I leave for the Philippines basically tomorrow night...slightly freaking out? Nah, just the usual anxiety that comes along with traveling overseas. At least the Philippines isn't that far away nor does it require a drastic time change..just one hour behind! Woo! I'm excited to see my family and eat Filipino food! I haven't had a decent meal since I was back home in Minnesota. I rarely cook here...and I really should learn while I'm in the Philippines so I can dazzle everyone with the goodness that is pancit. Or lumpia or adobo...I'm getting hungry just thinking about this! It is getting [View Full Entry]

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I just got back from Kyoto today. My friend, Jackie, and I set off yesterday morning and spent one night there. It was such a fast trip but we saw so much! We hit the ground running right when we got there. Northwestern Kyoto was our target and we of course saw the Golden Pavillion and Daitoku-ji which had beautiful Zen gardens. We met up with Rachel that day too, another ALT from a small town called Mizoguchi in Tottori prefecture. It got dark fast and we decided to hit up a Mexican restaurant in the Gion area called Mariachi. Well [View Full Entry]

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Things that annoy me/I dislike about Japan: - the lack of sidewalks - the lack of insulation and central heating - the rapid change of seasons - school lunch and getting bread instead of rice on Wednesdays - the garbage separating situation - the dust constantly building up in my apartment..I can't keep up with it! - Japanese people keep thinking I'm Japanese "Nihonjin desu ka?" "Amerikajin desu!!!" - Japanese boys are afraid of foreign girls or don't really know how to deal with them - students aren't made accountable for their actions, they may get a good talking to, but [View Full Entry]

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This past weekend both my schools had their annual Cultural Festival or Bunkasai. Since I'm at Koto now, I was more involved in their Bunkasai. I listened and watched to the students practice for the chorus competition. Basically what bunkasai consists of is one day of chorus competitions, movies students made, skits, photo slide shows, music performances, art displays, and English and Japanese speeches that were done at the speech contests. It's a huge deal and the kids practice for the chorus competition for weeks before the actual festival. It is a very big deal for them because they w [View Full Entry]

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So we are doing the production of the Wyrd Sisters in January and we took a group pic last night and just wanted to share. Rehearsals are twice a week and they really do make the time fly. I am usually really exhausted Wednesday night because we are seriously running lines and blocking for a few hours straight with no breaks. We started late this year and didn't find a script we liked till this months so we have to work extra hard to stay on track. Being stage manager isn't too bad right now, but I do have to know [View Full Entry]

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I haven't updated in a long time and I apologize! It was so much easier to update while I was at Konan because I had my own computer at my desk. At Koto, I don't have my own computer and I have to use the shared staff computers and I always feel bad if I spend too much time on them. Anyway...excuses, excuses, I know... Things have been going all right overall. I am still getting used to teaching at the big school (Koto). The schedule is just so unpredictable! Plus the teachers rarely tell me what we are doing before [View Full Entry]

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Today was another unpredictable and crazy day at Koto Chugakko. I was scheduled for 3 classes right? Wrong! One of my classes got moved to another period so I ended up going to another class instead. I got one ADDED! This is a pretty common thing, but I was hoping today it wouldn't happen...fat chance. Basically I did my self-introduction presentation 4 periods in a row. One of the classes 1-1, were pretty rowdy. They weren't paying attention, they were chatting to each other..I talked extra loud or stopped talking to make them listen to me. Then during my quiz, I [View Full Entry]

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The differences between the two schools where I work are even more striking after today. I had four classes and they were all first years (7th grade). At the big school there are 7 first year classes...at 33 students each that makes 231 students just in one grade alone. At the small school there are 63 students...in the entire school. Man am I overwhelmed! Did my self intro 4 times today...I have to do it a total of 14 more times because there are 18 classes total. It's gonna get real boring after awhile. That's basically what I'm doing for the [View Full Entry]

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Today was probably one of the more rewarding days for me so far here. I went to Konan Shogakko (elementary school) today and taught 4 classes. These kids seriously have so much energy, I can't believe that they can keep going like this all day! I was supposed to teach a lesson 1st period for the 2nd years (8th graders) at the chugakko (JHS), but my JTE let me skip the lesson because they were really just reviewing for the test that's coming up. Plus I was busy making big flash cards of animals because that was my theme today at [View Full Entry]

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Friday night was the Koto chugakko enkai (drinking party). Fujita sensei was supposed to meet me at Mr. Donut to take me to the place where we were having the enkai. He ended up being late, but at least he texted me to tell me he was on his way. This is something I don’t understand about the Japanese. We were warned about how they like to be on time, yet I have definitely encountered many times when people have been late. I am getting used to showing up to places early, mostly because I don’t have anything else to do. [View Full Entry]

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