KONNICHIWHAT!?: He returns unscathed

I'm back at home in Oita, all limbs intact and no horror stories to report. Thank the heavens! Those who follow this blog know that a couple of days ago I headed out to travel the greater part of Kyushu in order to cover for some teachers in two different classrooms. One in Kumamoto and the other in Miyazaki. I'd like to reiterate that neither place is close to my home. However, when the company is in a pickle and they have no other teachers available, because it's their teaching week, they find the guy or gal who has a non-teaching week, that would be me, and they ship 'em out. I was given a packet full of tickets, pointing in all different directions, given two maps (one for each school area), and a Kumamoto hotel reservation sheet all in Japanese. My supervisor actually had the gall to say, "yeah, it's all in Japanese. good luck with that. haha", haha indeed. That's the type of guy I'm dealing with here folks. Anyway, Thursday morning came around and I caught the limited express train to Kokura at 11:45, arriving at 1:03. From there I had to hop on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kumamto at 1:22, to arrive at my destination by 2:19. My classes started at 6:15 but I'm on, what's known as "Status One", meaning that I have to check in with schedule control an hour before my classes start. Status one is over after two fulls working months then I only need check in a half hour before my classes start. Not to get too sidetracked, I arrive at Kumamoto and make my way to the hotel, thanks in part to a very helpful tourist group at the Kumamoto station. I had about 15 minutes to relax at my hotel before heading back to the station to start making moves to my classroom. Each classroom has a lock with a spare key for teachers that don't have the original classroom key. My supervisor provided me with the codes for the two classes I would be covering at, yet when I got to the Kumamoto classroom, the code he provided didn't work. So I try calling him, twice, and naturally he doesn't pick up. I call schedule control on my cellphone (which is a no-no because they need to know you're calling from the classroom), explained my situation and they were helpful in telling me that the code my bossman provided was totally wrong. I got the correct one and prepped for my two lessons. Again, all of this commuting for two hours of teaching boggles my mind. The first class I was covering was a bit intimidating in the sense that it's not a class I have any experience in because it's not in my regular rotation at my three schools. I just consulted the teachers manual and did the best I could. It went alright and the kids seemed to have fun. They were really young, about 4 on average, but were good kids. The second class was only 3 kids and they too were good kids. I lucked out and made my way back to the hotel to relax.

The next day (Friday) I got up around 9am in order to make it to the station in time for my 10:51 Shinkansen to Kagoshima-chuo. My train arrived at 11:36 but from there I had to hop on a limited express train at 11:47 to Minami Miyazaki, which would be arriving at 1:46. As you can see, there's plenty of quality time with the trains. I got to Miyazaki and made my way to the hotel, which was wonderfully located just a short 5 minute walk away from the station. I had a bit more time to relax before my classes started and got to enjoy just chilling in my room, which I must say was quite nice. The class I was covering at this day was one that I'd been to before for the Autumn training seminar that our area had last month. That being said, it didn't make me anymore prepared for the lessons I had to teach. I was covering for a JT (Japanese teacher), which is total insanity because NT (Native teachers) have no training or experience in teaching a JT lesson and the lesson's are completely different. I was a bit stressed about it all, so I called the NT for that classroom and he's an awesome guy from Sweden that reassured me that we're (NT's) are in no position to be teaching a proper JT lesson and that my only goals should be to make sure the students use some English and that they have fun doing it. It really put my mind at ease and helped me to relax before the students came in, and by the time things got started, I was fine and making sure the kids were enjoying themselves while doing my best to incorporate elements of the lesson. I left my notes for the class and made my way back to the hotel, with my last class ending at 9:45 (bit late for kids isn't it?), and getting back to the hotel around 11 (due to the odd train times). I was able to relax in my hotel room, staying up till about 2:30 watching Women's World Cup Volleyball, Japan v. Italy. It was oddly engaging but Italy won.

All in all, things went as smooth as I'd hoped they would've, but those that know me, know that I hate surprises thrown my way. I tend to throw a fit because I plan everything out. However, once I was thrown into the thick of it, I adjusted and make the best out of it and the classes went well. I just hope that the next time I end up having to cover for someone, it's maybe only thirty minutes away.