aide | 自己紹介

I am officially employed again! I went down to the IES office and signed my contract and went over contractual nitty-gritty details with Mr Oishi and got materials from Tatsuya for teaching Elementry classes. Apparenly, I won't be free of them. I'll be going to 柏第二小学校 Kashiwa Dai Ni Shou Gakkou (Kashiwa Elementary #2) about twice a month for lessons. I'm actually going there on my second day of work! I don't have any idea what's going on. I need to call this teacher who I'm relieving and get the details from her. I suppose now (it's 6pm) is a reasonable time to call, but I don't really feel like it. I suppose I should call before I start studying up for Monday.

I went and visited the school, 豊四季中学校 Toyoshiki Chuu Gakkou (Toyoshiki Junior High School) with Tatsuya on Wednesday afternoon and met the principal, vice-principal and head English teacher. They were all really and nice and I think it'll be a good job. I get my own real desk and a laptop to use. It's right at the front of the room beside the windows. There are 3 English teachers in the school, each taking one grade. There are five classes in Grade 1, five in Grade 2, and four in Grade 3.

The Japanese school system was a bit weird for me to understand at first, but I've got the hang of things now. I still have to convert grades in my head so I know how old these kids are, actually. Elementary school has grades 1-6, corresponding to grades 1-6 as we have in Canada. Middle School, or Junior High has three grades, 1-3, which would be grades 7-9 for Canadians. High School consists of another three grades, 1-3, which would be grades 10-12. When people say what grade they are in they say, ”私は高校三年生です。Watashi wa Koukou sannen sei desu." I am a third year high school student. But I still have to think "Grade 1, okay that's grade 7" in my head.

Anyway, they want me to do a 自己紹介 jiko shoukai, self-introduction on Monday in front of the whole school at the assembly. I'm a bit nervous, but they probably won't really understand what I'm saying anyway. I also have to do one for the teachers in the morning at the staff meeting, and that's more important because they could make my life a living hell. I could be easily accepted, or they'll just ignore me. I got Yvonne to write me one in Japanese so I need to practice. If I show that I'm trying to learn or use Japanese, they'll be more accepting, so I've been told. Although I'm worried that I might give the impression that I can speak when I actually can't. Although, I'm sure Junichi, the head English teacher, will clear that up. It's even that long, but I still want/need to practice. I was also given the textbooks to have a read of so I'm on the same page (so to speak) on Monday. Thankfully, I'm only doing two classes that day, and most of it will be "Intro to Heather/Canada". They asked me to bring a map and pictures of Vancouver for show.

Alright, I'm freezing my butt off. And I don't know how to work the heat function on my air conditioner so I'll have to live with huddling in front of my little space heater.