Monday 22nd August
This was the first full day of school – which again
consisted mainly of me sitting in the staffroom by myself, with air
conditioning while the rest of the teachers had to suffer though meetings in
hot stuffy rooms somewhere else in the school…
When the Skies opened and the thunder started rolling I was
quite grateful that S-San from the BOE called to say that she would come and
pick me up from school to take me to the mysterious meeting that we had at the
BOE.
I’m still not sure who we were talking to, but we got
introduced to a panel of people that the BOE were having a meeting with (one guy
was older and wearing a suit so I assume he was important…) We were given a
certificate of sorts to say that we were employed as an ALT at the Nikaho BOE
(seem to be getting lots of bits of paper telling me things that I already
know…).
We had a quick catch up with our supervisors, during which I
got given my insurance card and discovered that in Japan you can choose which
organs you want to donate – options including: heart, lungs, liver (I don’t
think anyone would want any of the ALT’s livers given how much we all drink…)
kidneys, pancreas and small & large intestines.
Tuesday 23rd August
As the ALT that was to go to Kisakata (one of the towns that
make up Nikaho city) school pulled out of the programme, their replacement
isn’t scheduled to arrive until early September. Because of this I was offered
as a “rental” (Vice Principal’s English
explanation) to help the speech competition students practice. There is a
recital, where the student chooses a section from one of the text books to
read, and a speech that a student has to write them self. I spent an hour with
each student going over pronunciation, intonation and the ever dreaded “l” and
“r” sounds – so in short looked like a complete mong trying to over emphasise
what their tongue was supposed to be doing.
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| This was BEFORE all of the food came out |
That night we had the welcome dinner for Konoura Primary and
Middle schools. I had been forewarned that it is advisable to leave a bit of
drink in your glass otherwise it WILL be topped up for you. Unfortunately mine
got topped up anyway. One thing that I didn’t pick up on during my exchange is
that it is considered bad manners to pour your own drink. This means that
everyone is constantly checking on how much everyone else has in their glass to
make sure no one has been forgotten, it also means your beers are refilled with
concerning frequency…
Dinner was a FEAST. Having to sit on the floor was balanced
out by the plates of yakisoba, sashimi, tempura, squid, yaki onigiri (fried
riceballs) and our own personal hotplate (with a real flame underneath) to cook
a mixture of vegetables and meat (though this got a bit disconcerting when the
fat started spitting at me).
It’s times like this that I am so grateful that I can at
least partake in basic chitchat. The teachers were all lovely and made a point
of coming over to say hi and ask questions etc. It was also really nice to meet
some of the teachers from the primary school as I would be there the next day
and didn’t have a clue where anyone was (I couldn’t even remember where the
bloody staff room was).
Wednesday 24th August
This is probably the most concerned I’d felt since I’d
started ‘working’; I was bowling up for a full day at the primary school with
absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing, or who any of the teachers
were.
As it turns out the teachers were all in meetings again so
one (I have a feeling he may have been the vice principal….) came over and
explained that everyone would be elsewhere so I could do as I pleased or study
or whatever.
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| Random photo of meeting room to break up t |
Spent a while going through my desk and having a tidy
up/discovering what goodies had been left behind (mainly a lot of coloured
paper and flash cards- as well as a shopping list that my predecessor had
left - not quite as entertaining as a
packing list that I found at the flat “Tshirts x4, Jockeys x7”…)
That day was one of the rare occasions where the breeze was
actually cool and didn’t feel like there was an old man breathing on your face,
so all the windows in the staff room were open. From my desk I could see across
the field so spent the morning intermittently watching dragon flies flit past
and the baseball team practice.
The tell-tale signs of long blinks and focus issues prompted
a mission to the kitchen area to make a coffee, I managed to find the sachets
but as it turns out the jug that I thought contained hot water was actually
filled with coffee- inadvertent double caffeine fix…
Later in the afternoon one of the English teachers came by
to apologise that everyone was so busy with meetings and explained what the
weekly timetable would be like.
Alyssa picked me up from the flat that night and we drove
out to an Indian/Nepalese restaurant for the welcome dinner for the new Nikaho
and Yurihonjo JETs. There’s about 13 or so of us between the two cities so it
was good to put some names to faces (even if some of the faces had the same
names ….)
Thursday 25th August
Thunderbirds are go.
The new school term officially started today. I was borrowed
by the primary school to make and appearance and give a speech in their opening
assembly ( I don’t understand how they can get kids that young to stand so
still for that long). Trotted back to the middle school where I completely
ballsed up my speech but still had the teachers praising my Japanese (you can
just say “konnichiwa” and people get all excited about your skill level).
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| School lunch |
Contrast to the primary school the students had chairs to
sit on. However where all the chairs were the same size, the students were not.
Some were so tiny that they struggled carrying the chairs out of the hall after
the assembly, and others looked like they were in their final year of high
school and the chairs barely came up to their knees. Mild entertainment when
every single chair creaked in unison as the students bowed to the principal.
The rest of that day was taken up by summer holiday tests so
it was another day of making myself look busy at my desk. I did however get to
experience the infamous kyuushoku (school
lunch) which many ALTs dread but so far it has been edible, and nice and
healthy (necessary given the amount of anko
I have consumed since I’ve been here…)
That evening a couple of ladies form the English conversation
class came around to have a chat and discuss when classes would start up etc, I
may have used this as an excuse to pump my air-con – as well as having a manic
tidy up when I got home from school.
The remainder of the evening was spent abusing the newly
re-discovered joys of wifi, as well as having get a modem and router set up
following Japanese instructions with no experience of having one it in
English…A bit of swearing and a lot of shuffling through piles of papers and
contracts trying to find passwords and keys later, and I was back with the
modern world.
Friday 26th August
Poor kids still had tests on Friday morning then come 3rd
period- it was straight back into it.
Commence the first wave of the hundreds of
self-introductions I’ll have to give while here. Given It has been 10 years
since I was at Intermediate, the class could have definitely gone worse. Skip
over the self-introduction as I’m sick to death of that, and feel incredibly
sorry for my JTE’s (Japanese teachers of English …-If I haven’t already
explained that abbreviation- as they have now had to sit through it 6 times.
This also meant that they’d had to sit through me asking the students what
celebrity they thought dad looked like (he got this a few times when he was in
Japan last time) popular answers included: Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise,
James Bond and Justin Bieber. While some kids vaguely knew who Tom Hanks was,
it looks like your time as a holly wood star might be over sorry dad.
The kids had a chance to ask questions afterwards and they
generally followed the trend of: what is you favourite Japanese food? What
sports do you like? What are your hobbies? BOYRFRIEND!...*furious discussion
with classmate*..do you…do you have boyfriend? Or my personal favourite: “Do
you have many boyfriends?
Had one of those “ I swear I’m funny in English!” moments
when a student asked me how old I was and I answered “105!” …..*silence*
S-sensei explained the joke to them and then I got them to try and guess how
old I was, quite content with the oldest I got was 27. One guessed 23 “I’m 23
tomorrow!” …*gears ticking over in students head*…..*lightbulb**EXCITEMENT*
Despite what everyone says about how crap Japanese coffee is
– it’s a god send at 2.30 in the afternoon when you’re falling asleep at your
desk.
Had a nice long skype session back home that night as it had
been a while since I’d seen people’s faces – good to know that Nelly and Mum
are still winding each other up and Dad’s still whacking them with his
crutches.
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