Tying up loose ends

Well I had class today, so I had to go take care of that. It was nice that class doesn’t start till 3rd period for me now. I had breakfast, but it was really quick and I ran out the door to make it on time.

The first class I had was with 10th grade fuji. They are rumored to be the toughest class in the school since they were pretty bad last year in 9th grade. This year, the two worse classes were mixed together to create this class. So going into it, I knew it was going to be tough. But it wasn’t that bad today. CP and Ms. Nakamura are pretty strict so the students couldn’t really get away with much without getting yelled at. So it was really ok today. They also just came back from Santa Barbara and probably their first experience abroad, so they are probably all jacked up about English. I think that could be the reason why they were fairly behaved today. The class size increased too, so it is a bit harder to manage. We did what we did in the other 10th grade classes, which was work on past tenses. They had a worksheet to fill out and they were supposed to do the partner activity, but they just cheated on that. They are still up to their bad habits, but we are going to crack down on it this year.

The second class was with 11th grade Ran. It was the first time that I saw some of the students in this class since I have never taught them before. It is weird to have said that since I’ve been working at the school for almost 2 years and there have been classes that I haven’t taught before since I had 21 classes out of 24. But this one is one of those three. I wanted to introduce what we will do for the new year and also why we learn and study English. I took the entertaining way of teaching and I think that it worked well with them. Their level is rather low, so I had to say things more broken down, but still kept the pace for the higher level students. It’s a bit challenging to balance that. But I think that it worked since they really understood what was going on and they enjoyed it. I’m glad that they were behaved and things went well. So for the first lesson of the 11th grade classes, all went well. I’m glad to report that.

The last class for the day was with 8th grade kiku. All of the 8th grade classes got bigger because they went from 5 total classes to 4 classes. Each class now has about 39 students. They are good students and probably the best behaved in the whole school. I do find that very odd since they are in the 8th grade. But most of them tend to be shy and reserved. We went over the introductions of the book and diaries. They also covered the information on page four in the expressways book. That was all we really had time for. I was really surprised at how some students got it and some didn’t. I think this is supposed to be one of the higher level classes, but I’m not sure anymore. Things changed from last year and now I’m all confused.

As soon as class was over, I ran over to the bank at Toritsu-Daigaku station and needed to take care of some money issues. The strange part about it was that I ran into one of the office staff people at the bank. She’s the new one and the cute one I have mentioned before. It was coincidence and pretty good since I really never get a chance to talk to her. I’d like to get to know her better if I could have the chance, but I doubt that would be possible. We talked for only a few moments before she needed to leave and my number was called. They had called a person to speak English with me, but he only pointed me to the paper I needed to fill out and then I was working with a person who only spoke Japanese. I didn’t think that worked out well, but still I was able to take care of everything and before the bank closed too. So things were taken care of and a big relief came over me.

After that I went back to school because there was English club today. I was working with some of the part-time teachers on an English performance that will come up next year, so I missed a majority of club. But when we finished I joined the club, and it was nice to see that we picked up two new members. I came at the tail end, so I didn’t get much time with them. When we left, I ran into one of the old students who graduated last month and was the leader of the English club. So it was nice to show the new members to her. We talked for a little bit before I went back to the office to get my things and get ready to go home. The members in the blue grade were going to see Shimura Ken, who is a comedian that is fairly famous. I left about the same time they did, but we weren’t going in the same location.

I ended up at Excelsior Café next to the station and I was there waiting for CHda so we could talk for a little bit. We talked about many things again tonight, but she was different tonight. There was a lot on her mind, and I could tell that it was bothering her. She wouldn’t admit to it though, but I could tell. She left about 8pm to go home and she went by foot. That’s a 50 minute walk home for her.

I came home and didn’t feel hungry, but I knew that I would eventually get hungry later in the evening. I watched a new drama called Attention Please about the hiring of new JAL flight attendants. It was ok for the first night. The girls on the show are pretty though, which is a given since it’s a show about flight attendants.