I taught 4 classes today, and boy are my arms tired. But seriously, how do I do this every day? I'm buggered! I stayed an hour-and-a-bit longer than I was supposed to, because I'm just so busy with lesson planning and speech contest preparation. And the bus only comes once an hour and it was too hot to walk to the station.
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My "first day of school" photo from this morning.
Note the nervous face. |
The first lesson was with my third year class - they are noisy but pretty nice. I will get to see them fairly often (twice a week), so it's good to have at least one class that I will get to know the names of. I see the first year classes at Akashi Shimizu once per week, and I only see my first year classes at Akashi Kita once per fortnight, so I don't think I'll be able to remember many names. I had three classes in a row today, and then a break for lunch, and then another class, a "volunteer" class (for my least-favourite teacher), then speech practise with a kid who hasn't actually finished his speech yet, then worksheet making and lesson planning, and then finally HOME! Big day.
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My crowded bus on the way to school.
BEFORE IT GOT CROWDED. |
On the way home, I saw the first of the rice crops around Uozumi starting to be harvested! They had a cool machine for it, but it made me a bit sad, because it means that the beautiful green fields that I look at out of the train window will now be browning off, and eventually turning back into patches of bare dirt. I am starting to see a few changes in my surroundings even in only 40 days - buildings going up, flowers changing, rice crops being harvested, and all kinds of things that point out to me that time is passing. It will be interesting to go through a whole year cycle and look at the things around me. I guess it's no more interesting that it would have been at home, but I think I took it for granted at home and never really pay attention. Here the changes really stand out because everything is so new, I think.
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Another friendly neighbourhood spider.
This one is near Shimizu High School, and
after I took this photo, the wind blew
him into my camera and he freaked out.
Sorry, Spider. |
Sam went and got my bike fixed today - it was 1200 yen for the new inner tube and labour. The old couple who run the bike shop had a ball talking to him, and even called their daughter to get her to say hello to him, because she spoke good English.
We actually cooked a little bit Japanese-style today, in that we made quite a few different dishes and had small amounts of each of them for dinner. We had: gyoza, rice, egg, stir-fried vegetables and bok choy. Not too bad for us amateurs.
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| Dinner, Bri-and-Sam-style (not pictured: rice) |
I went for a jog tonight - about 3 km. It took me about 20-25 mins with a few bits of walking. I didn't get out of breath at all - just felt a bit sick because I didn't leave long enough between eating and running. I'm pretty happy, because my route also let me find a new conveyor belt sushi place right near us! Which may have defeated the purpose of the jog. Hmmmm. Oh, and I have been sitting here laughing at some of the pictures of Dad that the kids have drawn on my self-introduction worksheet - I leave an empty box for the kids who finish answering the questions earlier to draw a picture of Dad. I have included some of the awesome results below:
And my personal favourite...
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| BAD ASS DAD!!!!!! |
Food Highlight of the Day: In my bento lunch box for school, I had a potato cream croquette. "Croquette" here means anything mushed up, crumbed and deep fried, so my lunch included mashed potato, which was rolled in more carbs and then deep fried to crunchy perfection. Now you can understand the jog, right?
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