Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday, and it's amazing. This is the first time in about a month that I've slept in my bed during the weekend, and man how it feels good. Since the last entry, I climbed a mountain, swam in the sea, went to Beppu, Oita, hung out on a barge, and experienced Canadian Thanksgiving, Japanese-style.

I said in my last post that I would talk about many things, but now I don't feel like it.

School is interesting. This past week I finally had my first elementary school visits. Finally. I now understand why everyone who does the elementary loves them so much more than junior high schools. The kids are just so cute and precious. On Tuesday I went to Temino Elementary School, the smallest school that I will be seeing, with only 22 students. 14 of those students are bused in from the town centre because otherwise the school would be too small to run. One of the kids bused in, Daichi, is the son of my host parents. I say this lightly, because I haven't seen them in about a month. But they were the biggest help when I first arrived, feeding me and taking me shopping. I've been meaning to stop by and visit them, and even have the requisite omiyagi to bring them, but I have been too busy.

Anyways, yes, I went to elementary schools. At Temino, after I did my usual self-introduction (slightly shorter and easier than at JHS) and we played some Simon Says and sang Head & Shoulders, it was elective time. Half the kids were driven to the country club, a five minute drive, where we hit golf balls on the driving range. I was totally shown up by the cutest, most compact and athletically gifted 9 year old. Then I was taken back to school, where I joined the non-sports minded kids in knitting practice.

On Wednesday, I went to Chiran Elementary School, the biggest one in the town with almost 300 students. I only visited one class, the sannenseis (grade threes). So cute. As soon as I walked into the school, all the kids stopped cleaning (it was cleaning time) and just stared at me. When I entered the classroom, all of a sudden about twenty small bodies were crowded around me shooting off questions in Japanese, like where do I live and what"s my car license plate number (I think). So random, but so cute.

In contrast, I'm not enjoying the junior high so much. I thought self-introduction was bad, but at least the kids were interested (albeit slightly). The Japanese English curriculum seriously needs some restructuring, as it relies mostly on memorization of arbitrary sentences. I shouldn't say that, since I actually only see each class once every 2 weeks, so I don't have the complete picture of how things work. But in any respect, the students seem to be bored out of their minds with the reading practices and copying of 'key phrases' from the blackboard. I feel like part of my job is to make English fun, but I'm not sure what sort of activities they'd like. I attempted Bingo several times, with mixed results. I feel like I could come up with some good activities, if my JTEs didn't tell me the lesson plan five minutes before class starts.

While junior high is mostly meh, Kagoshima is pretty wicked. I've been living for the weekends, but the weeknights are pretty great too. On Thursdays I play badminton, with a bunch of "beginners". They're loads better than me, but it's still lots of fun. Most other nights I'm busy with other things, either having dinner with Japanese friends or planning my conversation classes or practicing for speech contests with my students or just hanging out with my friend Claire, the ALT in the neighbouring town. I don't know what I'd do without her, especially now as I write this on her laptop while she prepares for going out tonight to see our friend Tammy perform on stage. She's from Ireland, and talks like an Irish, with all her funny sayings and phrases that I've started to pick up, like "What's the craic?" for "What's up?" and "savage" for "awesome". It's great having someone to commiserate about everything that's going on: having someone to help me decipher the kanji signs and try and talk to people with (speaking of, somehow in the last two days we had two different old men randomly give us shochu and beer - once for winning at janken, and the other for god knows why). We're unhealthily obsessed with Joyfull, a family restaurant chain in the style of American diners, but with Japanese foods. We like it mostly because the menu has pictures, so you know what you're getting.

Okay, that's enough for now. If there's anything that you would like me to talk about, if you have any questions, please comment and I will try to write an entry about it. If all goes as plans, I should have internet at my house by Friday, so then hopefully there will be more regular updates.