So it's going to be my goal to write here once a week. So its a lazy Sunday and I just finished cleaning my apartment and getting some things in order. I paid two of my bills at the Lawson, and finally got enough stickers to get the promotional Miffy bowl there! Hehe, its cute! I also got a wireless router this week since one of the electronics stores is closing for renovations and is therefore having a sale. I even managed to set up the password an everything even though it was in Japanese. I'm now kicking back and enjoying the clean apartment, if I hear anything from the others maybe I'll go into town to have dinner and hang out. If not, I'm going to try and go to that place that looks like it serves Indian curry nearby and get some take-out.
So this week was my first week at my schools. I spent the first three days at OMGItsBig中(chuu), and then a day each at RowdyHill中 and TeenyTiny中 respectively. In case anyone is wondering, to preserve a degree of anonymity for my schools I wont be referring to them by name here on on FB. Those are what I've decided to call them for now. I'll probably keep the first and last one, but the middle one may change later. I may also come up with nicknames for the JTEs at OMGItsBig中 since there are a couple. But that'll come later. They are all preparing for sports day so theres a limit to how much I do there to start out with. Also because I have to go through that obligatory awkward stage where I don't really know what to do with myself, or any of my JTEs much yet. But I'm feeling that it will pass.
I didn't do much at all my first day at OMGItsBig中 other than give my speech in front of the student body at the opening ceremony, and boy was that nervewracking. Its a very large number of students (at least to me) and they are were just staring at me. But I got through it, and sat in the teachers room most of the rest of the day reading the textbooks and trying not to fall asleep. At least its air conditioned. The second day saw me not doing much either except for coming up with my worksheet for the second years and teaching one first year class at the end of the day. There is one teacher there, not a JTE, who is the same age as me and I'm really hoping we'll get to friends! She seems nice and so far we seem to get on, she seems interested in getting to know me too. I've worked with three out of four of my JTEs there and they all seem nice enough, although I think I'll get on best with the one who seems to be directly in charge of me. She's fairly young, has good English, and likes the same music as me! Also she's fun to work with in class, even in my self-intro she engaged with me. On my third day it was a little more hectic, I taught 5 classes even though there were only 4 periods in the day. There was so confusion about where I would go for one period, so we split it half and half. I'm thinking of getting a whiteboard and writing who I'll be teaching with on it as soon as I know so the others can check. I haven't taught any third years there yet. But it seemed to go well and by the end of the third day I was settling into the routine there a bit more. The vice-principal(kyouto-sensei) seems pretty wonderful too.
The next day I drove to RowdyHill中 and had classes there. Because I'm there only once a week I taught all 4 of those classes in one day. I like the JTE there plenty, but the kids there were a little rowdy, compared to the ones I'd had previously. But still I got through my introduction fine, and hopefully I'll learn the best way to handle the slightly more rambunctious classes. I think its just intimidating to me since this is my first time. I made three different worksheets for that school, and to be honest I'm still not done grading them.
The last day of my week was spent at TeenyTiny中, my predecessors favorite. Its so small, and there are only 3 classes. But the building seems quiet nice, and the principal (koucho-sensei) is a woman! I was so surprised. It was a good day there. I had 3 lovely classes with those kids, and we did a little textbook work in each. The classes are small enough that each student could introduce themselves briefly to me personally, and it was really cool to have that interaction with them. They all seem pretty genki, and one first year in particular seemed really keen to interact with me. They were so cute, in one class when they had to come up and introduce themselves several of them were falling all over themselves to be first. One boy introduced himself like this 'I'm _______. I am cute!', and then the next boy followed that with 'I'm _______. You're cute!'. For the last two periods I went with my JTE and watched them do things to prepare for sports day. It was really fun, and I don't know what team they were but I am SO rooting for the team that is dancing to the AAA song!
All in all its been a pretty solid week, although I am worn out! I need to get the hang of this working thing. Once I get more established and used to the hours I think I'll do some hanging around after school visiting clubs. Also after sports day is over. I hope the teachers will take it easy with me in the real lessons for a while until I can get used to teaching and come up with some good games.
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