too and then probably link that to my new website that I’m starting to work on now. I think that I will start working on a version 2.0 sometime soon since I only have about 5 months till it becomes 2 years in Japan.

I was able to talk to a friend of mine that I have trying to get a hold of. I asked her if she wanted to travel to Hawaii with me. She said yes, so now we just need to figure out when we can set up our schedule and we can both go and meet there and meet a friend there. We were thinking about it and couldn’t really think about what we could do there for about 2 weeks. I think that it will have to be a slow adventure since I couldn’t imagine it being a fast place like Tokyo or Seoul. I think that it will be enjoyable though. I would like to get a massage there since every place that I have been to, I have had a massage. I would hate to break that tradition. It was good because I could hear her voice. I have more recently been doing voice chats with my friends. We’ve all had the technology for a long time, but we just haven’t done it yet.

I finished the leftovers from last night’s dinner. It was still good, which was to my surprise. I watched a little TV, but realized that nothing was on at that time. I was doing laundry at the same time. So I did laundry very late today. I started at 6pm because I was waiting for the rain to let up before I went outside, but it never did. So as I am writing this now, my dryer is still going. I need to get my clothes all dried up for the week or I’ll have no clothes to wear.

I started taking some medication that my mother sent me. It’s not really medication, but more like vitamins to help with the blood circulation in my body. I think that it hasn’t had any effect yet. But I think that it is too early to tell since it’s only the first day and I have taken only a little dose.

I was downloading a lot of new widgets today for my desktop. I for some reason really like those things. They are very convenient and go well with something that I am looking for. It just happens to be there at the right time. I have a wide screen so I have some extra space to let up for that. I think that I will have to start to track my finances again. I want to figure out how much money I have been spending recently since my family came to visit me. I have been slow with that and since everything had been creeping up on me, I just wasn’t prepared for it. So I’m going to do that and probably watch a TV show that I just found.

At home all day

I stayed home for actually most of the day. I left twice. Once to pick up my new mouse that I ordered from the internet. I took the time to charge it for a few hours before I used it. It was sweet and works wonderfully. Definitely worth the money I invested in it. It is so smooth and responds very quickly. It even turns off automatically after 1 second of not moving. And when I move it, it responds right away without any lag. I definitely recommend it if anyone wants a high quality mouse.

In the meanwhile, I was talking to family via MSN messenger 8.0 beta. My computer was going slow for some reason. I don’t know why since I have enough memory space, even though I am doing a lot of things with it. I can’t help to think about the newer versions of my computer and be pissed off. They look so cool and offer faster processing speeds and everything and the price is the same. That’s what really ticks me off. I really want it and am thinking about selling my laptop to get a newer one. I’ll have to think about that some more since I want to see if the new computers break down after awhile, but I think that the lower energy consumption is a good thing that I really would want. I have a double sized battery right now and still it gets eaten up after 3 hours. I don’t like that since I expected it to last about 7 hours.

The other time I left the house was to buy some groceries. It was a necessity because I needed to get some food. I made a nice dinner tonight and watching a stupid TV show. But I still like the TV show, which is weird. I made a noodle dish, which turned out much better than I thought it would have. I was really surprised about that. I made it with the noodles that I bought long ago for pho, but I haven’t learned how to make it, so I just use it to make something else. It worked very well and turned out like something that FCi would like. I’m very happy about it actually. I was watching the TV show that I mentioned and the teacher on the show is very cute. I can’t believe it. I need to meet someone like her in my life. Haha. The show was about foods that kids don’t want to eat and I was thinking about myself about how much food is wasted by people who don’t eat the things that they don’t like. But I like to think that I don’t do that. But in Japan, I have found a few things that I learned not to like, which is strange, since I would eat anything in the U.S. I really have changed and learned a lot about myself in Japan. I like that.

Full day then Omiya

First period today was with 7th grade fuji and we were working on body parts and animals. They have missed a few classes before since we have had a lot of breaks in between with finals and entrance exams. CP didn’t really know where we left off, so we sort of skipped a few steps to get to this point. We were working ahead of plan and since we will have a few more classes left, I think we will jump back. They were working on the body parts and crossword puzzles. They were able to finish that.

Second period today was with 11th grade kiku. It didn’t turn out very well. We played English Jeopardy, but they had a problem with not wanting to speak up. I think that it wasn’t too difficult for them, but the scores were also very lopsided. That is always bad since it is a game and I don’t want people to feel excluded. I think that more groups guessed and got more right, but it was still a blowout. I have been thinking that this type of game would be better for smaller groups instead of a big class or to have the more vocal students split up. I was a bit surprised at who were the ones speaking up and guessing. Things were a bit hard for me to get them going. I think that the enthusiasm for the game had died.

Third period was with 7th grade ran and we were doing where animals are from. We picked up right where we were supposed to. We started working on countries and continents. We were labeling where the animals are from and which countries and continents they are on. It was pretty interesting some of the responses we would get. At the end of the period, we got started on body parts. They didn’t get started with the crossword puzzle, but I would imagine that they would start that next class.

Fourth period was with 9th grade ran and we were working on tax and tip. We used the paper that I made, which was a bit difficult for them to do. They needed a lot of calculators to figure things out. They didn’t have a lot of calculators for them to use, but they understood, I think. It was hard to get them going since they were very loud and not really paying attention. They know that it is important, but they are at the point where they don’t want to do too much and are getting to that stage where they really don’t care about anything. It is near the end of the year, so I could understand their feeling. They will be going to America very soon, like in 6 days, so they do need to learn the information. We never really got started on the fast food part of the lesson, but covered most of the tip and tax part.

Fifth period was a “test” for the 10th grade yuri class. It really wasn’t much of a test since it was really just a game. I tried to explain what they had to do, but the other teachers got them started before I wanted them too. It really threw things off and they were a little bit confused, so instead we went around each group to tell them what they needed to do. I thought that was a waste, but they were into it and they did it well. They really liked it, I suppose since they were working on it and not goofing off. I was a bit surprised at that really.

Sixth period was with 9th grade kiku. We were working on the tax and tip paper. They understood it better than the last class and we working harder on it. They wanted to figure it out, but it was hard for some to figure it out. Most did the work without the use of a calculator, which really is amazing. They were working hard and it showed, but at first they weren’t really into much either. It was hard for them to understand what they had to do since it wasn’t explained that well, but I think that overall, they will be fine in the U.S. I really do hope that they will enjoy their trip that will keep them to learn and study English. I usually see that the 10th graders after they go there really do have a greater interest in it and especially with these 9th graders that since they will go to high school, they need to shape up their attitudes. I can only hope they will improve though since you never know what will happen.

After school, I was working on my schedule for March. They didn’t have an English version for me so I had to translate the matrix so that it would make sense for me when I looked at it. It turns out that I don’t have many more classes left for the year, but it’s still a faraway from being over. I think that once the new year starts, it will be much better for me. I also took some time to type up this entry so that I could at least get a jump start on it before I start to fall behind again. I got an email from my MTki that I got my package. I think that is early since I expected it tomorrow. I finally got my mouse that I ordered last week. I can’t wait to use it, but I will have to since I have to charge it before a day before I use it.

I stayed at school till around 5pm and then left. The teachers will do a little skit for the seniors going away celebration and I have a little part, but I don’t have any lines. I have to make it up on the spot, which I think is supposed to be part of the entertainment. It makes it a little hard for me to prepare for that and since I won’t go to any of the practices, I will really go into it not knowing anything.

Meeting up in Omiya and the people showed up really late. I think it was because they had work and came late because of that. We went around to many places to see if they had space for us. We had a group of 8 people, well around that. People would be coming later. We finally decided on eating at Gazen after going to a few other places. The other places were all full, which would probably be the case since it was a Friday night. I wouldn’t assume anything else. It was nice to see everyone there and I really liked seeing HY. She was cute tonight too, but I finally realized that it wasn’t in my best interest to pursue her. I can feel that she is distancing herself from me, so I think that I should just let it be.

I was quiet for most of the night and not talking to too many people since I wasn’t really close with them. I was talking to Daisuke a little bit. It was interesting and he was drinking a lot. He was smoking a little bit too, and that didn’t bother me as much as it would have before. I think that over all it was ok. This was when there were only 7 people there. When the 8th person showed up, I started talking and enjoying it more. It was someone I met recently, well about 9 months ago when I last saw CNto. His name is Mr. Kanno and he seems pretty cool. I’m glad that I had the chance to talk to him again. His Japanese was a bit fast for me, but for the most part, I understood what he was saying. I should have talked to more people though. That was the last time that I met up with them, so it didn’t seem that long, even though it was that long. He and I were talking a lot to each other and then we were talking to other people too. It started to be real fun after that. I really enjoyed it after that. I had to leave early like usual and left in such a hurry that I forgot my umbrella. I actually forgot both my umbrellas since I let one of the girls borrow mine while we were walking around looking for a place to eat. So I was umbrella-less. I didn’t need it in Omiya because it stopped raining, even though it was supposed to snow that night. It didn’t though, which was fortunate for me.

I was planning to take a faster route to get home because I didn’t know if I would have class on Saturday or not. So I expected to get home around 12:30am after walking home from Hongodai station. It turns out that I went past my Yokohama stop and ended up at Ofuna. According to the website where I get my train schedules, I should have gone to Ofuna and transferred to the Keihin-Tohoku line and gone 5 minutes back to Hongodai. But since the last trains usually go slower and wait past their departure times for those who are lagging, it ended up at Ofuna station about 30 minutes after I was supposed to arrive there. Therefore there were no more trains going on the Keihin-Tohoku line. That really made me mad because I had to walk an even further distance that I would have had to if I just had gotten off at Yokohama and taken the Keihin-Tohoku line from there. I would have saved time and money. So I learned my lesson and to go the way that I feel would be better instead of the one that the computer spits out at me. I got lucky that it didn’t rain because I didn’t have an umbrella and I was carrying my laptop. Although walking about 35 minutes with my laptop wasn’t very fun either since it was heavy as hell at that point. I got home later than I wanted around 1am, which I could have taken the Keihin-Tohoku line directly from Omiya and gotten there at the same time. I got lucky that I didn’t have class on Saturday so I could take the time to rest and get enough sleep.

Graduation party at the Imperial Hotel

Today, the only plan is to go to the imperial hotel in the evening and eat a lot of good food and enjoy the entertainment. It is a nice way to say congratulations to the students for their hard work over the past 6 years, and 3 years for some. I think that they will enjoy it and I look forward to taking some pictures with them.

To be honest with you, I didn’t get much to eat. It was a shame because the food was good and it would be the last time that I would go to one of these things. I did get some pictures with some students, which I’m really surprised at since I only taught this graduating class a few times and that was years ago. I don’t really remember much from those classes or even their names, so I was a bit surprised. I found out at the party that most of the teachers don’t really teach them. The program was nice and it was interesting that I was on my own to find my way there. I’m not sure why that is either. I think that it could have been because it was my day off and they didn’t want me to go to school and then go to the imperial hotel. Either way actually would have been fine with me though. I have been scaling back my actions at work. Everyone was dressed very nice and it was a great ceremony for them and their last time together to celebrate before their graduation ceremony.

It’s very interesting how they do things like that in Japan.

Hump Day

I didn’t have my computer today to keep me distracted from getting ready for work, but somehow I still ended up leaving later than I wanted to. This caused me to miss my train and therefore get to work a lot later than I would have wanted. I arrived a few minutes before class started, but it was ok since they were in their homeroom class and their homeroom teacher was late to come out.

We did jeopardy in 11^th grade yuri first period. It was much faster to setup than yesterday and we didn’t have any problems with the computer or the projector. We finished the whole thing and even had a few minutes at the end. The scores again were very lopsided and that was bad and I think that it discouraged some of the other students. But they knew it and it was undeniable to not choose them since sometimes they were the only students who had their hands raised. They did very well and it went very smoothly. I think that they enjoyed it.

For second period, we had their speech test. 8^th grade yuri will probably win the contest, but they need to work on memorizing a bit more. Some students need to be a little louder so they could be heard. Some have heavy accents and it becomes hard to hear them and that makes it a bit not clear, but overall, they did well.

Third period was with 10^th grade fuji. They did a fairly good job with their presentation poster. They won’t have to give a presentation, but they needed to make a poster about what people should and shouldn’t do to help the environment. They didn’t understand what to do at first and were just struggling through it. I didn’t think that it was explained as best as it possibly could have. They weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed either and probably would have benefited from a better explanation. It was even a little unclear for me so I couldn’t really help them out much. I did the best I could to help them out and after half the class, they were able to get things done.

There was a schedule change for today so I would have fifth period with 9^th grade fuji. It will be the last time that I teach these girls before they go off to America. It is a bit exciting since it will also be the last time I teach the 9^th grade this year. I’m happy and sad at the same time. I hate teaching when I’m being watched in the back with someone who will criticize during class. It’s counterproductive and not beneficial for the students. We plan to work with tip and fast food today. I’m looking forward to not having to do this anymore after this class. At least not until the new year starts in April. I got some menus from In-N-Out burger to show them so that they could be a bit ready before they go. It really is good for them and I think that they will enjoy it, if they pay attention that is.

Back to normal Tuesday

Second period was with 8^th grade ran and we did their test on their speeches. They did fairly well, but they didn’t memorize their speeches. It would have been better if they had memorized it. That’s their weakest point. Some students haven’t finished yet. I don’t think that they have practiced enough for it. Some students need to be a little bit louder to be heard and their stance needs to be improved too. Some students have a hard time in this class because they have a heavy accent and that makes it hard to hear them speak.

Third period was with 8^th grade kiku and they did their test too and we evaluated it. They did a fairly good job with it. Some students need to study a lot for it, but I think that some of the students have a chance to win the contest. They need to be a little louder though and to enunciate a little more. Most of the students need to improve the way that they pronounce some of the words, but most of the time it was very clear. I didn’t see many glaring mistakes during the speech test, but they need to memorize it a little more.

Fourth period was with 7^th grade kiku, and we just worked on making riddles. They were working on body parts, but had forgotten most things that we have studied before. They don’t connect things from class to class, which is something we don’t understand. It seemed as if they were either struggling with the information or just being lazy. I think that it was a mix of both and that really slowed us down today. They could have improved a little more if they had actually worked on the material instead of just joking around.

Fifth period was with 11^th grade fuji. It was the last time that I will ever teach them. As much as I really enjoy that thought, I also am saddened by it. Since I won’t teach the 12^th grade (unless they ask for it) and this will be the last oral class they will have since they will graduate March 1^st. We played English Jeopardy and we set things up in the classroom with PowerPoint and projector and everything. I wanted to make it a big deal since it was the last time I would have to do it for them. We had some projector problems with the students disconnecting the power quite often. It is bad for the projector. That slowed us down for a little bit. The other problem that I had with this activity was that one group was just blowing everyone else away and they just took up all the points. I’m thinking that isn’t good and it made some students very discouraged. I would like to see it more evenly distributed, but I think that was only particular to this class. It had its own dynamic.

I had to give an after school test, which is really really late since the test was ages ago. The semester technically ended today, which made me late to pass back all the papers since she was so late to give it. She did fairly well, even though she had about 5 minutes to study and to memorize it. I was surprised that she could even do it. She’s the type to be lazy about school work and this was not an exception. But she did it and it is now all over with.

After school we had English club with the 7^th graders. We played crazy eights with them and they were learning about categories and colors. They enjoyed the game. After club, I had to sort papers to be passed back to the students. I stayed till around 7pm to make the groups all sorted out. The problem was that we had a lot of papers to hand back and that’s why it took me really long to get it finished. Actually it still isn’t finished, but I didn’t want to get home very late.

I had dinner at a curry restaurant today at Yokohama station and went home soon after that. I didn’t bring my computer home so I didn’t waste time doing nothing and it was nice to get all that weight off of my shoulder. My bag had broken and I had to carry it, so it is a bit of a hassle. I have to figure out a way to carry it around from place to place since my bag is broken.

CP absent

The first class that I had this morning was with 10^th grade kiku. We were working on the Environment topic and getting them ready for the presentation next week. I gave out the papers for them to make their posters and then offered them some more information so they could give a complete report. They had some questions to answer, so I just let them do that for the whole period. I was hurrying them along so they could finish before next week. I think this class went very well.

The second class today was with 7^th grade ume. Last week we worked on animal riddles using a worksheet. This week, I had them write their own riddles and give it to the class in a presentation and the students listening would have to guess the animal. They did a very good job in this class. They were a bit loud though, which is very unusual since this class is supposed to be very quiet. We reviewed animals and body parts to make sure that they understood it, but it seems as though they had forgotten it. I just couldn’t really get through to this class. They were distracted by many things and weren’t paying much attention even though they were able to complete the assignment. I just felt like I wasn’t getting through to them.

The third class of the day was with 9^th grade yuri was one where I had no idea what I was doing until a few minutes before the class. We decided to cover what they were supposed to cover on Saturday, but didn’t. It was all for the preparation to go to America. I actually had to yell to get their attention today because it was very important. They have about 10 more days to go before they go on their trip. So we covered customs and immigration terms and some questions that they would be asked. The syllabus said that we would do Fast Food, but we thought it would be better to hold off on that till next week. They just did some things to get ready for their trip and answering and writing questions to ask UCSB teachers.

The fourth period class was with 11^th grade ran. We did the activity for do it, say it and draw it. I think it was good that I could do it on my own and not have any comments from the back of the room. It went pretty well at the beginning, but I think that after awhile it died down. The energy just wasn’t there and I started to feel very tired. It was good that this was all happening right before lunch too so I could get some energy eating. It went well, but not my best performance I feel. This class has been hard to teach recently and I have started to feel out of touch with them and don’t really know what’s going on. They have been loud recently and just not paying attention. I’m not sure why that is though. But it’s a bit discouraging for me since I used to get along with them very well and they wouldn’t be so chatty all the time. I don’t want to yell, since this is supposed to be fun month.

The last class of the day was with 7^th grade yuri and we did what the second period class did today. We did riddles again today. They had to make their own, but the problem was they threw away all their papers from last week. I couldn’t really believe it, so they had trouble with that. But they understood what they had to do, and they did a perfect job with it. They are really capable of doing things and it really showed today. I think this class went really good and probably one of the best of the day. The rhythm in this class went smoothly. So I felt really good afterwards.

After school, I stuck around to make sure that I got all the details and everything ready for tomorrow. I helped a few students with their speeches for their speech contest. Actually they have tests this week to make sure that they know how to give their speech and how we could help them improve. I also did some moving around of some things. Some English department teachers went to the gym to move around some things. We did a pretty good job with cleaning up and made everything easy to get to and all out of they way too. It was raining and cold at the time, so I actually wanted to leave about an hour before we started to work. But I’m glad I helped out, I think I contributed a lot to the moving around.

After I left, I picked up dinner at Yoshinoya. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten there, so I’m glad that I went. It was great like usual, but didn’t seem as filling as usual.

Resting at home

I didn’t do much today. I did laundry, talked to my sister for a little bit. I made my lunch and dinner today. I was really proud of myself because it was really good. I didn’t make any mistakes with it and it turned out great. That’s really good news for me. I really do feel like I can live independently now and that’s such a liberating feeling. It’s one of my goals to accomplish while I’m in Japan.

I got a package from my mother, which I managed to open. It was hard to open because it was covered in tape. I gave my souvenir gift to my neighbor. I got some kerosene for my heater, which I probably really won’t need since it is getting warmer, but I wanted to use up my money on my card for the kerosene. I finally bought a mouse today, well at least ordered it online. I decided to go with the Logicool or Logitech MX-1000. I think I will like it.

I got a call today from my co-worker; she’s still in Canada and will miss Monday, so I have to fill in for her again. I’m not sure if that is good news or bad news. This time, I’m not as ready as I was last week. So I will have to make some changes and prepare better, even though I have no idea what we will be doing. I’m really going at this on my own and I’ve got to figure out a way to get it handled. I’m a bit worried about that though since I really have no idea what to do next for the classes since I never find out usually until 5 minutes before the class or on the way to class. Now I won’t even have that. But this is also another opportunity for me to do anything that I want and not be criticized by it. I’m looking forward to it again.

Class (change in Schedule) and Biffy

Today, I had one class since the second one was cancelled for some preparation work for their trip to the United States. We worked on Life more than money today. I couldn’t get my computer to work with the projector again, so I was pretty much winging it. I helped tie everything together for her, which is very good so she could understand the importance of learning language and communication and how it will benefit her in the future. It was very good and I think that she started to understand a lot better. She answered all the questions that I posed to her correctly and it was very efficient too. We sped right along and everything flowed very well. She did her homework that I assigned for her last week and I was a bit surprised that she did. I think that she really does enjoy the class. She didn’t bring it to school, but I do believe that she did it. I assigned her homework to come up with 5 whys that she wants. I’m not sure if I will have class next week or not, but it’s good for her to have it done. We covered the topics of the fishes, forms, school, life cycle – money cycle, how the subjects in school help her to apply her knowledge, a little health, a little science, streams and lakes. It was good.

At 6pm, we would go to Biffy, which is a restaurant that the English teachers go to annually to announce who will stay and who will leave. It is usually a big thing since the new year will start in two months. I found out that there will be two teachers leaving the school this year. One will be one of my close friends in the teacher’s office, but it was expected since she is pregnant and will give birth next month. The other came to me as a surprise since she started just when I started. She’s really incredibly beautiful, but the problem is that she’s too nice in class and the students in those classes that I teach with her get really rowdy. But she’s beautiful. I think she’s leaving because she just got married and the work she has to do with her husband is labor intensive and she needs to help with that. I gave all the teachers a souvenir from Korea. I bought them really nice pens and I think that they all appreciate it.

Coming back to Japan from Seoul

I left the hotel really early to get to the airport really early. My plane left at 8:30am which meant I needed to be packed and ready to leave at 5:30am. I needed to be there 2 hours before, so I was wondering when I could get some sleep involved. But since I will get back to Tokyo soon after that and I don’t have much of a plan, I could just sleep when I get back.

So this is how the day really went. I didn’t end up getting any sleep from last night and just watched TV till I had to go. The weather was cold. It was minus 7 degrees Celsius, which is pretty cold if you’ve never felt it, like me. This has been the coldest climate that I’ve ever been in… at least that I could remember. But the hotel room was always hot. I think that even though I turned off the heater, it was still going or it might have seeped in from adjacent rooms or something. I had wanted to at least get a few hours of sleep before I left, but that didn’t happen for some reason. I had a little stomachache in the late hours in the morning time before I had to go.

The first place that the tour took us to was to a duty free gift shop. It was pretty interesting eating kimchi for breakfast. I didn’t end up buying any because it was way over priced. But I did get some shoju and other things for some teachers and that kind of thing. Then we got on the bus and left for Gimpo airport, which was across the street, but it was a fairly broad street. The tour guide took us to check in our bags and then she was about to take off. I had asked her a question about postage for postcards and then that took us to the other terminal building and all around the airport to figure out how much it costs to send a postcard to the states and to Japan. We never found out, so I just gave some money to the tour guide and she said she would send it. I’m not sure if she will or not, and I gave her about $15 to send 8 postcards, which I’m sure doesn’t cost that much.

Then I went back to the International Terminal at the domestic airport. I got on the plane, watched an interesting movie that I would like to see again actually. I only saw part of it, but it seemed pretty good. It’s called Mr. Housewife, which is pretty much what the name implies. I only got to see a bit of it before breakfast came and we landed. The trip was really short coming back to Japan compared to going to Seoul. The trip was a little less than 2 hours. The flight attendant was VERY cute, it was a little unbelievable. Although there are a lot of similarities between Korea and Japan, there’s something about Japan that makes it feel like home for me. There are good things about Korea and probably more so than in Japan, but I’m very comfortable here and I really don’t know why. I got back to my house around noon and went online. I talked to the family for a little bit before I got some shut eye. I woke up around 8pm and got dinner and watched a little music station. Then I got ready to go back to sleep again because I have work tomorrow. I typed up some entries on my journal, but didn’t finish. I will probably finish it tomorrow.

My free day in Seoul

I plan to do a lot today so I have to get up early and get out to the station and make it happen. I wanted to get up early and out of the house, but it never really worked out. I ended up leaving the hotel around 10am for Bomun station. I took a quick little trip to Gyengbokmung Palace. I got there right at the perfect time because they were doing a guard changing ceremony at the main gate. It wasn’t as spectacular as the one that I saw yesterday, but still it was pretty cool. This place was pretty big and wide. After I entered the palace grounds, I was able to look at different buildings with traditional Korean architecture.

Gyengbokmung Palace is the number one recommended place to go in Seoul. I’m glad I got to go. I was able to get a lot of pictures taken of the grounds and followed around with some other language groups to get a little free tour. But I ran off ahead of them because I wanted to get more pictures and to see things that they didn’t think of seeing. The grounds were pretty nice and had interesting things, but it wasn’t as grand as I thought that it would be. It was a nice contrast to go from modern to traditional though.

Cheungbokmung Palace is the number two recommended place and is recognized as a world heritage site. You could only be allowed in with a tour guide. They only had a few times offered for the English language, so I decided to go with a more frequent Japanese language group. I thought that the tour would be very long since they announced that it would take about 1 hour and 15 minutes. That’s a long time to look around the heritage site. I thought it was worth it though. There was a lot to see and it was interesting to have someone take me around instead of me going around by myself. I think that I learned a lot about it too. The tour guide’s Japanese was easier to understand than the one from H.I.S. and the tour went pretty smooth. The actual tour went around 1 hour and 25 minutes when I looked at my watch to see how long it took. I was a bit surprised since it looked very long on the map, but in actuality, it really wasn’t that long. I think those maps are scaled incorrectly. I picked up a Snickers for lunch, which really wasn’t much of a lunch. I ate it around noon and it was a good thing too. I don’t think that I would have survived the tour if I hadn’t eaten something. I wanted to see everything on my list and I had a tight schedule to follow too.

I went to a famous or at least popular temple after the palace that was called Jyumong. I thought that it was pretty popular because there were a ton of people there. People were everywhere, but they were outside of the temple. They also had a tour group, but I didn’t come at the right time and I didn’t want to wait, so I just entered it and went around by myself. I didn’t think that it was that great, but it is also another world cultural heritage site. It looked pretty much the same as the other places that I went today, but a little smaller. I didn’t get to see the whole thing, and didn’t really want to either, but it was cool. I had been walking the whole time and I started to get really hungry since I only had a snickers to eat.

I decided that I needed to try something American, since on my other trips I’ve had something cultural and something foreign. So I decided on Pizza Hut since it was near the station. I ordered a Super Supreme, small pizza. It was so good and I miss eating pizza hut. I actually have been craving it, but we don’t have sit-in in Japan, so I took a chance. I think that the other place I wanted to eat something American, was Krispy Kreme, but that wasn’t near where I was or where I wanted to go. The pineapple juice wasn’t quite what I expected though. It was more than enough and I was surprised that I was able to finish it. It took a little while to stuff myself and all the calories that I’ve burned off from walking all around Seoul, quickly came back.

I jumped on the subway from Jyongmong station to Myeoung-dong station so I could go to Seoul Tower. It was a bit hard to figure out how to get there actually. I thought that I could just look at where it was and go to the base and it would really be that easy. But it didn’t look to be that easy, so I needed to find another way. I learned how to get on the bus and that’s what I did. I took a yellow 02 bus to that took me to the top of the mountain to the base of the N. Seoul Tower. It was very convenient to take the bus since it took me where I wanted to go. It was a lot easier to use than I thought it would be because I can’t speak Korean. I just used the T-Money card that I picked up yesterday and I still have enough money on it.

I went during the afternoon, so I only have afternoon shots, and I heard that it was better to go at night so you could see all the night lights. But I think that it is a good contrast to have day pictures since I only have night pictures of all the other towers around the world that I’ve been too. I realized that when I was looking around, I had only traveled around just the north part of Seoul. I got a lot of pictures from different angles and different views. I also took a little break to write some postcards too. It was a nice little break for me to enjoy the view and to write some postcards. I stayed there till around 6pm and then decided to leave.

I took the same bus back to a different station that was actually a little more convenient than I thought it would be. It was still light out and hadn’t gotten dark, so I couldn’t get any night pictures of Seoul. I headed towards Gangnam because I would be meeting my friend there. It was nice to see him. I haven’t seen anyone from his term at Grossmont for a long time. We went around the place and found a yogurt shop to sit at and talk. I really don’t like yogurt and he didn’t either, but we decided to go anyways. The place is called Red Mango, and I didn’t get many pictures of the place. I had a Café Latte Yogurt with Caramel. It was interesting and actually pretty good. But I think that it did a number on me and on my stomach. I was sitting there for a long time talking with my friend about the good ol’ days at Grossmont. I was catching him up with what our friends are up to. I heard a lot about what he has been up to working at Samsung. It was pretty good and I’m glad that it worked out and we were able to meet. We stayed there for about 3 hours talking. I had to leave around 11pm because I needed to catch the train back to my hotel and start packing. I felt really sick upon my arrival at the hotel and couldn’t get to sleep.

N. Seoul Tower, the third tallest tower in the world

Guard at famous temple with temple and mountain in the background

Long corridor of a famous temple

A famous temple in Seoul

Massage, Yakiniku, Shopping

The tour today is about going to get a massage, eating Korean BBQ. In the morning, I was on my own. I didn’t know what kind of tour package that I got, but it really wasn’t worth the cash. I slept in till about 9am and left the hotel around 10am. I went to Bomun station and learned how to take the subway. It was very similar to the subway system in Japan, but they have turnstiles in Seoul and not in Japan. They have a T-Money card, which is something similar to the Suica card in Japan. The subway system is much cheaper to use than in Japan too. I think that it is very interesting to see the contrasting cultures. Many people compare those two countries and I could understand why they say that they are similar. I think that they are, but there are differences too.

It was very easy to navigate around the subway system. I took the train to Eijiro 3 sam ga station, which was the location of Lotte hotel. Lotte is fairly big in Japan too for their candies. I found the hotel easily and had a few hours to kill before I needed to meet with the tour guide. I thought that it was interesting that I had to find my own way to the hotel and I wouldn’t get picked up from my hotel. I think that it turned out good because I saw a lot this morning too. I started walking around and found the city hall building. There was a palace next to that too, and they had a changing of the guard ceremony. It was pretty interesting.

I found namdaemum gate, which is pretty significant in the history of Korea. Not sure why, but that’s what I’ve read. I took some pictures there and also witnessed a changing of the guard ceremony. It was really good timing because it seemed very rare to see it happen. I walked around a little more and found one of the two night market areas. I walked around there for a little bit. It reminded me of the Taiwanese night market, except I went during the day. It was pretty interesting and very lively even though it was during the day. I bought something to eat there and the guy spoke English. I was a bit surprised since he was the first person that I’ve met that spoke English. I walked around a little bit more and I found Myeoung-dong, which is like Shibuya, or a young people’s area. It was pretty interesting and I saw many foreign stores and a lot of students. It was pretty interesting, but it reminded me of Omotesando because of the stores. It wasn’t anything really special, but still pretty cool.

I started walking some more and found a very interesting Starbucks store. It was shaped like a traditional building and made into such a big deal. I enjoyed my time just walking around the area. I killed a lot of time and saw a lot of things that I was planning to see tomorrow. So it was good to get it out of the way. From there, I went back to the Lotte Hotel and met with the guide at 2pm. We took a van to Este for a massage. I spent about 2 hours there getting a great massage. It was by far much better than the one I got in Thailand and better than the one I had in Taiwan. But then again, I paid a hell of a lot for it. The tour package for the day cost me about $130 and then they asked for an additional $50 for another sports massage and for a cup massage. It was damn good though. I really liked the oil massage. I think that it makes sense to use that so it wouldn’t burn like it did when I had one in Taiwan. But I think that it was very convenient since I just got in and out of the sauna and hot bath. I mean it was getting a little out of hand. I thought that I would be going around with the other two people that I met at the hotel, but I never saw them again. The $130 included the dinner of Korean BBQ and bibimbap, but to be honest with you. It wasn’t that good. I have had better ones in Japan, so I was a bit disappointed in the food. I had to pay extra for the drink, which was stupid since I paid so much for the tour already. After dinner, I got dropped off at dongdaemong station and I was pretty much on my own again. That place is famous for its shopping centers and night market. I got to check it out at night, so it was pretty interesting. A lot of people are in the area and the shopping buildings were really packed. I think that I could have bought some things, but I decided not to get any clothes. I was looking for postcards and found a nice little souvenir area. So I got a lot of the souvenirs for my co-workers and other friends. It was nice but it started to get expensive. I then went walking around and wanted to see if I could walk all the way home. I was just using the subway line as a way to walk to see if I could do it. I found some other interesting areas too. There was a dongdaemong gate there and I got pictures of that. But it was dark already and they didn’t have any lights shining at it, so I couldn’t get any good pictures. Then there was the famous stream that is man-made. I’m not sure why they decided to build the stream, but I saw it on TV last night about it. It is one of the greatest human marvels because they were able to do it. It was pretty nice looking and it was made all fancy with lights and stuff.

I walked around a little more and decided that after I got to Changsin station, I couldn’t make it to one more stop because it was much longer than I wanted to walk. The course didn’t follow the track, so I had to take the train home. I got home around 9:15pm so I could get a call from my friend. I got there just before he called too. I went to the grocery store and bought some drinks and a couple of snacks. It was about $3 for everything and they charge for bags too. I was watching TV all night again and couldn’t go to sleep. It was pretty cool to be standing there in Korea. I just liked the idea of it too. I saw a special on the Discovery Channel about the Great Wall of China. It was very interesting. I think that things on the discovery channel are very interesting. I got to sleep around 3am.

Changing of the guards at a temple near City Hall

Gate guards in front of the National Treasure, south big gate

Yong Sama on Lotte Hotel in Seoul

Valentines day and going to Korea

I get to spend today by myself. Isn’t that depressing? I did the finishing touches on my research and now I think that it is completely possible to go on my own. I have a plan to do all if not most of the things that I want to do all in one day. I just hope I get up early enough to make it happen. I will do more planning at the airport and on the airplane I will study a bit of Korean. I plan to do all the buying of souvenirs tomorrow or the first real day that I’m there.

I printed out a lot of sheets that will get me ready for the trip there. I finally got my itinerary for my trip from the agency and talked to all my contacts. So everything is squared away. The only things I need to do now are pack, get ready, exchange some money, buy travelers’ insurance and get to Korea safely.

The lady that would be our tour guide spoke Japanese really fast. It was hard to understand her. I was impressed with it though, but hard to understand especially since I couldn’t communicate very well with her. I was separated from the rest of the people that were on the plane with me. I was really going at this alone from the beginning to end.

Welcome to South Korea

CP in Canada, MTka in Odaiba

I taught all the classes today. I was a bit excited about that since I would get a chance to see if I am a good teacher or not. I think that I was put to the test today, but I think I came out on top.

The first period class was with 10^th grade kiku. They are pretty high level and I really didn’t need to do anything since the plan was for them to use the laptop computers and to do research for their presentation in two weeks on global issues like global warming. I think that is interesting in itself and they are the only class that has to give a presentation in the 10^th grade, which is a little messed up. I taught them how to use the computers in the language lab, but I’m not sure if I was supposed to or not. Most of the students were able to get online and get a minimal amount of research done, but there were a few students that couldn’t get anything done because of computer problems. I think that is a travesty since the school spent a lot of money to buy the laptops and they don’t work up to expectations.

The second period class was with 7^th grade ume. This is the first time that I’ve taught in front of them in the classroom. I worked with them one time in Hakone for the summer program, but this situation is a little different since both the teachers in the room were male. I think that can be a little intimidating for the students since it is an all girls school. We talked about animals and where they lived and body parts and plurals. They did a fairly good job with it and I didn’t really need to teach much since they all understood it. I enjoyed this class since it was the first time that I was really teaching the 7^th grade all by myself. They were a bit noisy in class today, which was weird since this class is supposed to be the quietest in the school. I think that they were a bit surprised and excited about having a new teacher teach them.

The third period class was with 9^th grade yuri. They weren’t that bad today actually. They were a bit tested with the assignment though. It was more like a math class, but and that’s why the struggled with it. I had them work on tax and tip since they will go to Santa Barbara very soon. I wanted to make sure that they had the money thing all squared away. Most of the students were actually trying it out, but it was a tad difficult for them to understand. I could have presented it in a better way to have them figure it out. I always overestimate instead of underestimate. That is the problem that I have been having lately.

The fourth period class with 11^th grade ran. They finished up the music listening activity that I started last week. We listened to the song one more time and they filled it in best they could. I think that playing the songs over and over is a little too much, so I wanted them thinking and talking more. I gave them another worksheet to work on that dealt with the songs and the meanings inside of the songs. They seemed stuck until I helped them out to see what I was asking them and then they got it and liked it. I punished a lot of students for forgetting their paper by making them write “I’m sorry I forgot my paper” on the board. It is very American style, but I think that they need to be responsible for themselves.

Fifth period was with 7^th grade yuri. They were a bit surprised to see me lead the class since I’m usually with them, but not teaching really. I’m just the assistant usually in this class. But I think they really enjoyed it. We were working on animals, where they lived, plurals, body parts and a little bit of pronunciation. I really enjoyed teaching this class, they were fun. The students were all participating and the energy in the class was good. I think it was a good way to end the day with a great class. I nailed it!

We didn’t have 6^th period today, and I don’t know why. I think it might have been because finals start tomorrow. I worked a little bit at school, but I was in rush to leave because I would be meeting a few friends of mine in Odaiba today. I got an email that they changed the time, so I was less in a rush. I needed to take care of some stuff like check my email, so I took my laptop to the LL because I have internet connection there and I still hadn’t gotten anything from the travel agency yet. I will be leaving Japan tomorrow and I don’t even have an itinerary. I also needed to get my resident tax taken care of, but I just left that with the accountant at the school so he could take care of that for me and I wouldn’t have to. I also picked up some Valentines chocolate from the office staff and another from the 3^rd year teachers, or the green grade.

It sucks a bit that I won’t be at school on Valentines Day, but I will probably have to give gifts next month on White day. I swear they time it like that so the guys get screwed because it’s an all girl’s school.

I went to Odaiba soon after I left school. The train ride there was nice. I was very peaceful and got to sit down the whole way there. Odaiba was very empty and it seemed as if not many people go there during the week. I hung out a bit and bought a “baby shower” gift for my friend that I would be meeting tonight. I got $100 gift certificate from Toys R Us for them. I met them soon after that and we had dinner at Hyaku go en, which is a Chinese restaurant. It was ok, not anything real special, but it was enough for me. EK came late, like usual and didn’t pay me back for the gift, which for some reason, I knew that would happen. It was nice to see MTka again since the last time I saw her was about 9 months ago. It made me a little depressed though since I see how fast everything is going and how I’m not prepared for it.

Going home, I had a lot of time to think about it, so it was a bit depressing. I did more research on Seoul and I found out a lot and started putting together what I wanted to do on my own since I would have to try to do on my own. I think that it is very possible to do that though since everything is so close.

Me, with pregnant MTka in Odaiba

Planning to go out

I planned to go out today, but somehow that fell through. I’m not sure how that happened, but the person that I was supposed to meet today became busy, actually just too tired because she has been busy recently. So I ended up staying at home and getting ready for going to Korea. I did a lot of research on the language and things to do in Seoul and how the culture works there. I was also talking to a few friends of mine.

It was such a great conversation. I really miss talking to them and it was weird that we have finally started using all the great technology provided for us. I talked to CNto on skype, which was actually very clear. She doesn’t have a webcam so we didn’t do that. But it was nice to hear her voice and we talked about a lot of things.

I’m planning a trip to meet her, but I’m not sure when would be best.

a day at home

I didn’t want to go out today, even though the weather is very nice. I think that I need to keep track of my money and I think that spending a lot isn’t the way to go. I have ambitious plans for my money and a travel schedule ahead that will keep me tight on the cash flow. I am considering just going for a walk to Yamada denki to look up the prices for the mice because I have a lot of points, which would make it a lot cheaper and more affordable. But do I really want to use up my points for a mouse?

Mom and Sister's birthday

I spent a day out in Shinjuku today. I left the house in the afternoon and it was bit warm. I read a little on the train to get to Yokohama station. But then it got busy and there simply wasn’t enough room to have a book out and read. I wanted to go to the H.I.S. main office, but it turns out that it was No1 Travel, which is a subsidiary of H.I.S. and they had many people who spoke different languages. I got helped with someone who spoke English, but she passed me off to someone who spoke to me in Japanese. I thought that it was a waste since I could have gone anywhere to get the same. I didn’t have to come all this way to do it. But since I was there, I was determined to get a ticket and the package that I wanted.

I was able to do it too. It took about 2 hours to work out all the details and take care of all the paperwork too. I was able to do it all and pay. I paid with all the money in my wallet and it turned out that I had the exact amount needed to pay for the trip. I think I only had about 500 yen left after I paid for everything. I think it is a little expensive to do it, but I think that it will be worth it once I get there. I’ll see only after the trip itself. But I’m happy that I’m going on a trip. I took a big hit in my savings though, which is something that I’m not so happy about. I don’t plan to spend so much money on this trip, but I do have a lot of souvenirs to buy for school peoples and stuff. I’ll see how much I end up spending. I would like to keep it to around 30,000 yen in total, which would make the total trip cost about 100,000 yen, or about $1000. I need to save for my spring vacation trip and my other trips during the rest of my stay in Japan.

After that I did a little shopping. Since I was in the Shinjuku area, I decided to walk around to see what’s there and what’s going on. I found the mouse that I want to get for my laptop, but decided not to get it. It was a bit more expensive than I thought and I was thinking if I should get it at all. I just spent a lot of money, more money than I thought I would have to spend to get the tickets to Korea. I didn’t want to use up all my money that fast. I need to find another way to get more so I don’t have to worry about all of this. I got to try out the mouse too. I thought that it was fairly average and there really isn’t anything special about it. It does work better than the other mice on display, which is a good thing. But other than that, I didn’t think too much about it. It is over $100, so I do need to keep that in mind. I think I’ll hold off on that till after I get back from Korea and see how much money I have left in my monthly budget to get one this month, or wait it out till next month.

I got dinner at Subway today. I like their sandwiches and I’m surprised that there aren’t more than what I’ve found. I mean there is only one that I know of in Yokohama and there are supposed to be more Subways than McDonalds around the world. I bet you didn’t know that little piece of trivia. It was good, I should have gotten a bigger set, but I was surprised I was able to eat a foot long and then still have room for more since I eat so little now, I didn’t think my body could handle it.

Wanting to leave home, but not

I wanted to leave the house today. I had a plan and everything, but talking to friends kept me home. I wanted to talk to them since I haven’t talked to them in a long time. It seems to be the one reason why I decide to stay at home. It was a good thing that I had enough food at home too. I was doing a lot of researching for plans to go to Korea and I think that I found a good one to get me there at a reasonable price, but I think the problem is that the trip will be very very short. It will only be a two day trip, but advertised as four days. The first and last days are used as travel on the plane days. It’s only a 2.5 hour long flight, which is really close, but the times aren’t very good.

I wanted to go to the travel agency offices today, but I decided that I would call first to see if they spoke English so I didn’t have to waste time to go and get turned away. So I called around H.I.S. offices all over the place. I learned that the best place to go to would be the main office in Shinjuku.

I was talking to one of my friends that is living in SF right now. This conversation was very interesting. She confessed that if she was in Japan, she’d want to be my girlfriend. I was a bit surprised to hear that since I told her that I liked someone. She has been pushing me to ask her out too. It’s a very interesting situation I think.

Quick and easy Wednesday

Today went by pretty easily. I didn’t really have a problem getting up today and things were going pretty smooth. I did get to the station a little late this morning, which caused me to be about 10 minutes later to walk into work. That was fine though since I didn’t have any obligation to do in the morning, but just eat breakfast. I like it during that time because most of the teachers are in their homeroom classes and I can eat without having other teachers watch me.

First period was pretty good. We did do it, say it, draw it in class today with the 11^th grade yuri class. They were pretty spot on and didn’t have any real challenges for the things that they chose. They were creative and did very well with it. Half way through the class, CP suggested that we make things a bit tougher. I usually take her advice, even if I like it or not, and do it. But I usually segue my own way. We decided to make it harder by having the students give the answer in a sentence as a group. It slowed them down a little, but not by much. They did very well with the sentences but some groups missed the correct answer by a word or two. It is a little strict, but they were able to do it. I think they enjoyed it and it was fun for everyone. That was something that I liked about it. I have started to hate being told what to do in front of the students. It does undermine my ability and just gets on my nerves.

Second period with 8^th grade yuri was pretty chill for me. They got the evaluation form for the first time, so they saw CP give her speech and then they evaluated her. They needed to understand the evaluation points and what they meant in order to improve their own performance to be able to speak well. I really noticed that CP really does like all the attention on her, which is really bad in a learning environment. She would consistently bring the attention to her as she was reading her score in front of the class. I thought that the time would be better spent for the students to be practicing their speeches on a personal one to one basis, but I guess not. They did have about 5 minutes to work on it with their partners, but I don’t believe 5 minutes is going to cut it.

Third period was with 10^th grade Fuji. They had a “test” today where they got into groups and worked on a review session that quizzed their ability to answer questions about the environment. It was good that they had to review it. I helped them study, which was a good thing and I learned how to best present the information to the students. I really didn’t know what would be on the “test,” so I couldn’t really help them prepare, but I made them take out the papers went over to each table and helped them all out. I would make them answer questions, for which they already had answers to. I like to think that it helped, but you never know. They did fairly well on the test though. Some of the questions were a bit tricky about the environment, but overall they managed to get it done. It was a monopoly style game that if you were to get a question right, you would be able to move forward, but if you got it wrong you’d lose points.

I spent my off periods working on a paper for the 9^th grade classes. They will be studying about tax and tips at restaurants in the US, so I made a little worksheet for them to do. It really has become more like a Math class, but I think that it is important for when they go to Santa Barbara.

6^th period with 9^th grade Fuji was a bit tough. They really have lost their motivation for things. Even the students who normally participate didn’t today. I’m sure that she was probably sick, but that really puts a damper on everyone else. I really needed to push them to speak up today. It was hard, but I had to go to each and every single student and ask them the questions in order for them to do it. That took a bit of time, but I think that it was good that they are at least able to do it, even if they think that it is probably a waste of time. I didn’t like the activity either, but you know, I have to do it too. It took up the whole period, but I still have a backseat teacher instructing how to do the class, so I often feel that it is unimportant for me to even bother. It really does undermine how things are run in the class and there is a power struggle. I know that she can’t help it, but it really gets annoying you know?

I tried to chill a little bit after class to let myself cool off. I was about to explode and I’ve noticed that my patience has grown very thin. CP split really quickly, which is very characteristic of her, so I couldn’t get any last minute details out of the way for Monday’s class. I think that I am missing some papers that I need for that class and I think that she accidentally took it home with her in her folder. But the problem is that she will be in Canada and I will look dumb for not having it, not her. I have to figure out how to get out of looking dumb and still present it in a good way. I think that I have figure out how I’m going to take care of the Monday classes. I really need to be on target and be the best teacher I can be. It’s a rare moment that I have to shine, and I need to prove to the teachers and myself that I can do it and do it well. So I spent the rest of the day preparing for that. I wanted to leave a bit early so I could get to the travel agency to ask about tours to Korea.

I didn’t get to leave that early, but I did leave early enough to get to the office 1 minute before they closed their doors. I asked about tours and learned that they don’t offer any. I had to go to a different office to do that. So I went to the Curry restaurant near Shin-Sugita station and thought about that. My trip to Korea is now in jeopardy because I might not be able to go on a trip at all. The only way I would go, is if there is a tour and I have someone to take me around. I want to only get a few things out of the way.

Better than average Tuesday

I know that for some of you, reading my journal and knowing EXACTLY everything I did isn’t your cup of tea, but this is something for me to remember when I’m at the age when I can’t remember. I want to be able to recall them (via google blog search) when I’m thinking about some games or some activities that I did that worked well. Who knows when I might need this stuff later on in life. I’m such a pack-rat. I know that it would have been helpful to have some of the things that I learned in Key Club with me now and I could use a lot of the games in my classes or a lot of the leadership stuff. But I’m managing I think.

Anyways, back to what I did today. The first class 2^nd period with 8^th grade ran was interesting. They really are very good at giving speeches. Today they had to give their introduction and opening remarks and closing remarks to their speeches, which is really quick. We were focusing on some points that they needed to give a good presentation and they did very well. I was really impressed by them. They have a good shot and winning in the contest next month and a lot of their English skills are pretty on the dot; at least with memorizing speeches.

The next class that I taught didn’t go as well as I thought they would have. 3^rd period with 8^th grade kiku, was like pulling teeth. They have recently been getting lazy and haven’t been paying too much attention in the other English classes and it has shown in my class. Their grammar and listening ability have greatly decreased. I think that they have been less motivated than usual. I think they also might be getting too tired of practicing for the speech contest. My explanation of what they needed to do wasn’t very good either. It was all review from the last week, but they acted as if it was the first time they had ever seen it. I kept getting distracted by CP today too. I really hate it actually. They were able to do it, but after they started a few people. CP shouldn’t have called on who to speak first because she picked the only student that she knew and she was a bad student so no one could really understand what to do. They were able to pick it up after I had to help them out a lot while they were in front of the room. They need to practice more and that’s the remedy to their improvement.

The next class with 7^th grade kiku was a review class really. The schedule got all mixed up and they started over again with this class, so CP made the mistake of doing the same lesson twice. They had already completed the paper that was given, but we never went over the answers, so that’s what we did. Then we played the game that they have done three times already. We did change that up a little bit though, so it was a bit different. But we let them do that all the way through till the end of class. I didn’t think that it was that productive, but it’s ok since it’s just for review. They will have a little test next class.

The last class of the day was with 11^th grade fuji and we played a game that I learned in College. It’s called Do it! Say it! Draw it! And that’s exactly what they needed to do. I had to give a few examples so that they understood how to play and I went through the rules with them. They did very good and answered really quickly. I believe that students will always find a way to accomplish the task that was given to them, no matter how much they complain about it. They complained a little saying that they couldn’t do it and it was so hard, but eventually they were all able to do it. It was a pretty good game and it was very interesting to see them do it. I’m glad that it worked well and gave them all something to do. I think they will like the last game too and that will be it for this class. They only have one more left and I will never teach them again… kinda sad really.

After school, I hung out at the part-time teachers’ office. Students aren’t able to come into the teachers’ room because we will have finals next week, so it was very quiet. I was talking to a few of the English teachers about English things and actually many other things too. It was fun and I enjoyed it there. A lot of the teachers came and went, but it was a good conversation. They were explaining to me the lineage of the Emperor. There was a big announcement that one of the princesses is pregnant. The big deal is that it’s not from the eldest son. That means that if the child to be born is a male, it would be the next to sit in the throne after Prince Naruhito. It would just be weird since it wouldn’t really be the eldest son and just the next male person in the family. I’m explaining this poorly, sorry for that. Just know that there hasn’t been a male born into the Imperial Family for 40 years and the next one would be Emperor, unless a law is changed, which might happen, but right now, it doesn’t look like it. My source is Mainichi news, so go check that out if you’re interested. I’m going to sleep now since I have to get up early and it’s already late.

I had dinner at Bamiyan again and got some healthy rice dinner, which wasn’t as good as last night’s.