KONNICHIWHAT!?: End of the School Year

So today was the last class of unit 11, which is the final term in our school's curriculum. That being said, the new classes start in April. Now they aren't exactly new classes exactly, because it's really the same curriculum I've been teaching all along, but with the same students "graduating" to a different curriculum. Good Lord, did that make any sense? I may or may not have mentioned that our school's curriculum is color-coded, with each class being a different color (Aqua, Lavender, Violet, etc.). Orange is where students begin when they're old enough to manage a textbook, so when "orange" students have done all 11 terms, they "graduate" to Lime class, which is the next step up in the curriculum. This is all just a really long way of saying that starting in April, I'll be doing what I've been doing all along, but I'll be seeing the same students in different classes. Sure there will be a few new students here and there and maybe even a few are going to be leaving, but nothing major.

Tomorrow I'll be having going to our monthly staff meeting and will be giving a demo on one of our new curriculum. I'm no longer sweating these meetings, or even the demos, and this time I feel well enough prepared. This new curriculum is for some of the younger students and let's just say I spent a little bit of time making finger puppets for tomorrow's demo. Tomorrow is also the last staff meeting for one of my fellow native teachers, as he's quitting and will have his last day sometime in the first week of March. There was going to be a bit of a farewell dinner after the meeting, but I won't be able to make it. He called me today to officially invite me, but a friend of mine from Tokyo will be coming down here to spend my long weekend with me. He understood and said it wasn't a big deal and that since he'll still be in Japan for a while after his last day, that there's time to reschedule a dinner. I still felt a bit guilty being the only reason the farewell dinner wouldn't be going down. He did say that regardless, they'd all be going out for dinner anyway...just a regular, non-farewell dinner. My friend is going to be arriving at the train station around 6pm and since the meeting ends at 4pm, there really wouldn't be enough time for me to go to the dinner other than it being like a cameo-appearance.

I have a few ideas as to what I want to do while my friend is visiting. I'm sure we'll go around to my regular haunts and maybe even go a few places that even I have yet to visit. Strength in numbers right? Anyway, I'm just happy to have a long weekend, time to relax and good company to spend it with. Until next time!