KONNICHIWHAT!?: July 2012

Too long, that's how long it's been! So what's new in the land of Japan? Well for me, not that much. Surprise, surprise. I'm still working my butt off but on the brighter side of things, I'm no longer having to cover for other teachers at their schools! Yay! We actually got some new teachers and that's great news not only for their respective schools, but for me as well because I'm tired of being the go-to-guy for covering. I think Richard is still doing alright up north, having taken over for Marty. As for the newest addition to the native teacher family, we have Spencer from North Carolina. Big round of applause. She did indeed take over residence in Ruki's old apartment and I was able to show her around the local vicinity on her second day here. I guess I was paying forward the kindness Ruki showed me when I first got here. It's all so intimidated and overwhelming when you're the new foreigner in town, that it really does help to have a friendly face, speaking your language. She seems to be getting along well enough and today is her first day teaching on her own at what is one of her new schools. Best of luck to her. I gave her plenty of advice, having covered at this school, so I hope she goes in there with a bit more confidence.

Other than that we had our big CM (combined meeting), which is where all the native and Japanese teachers get together to "bond", discuss and prepare all things related to summer school. Everyone, including the Japanese teachers, had to give a summer school demo, which is fifteen minutes in length, followed by five minutes of feedback from the peers in your group. I was in group 2, being the only native teacher, and had to go first at the top of the day. Everyone else in other groups have demos going on so it's a lot to focus on what you're doing and block out the noise coming from other groups. Add to that the fact that they gave me almost no prep-time before my demo and you had me looking like a sweaty mess. I was proud of myself for having covered all the parts of my lesson, but I rushed through it (being paranoid of the time) and I was sweaty. Not too bad I reckon. I was actually happy to go first because that meant I could just relax the rest of the day while everyone else stressed over their demos. We also had some various, fun activities that helped the bonding process and overall, I actually found it to be a fun meeting. I didn't expect I'd feel that way! I also got to meet Anthony, who is going to be the new PS (performance supervisor) for us NT's starting in August. He's a really friendly guy from what I could tell and he watched my summer school demo. He could've busted my balls, but he didn't, so that gave me a good vibe. We'll see how he is in future meetings and of course I'll report back. ;-)

My friend, that I mentioned I enjoyed speaking with these days, also was kind enough to pay me a visit this weekend! I was really happy that she was willing to make the trip, short as it may be (that's not the point), and I had a great time hanging out with her. I'm pretty sure we both ate too much though and I'll have to watch my belly over the next week. I swear, eating is the easiest thing to do when you have free time. Tomorrow, it's back to the real-world and back to teaching. I'll be covering for Richard up in Nakatsu, but only for the one day and luckily it's some of his better kids on Tuesday. Then it's office days on Wednesday and Thursday, capped off with a teaching day at Rachel's school on Friday. Not too bad cause I need the office day's for summer school prep. Summer school is just around the corner and my schedule is total madness as some days are six hours straight with no break. Sometimes I swear this job is trying to break me. (Lee)