August 31st, 2006
9:09 am
Super fit Joe and his first day at the elementary school
Today was the school Junior High School Marathon, well 10th or a Marathon really. Just before setting off the head teacher asked me if I’m running, so I said why not. Since you know, running is a lot more interesting than just watching and I thoguht they’d be impressed. There were two courses to choose from, 3km and 4km, I was going to do the 3km, but I was teased by a farmer saying that that’s for girls, so I did the manly 4km. It was tiring, and I don’t understand how come some of the smallest boys seem to be among the fastest, they are tiny yet they are so fit. Being overtaken by little boys does make me more and more determined to run faster, about 800m to the finish line I made a big mistake of stopping to take a breath, immediately after I stopped I had a big BIG stitch and lost my rhythm, therefor the last 800m was pretty painful. Although I’m really proud that I managed to make it to the end.
The time? The fastest person finished in a whopping 15 minutes! Whoaaaaaa! For me. 21 minutes and 43 seconds, pretty much the slowest person. At least I was man enough to do the 4km course.
Elementary school
So this week I started teaching the elementary school kids as well. On Tuesday I had the second graders, after I came out of the changing room in my kilt all the kids were laughing and giggling, one said “Kimochi waruii” which means like it’s disgusting or I feel sick (looking at you).
The class was great, I got them to move their body to the left, to the right, forward and backwards, up and down. They were really into it.
I then devised a game where I put pictures of different animals of the blackboard, I then blind folded one the of the children and put a picture of a traffic cone on his/her hand. The children have to tell him/her to go up/down/left/right to put the cone on an animals head!
They all shouted out directions enthusiastically, it got really exciting when the boy over shot everyone went
“stop! stop! stop!!!!!!!! right! right! RIGHT!!!!”
When the lesson came to an end they were all very upset, and asked me when is the next English class and I said next month.
“ooooohhhhhhhh”
Among al the kids surrounding me at the end of the class, one girl came up and said
“hello my name is Ohara”.
That moment was just magic.
At break time my worse fear came true when a boy tried to Kancho me, for those of you don’t know; Kancho is where you put your two hands together with the index fingers pointing out in a shape of a gun, you then try sticking the fingers into someone else’s bottom. Hard. I was surrounded by kids so I was kind of helpless with him trying hard to Kancho me, all I could do was shake around to make myself a difficult target, but I thought the situation was kind of funny, so I was laughing all the time which probably only encouraged them.
On Wednesday I had the 1st graders. I wore my kilt again which was probably a mistake, they seemed more interested in seeing under the kilt than doing what they should be doing. The 1st graders were even more energetic than the 2nd graders, I had planned to use the Brown Bear book for the last 15 minutes but they all said they’ve seen it. So I ended up having to improvise the last bit. Overall they had a great time, but not sure whether they’ve learned anything new.
August 26th, 2006
9:52 am
Remember your first day at school?
So yesterday was my first day of teaching in the Junior High. First I had the second years, the first thing I did was to write my name big on the black board, I could hear faint voices of the kids reading out behind me “Joseph Wiiiilliiiiiaaaamsooon”, I turned round and smiled at the them, then Mr Morikawa said “wait a moment Joe”. Then before I knew what was happening, Mr Morikawa was telling the class off for something, one of the boys in the class was crying! Mr Morikawa had something in his hand that I thought was a nail or something. So I assumed somebody had places a nail on that boy’s char and he sat on it. That would make sense I thought. But then he throw it out of the window and it flew away; it was a Dragonfly.
So the class commence with me jumping around in my kilt and asking them what I’m wearing. Then silence, no one gave an answer. I then said it’s a kilt!!!!! Very manly, and showed them photos from the highland game, map of Scotland, and showed Nessie at Inverness and me at Glasgow, I think the class went all right, but it wasn’t great. None of the kids knew who Nakamura was!
At the break Mr Morikawa said maybe I should allow them more time for my questions, and some of the kids were just shy.
Anyway on to the first years now. And no telling off this time.
Mr Morikawa to the class “Good morning everyone!”
Class : “Good morning Mr Morikawa!”
Me : “Good morning everyone!”
Class : “Good morning????”
I then laughed and wrote my name big on the board, then pronounced it for the class, then throw my hands in the air to signal them to repeat.
“JOSEPH WILLIAMSON!”
The kids all repeated back very energetically. Good sign.
I then asked if they knew what I was wearing
“Skirt! skirt! SKIRT!”
I said “no, it’s not a skirt, skirts are for girls”, I then did a very girlie gesture. “Men don’t wear skirts, men wear Kilts” – in a deep manly voice with manly gesture.
They loved it. THEY LIKE ME! I was on a high, so the rest of my introduction I was having loads of fun asking them questions, and they would actually reply, and unlike the second years, nearly everyone knew who Nakamura was.
So the class went really well, some of the kids really like me and would make good eye contact with me, and some are quite cheeky and would try make me chase them around.
Back at the staff room I was exhausted; I didn’t get a very good sleep the previous night. And you know I really don’t want to have anything to do with anyone when I’m tired, I think I only have a limited amount of energy, when awake I like to talk to everyone and anyone. Mr Morikawa told everyone in the staff room that someone had placed a Dragonfly in that boy’s pencil case. They all thought it was quite funny actually, I really wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not, I mean he told off the class for doing it. Man I never realised teachers are so different outside the class.
August 18th, 2006
7:00 am
Walla walla
Sorry for not updating, but my camera’s been acting weirdly so I haven’t been able to take photos lately. And you know, blog is boring without photos. That said, it’ll soon be pay day for me, so I am considering buying a new camera, maybe even an SLR one.
Hey I’ll write about my welcome party.
When I first heard about the welcome party I thought it’ll just be a party with all my colleagues out drinking. But it turned out to be very different. The party was help at the local town hall, and the guests includes the head of education , head of elementary school, head of junior high and the town mayor!
I was asked to sit on the stage behind a table with a bit bunch of flowers on top facing everyone. Then all the important people gave a speech, I couldn’t really follow half of what they were saying; ‘cos I thought the whole thing was just so…. surreal. I could understand that the head of elementary school said something along the line “we and on behalf of all the children, we welcome you with heart…”.
Anyway after the bit of confusion about when I could exit the stage, I was seated at a table then everyone took their turn to pour BEER for me! Apparently it’s a Japanese tradition, and there was nothing I could do but to keep drinking to make room for more beer. I was pretty drunk after a few minutes, and then I was told that I should go and pour beer for others as well, and.. I started acting all weird I think, and making bad jokes, which the town mayor and the head of education seemed to enjoy very much (at least from my judgement then). So it all turned out pretty ok in the end.
My supervisor Watanabe-san taking care of the guests.
After most of the important guests have left, it’s time for a more relaxed atomosphere with my co-workers. Starting from the left is my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English who I’ll be working with) Morikawa-san, then Hatayama-san, Yamashita-san who’s in charge of dealing with foreigners so I better make sure I don’t upset her and to the right again is the forever friendly Takeuchi-san.
Here we have the head of elementary school, Miyakawa-san, then head of education Ito-san, Ishiyama-san and finally we have Nakajima-san.