3rd week

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Again it has been a while since I last blogged. The last time that I blogged I said that I was on my way to Tokyo. We went to a park in Tokyo called Yogi Park on Sunday (6/20/10). The park was really cool and relaxing for everyone. There were about 20 people that went all together from Yokosuka Aquatics. We zip lined and walked around the park. We also met a lot of different Japanese people; it was almost like they had never seen any American people which I know is not true because Americans were all over the park. We think that they might have not seen such a big group of younger Americans; anyway we were like celebrities and got our picture taken with a lot of different Japanese people while we were at the park. We also got to know a couple of them a little bit because they sat down with us and asked a lot of questions. One of the guys brought their guitar and played songs that we sang to as well. After awhile we all split off into groups. My group went to a temple that was near by the park. On our way we tried a new food which was octopus balls. No, they were not actually balls, but octopus made into balls. Needless to say they were gross and I spit mine out!! As we were walking to the temple we met up with a group of Japanese students, they asked us if they could practice their English with us and give us a tour of the temple. Of course we said yes!! The two students that I got to talk to both go to the University in Tokyo, they study German. One student was from western Japan and the other student was actually from China. It was really nice that they were there because there was a lot of things that we would not have known otherwise. Such as the cleansing place that you needed to wash your hands before you entered the temple area. We also got to see a wedding going through the temple which was really neat! The temple itself was really cool! After that we left the students and went on our own. It was a trick getting back to Yokosuka because none of us had ever really figured out the train system on our own before, but of course we did get back!!
On Monday (6/21/10) we started lessons again. I am now teaching level 1 and Preschool level 1. My classes are a little more challenging this session because I am not used to working with people that do not know how to swim really at all! I also had to learn a lot of new songs for the preschool class to get through the time and keep their attention! We also got a visit from the head person here in Japan for Camp A, it was kind of scary but we got through it. We also decided that we needed to have one person come up with songs each day for them to lead. It turned out that this was a really good idea. Monday was also our first day of actually lifeguarding. This was crazy because we have to many lifeguards on duty so we really are not working that much at all! I think from the time span from 2:30 to 5:30 I worked about an hour!!! It felt kind of ridiculous! O and don’t forget that I got thrown up on by one of my preschool students today and we had to evacuate the pool!! And to make the day even more awesome, a kid threw up in the pool while I was guarding the main stand and we had to evacuate that as well!!
Tuesday (6/22/10) of course is our day that we go out to eat. But before that of course we had lessons again, and we also guarded. The guarding situation did not change! It was still crazy at the amount of time that we actually were working. Lessons were crazy today. My preschool kids kind of can go off the wall! I only have them though for 30 minutes. Sometimes I feel like I am just singing songs to them. My level one kids are hard to teach as well because in many ways they are still afraid of the water and will not put their face in the water our their head back. This makes it really hard to teach or practice much. They also have a really bad attitude about it and always use the word I can’t!!! This drives me INSANE! So to take the stress off we went out to eat to Nirvanas which is a Indian restaurant on Blue Street. It was really good! A friend and I shared a couple of dishes such as the Cheese Nan, amazing it all I can say!! Tuesday I also got REALLY sun burnt!
Wednesday (6/23/10) was another day of lessons and guarding. Not much to say their. Besides all of the jokes about the throwing up incident. I guess you could say we really did not guard Wednesday because the rain was coming down so hard that they had to close the pool! This made the day interesting I guess. We first thought that we were just going to be sent home, but then they decided that we were going to go to the inside pool and open that up and guard. When we got their though there were tones of lifeguards and only one needed. Some of them were for teaching lessons in the afternoon which I was not one of them since I teach in the morning sessions. I never explained how that works, I will in a bit. Anyway, then we were all just sitting around and doing nothing, but we could not leave. So we ended up all being really frustrated and lifeguarding each 15 min for all of the afternoon. So on my free time I swam a 2200. I did end up making some copies for my director though. At the end of the day we had our first social night which was dodge ball. I am not much of a dodge ball fan so I did not stay very long and went with some other girls to go see the new Shrek movie (for Free!!) which was actually really good.
Now to explain how the lesson schedules is. We have to much Camp A aquatics staff. So to fix this problem they split us into to two groups a morning group and an afternoon group. The morning group teaches lessons in the morning and lifeguards in the afternoon (this for now is me). And the afternoon group teaches in the afternoon and guards in the morning. It’s a good way to handle it I guess. And though we do this we still have to many people so there are three people that are changed every two weeks that only lifeguard.
So, Thursday (6/24/10) was our awesome breakfast club!!! And it was delicious as always! It was really awesome to see so many people participate with it. After that we again went to lessons and guarded. That was about it for Thursday. The nice thing about it was that we actually lifeguarded quite abite because the guards only had their day off. I also did the programming for lessons today. We sang two songs (cannonball, Swimmers rock).
Friday (6/25/10) was the same routine as usual. I was really ready for it because my level one kids and their negative attitudes were getting on my nerves. They also were not getting the material at all and I needed a break! I don’t know what else to do with them for them to get it. I just think that it is “self fulfilling prophesy”. After the day was done we just hung out around the TPU (where I am living), and planned for our trip to Kamakura on Saturday and our many trips this summer.
Till next time!

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