懐かしい～

[aide]

I felt like I was 5 years old all over again, off to my first day of school.

Yesterday, seeing as I get super paranoid about traveling anywhere new, I went and scoped out the route to school from my house.  Luckily it was a mild, even sunny, day which made for nice walking.  I found the school, taking the long route (40mins) the first time, and took the proper way (ie the way I had originally planned) home which only takes 20 minutes on foot.  There is a bus that runs on that road but I could probably walk faster than it's scheduled to run so we'll see how often I take it.

I got to school ten minutes early just to make sure I wasn't late but it felt like I almost was!  Mr Nakamura, my partner I guess, was like "We have a meeting!" and rushed me in and I had to sit through the teacher's meeting in the morning.  I guess it actually starts earlier than 8:30 which is when they told me to be there.  Anyway, Yvonne wrote me a jiko shoukai, self-introduction, in Japanese for the teachers meeting and I blew them away!  I was sooo nervous I was shaking and tripping over my words, but I think the feeling got across.  It's all about first impressions with Japanese teachers.  Today, I had about 4 teachers come up and introduce themselves to me in English, or tried at least.  It's going to take me forever to learn names... They all have the same parts of names so it's going to take me a while to get to know them all... I should ask for a list of everyone's name so I can learn them. 

Today was pretty much just look and learn.  In the classroom, I'm just a helper.  I read the text from the book so the students can hear it naturally (ie natively) and the Japanese English teacher explains all the grammar and stuff.  I also write stuff on the blackboard... pretty simple.  I'm going to be giving my spiel about Canada for a week until I meet all the classes.  Unlike elementary school, JH kids have English 3x a week, but only once with the ALT, I think.  That's what Mr. Oishi tells me.  So they were pretty good.  I gave my little intro in English and the teacher would give a brief translation but also ask questions about what I said and they could catch everything. 

I got to meet the special class, called Araraga, first thing in the morning.  They are a group of 5 boys with mental disabilities.  They have 2 teachers who are both really nice and I met them and got to talk to them first thing in the morning.  They even prepared little self-introductions for me.  By the looks of things, I won't be doing much in terms of lesson planning or anything.  Which is kind of nice, and when I get more secured in my position and see how things work, I can definitely make some suggestions for lessons and stuff.  But I won't be totally idle, since even I have to take part in cleaning time.  Or at least go supervise.  Today I helped, but I could just stand by and bark orders.  haha.  They had an assembly at the end of the day to inaugurate the new student council, and I gave my little intro to the whole school in English.   Mr Nakamura did a short translation after, and he said my speech was really good.  Talking in front of 400 kids, I wasn't nervous at all.  But maybe its cuz they didn't understand half of what I said, and I was mostly worried about screwing up in Japanese in the morning.  Whatever, it's over!

However, I do feel a bit like a panda at the zoo.  The previous teacher was Filipino, so she wasn't such a novelty as I am with my white skin and blue eyes.  Everyone is like "Woah new teacher!" when I walk in the hall way or they stop by the classroom or teachers room.  I made a bunch of girls giggle when I waved to them as they were looking at me from outside the teachers room.  Mr Nakamura said, "You're really popular".  HAH!  I guess so.  Maybe its also because I'm not old?  I don't know.  I remember having a student-teacher in grade 1 and I thought she was so cool because she was closer to my age (more so than my real teacher).  I stopped at the 100Yen shop on the way home to get some supplies for my elementary school stint tomorrow and a group of girls came in and say (quite loudly) "Hello!" to me.  It's really nice, and I do appreciate the friendliness, but its almost... novelty, for lack of another word.  I'm sure it'll wear off in a while.  On the plus side, when they loudly greeted me, the shop clerk realized I was waiting at the cash register to pay and came running over.  HAHA!

Speaking of Elementary school, I'm doing my first Elementary school lessons tomorrow.  Well, first in Kashiwa.  First running the show myself.  I went over after school today and had a "meeting" with the vice-principal and grade 1 head teacher.  It wasn't really so much a meeting, as us trying to communicate to each other.  Well, they are pretty willing to do whatever I want (like in Funabashi).  I wonder if I'll be able to fill up 45 minutes though.  It'll be like going back to Nova all over again.  And from meeting those two teachers today, I doubt any of the other homeroom teachers will be able to speak much, if any English.  So there won't be any translating going on, most likely.  :X  Well, we're going to just be singing songs and playing games, so hopefully there won't be much translation needed.  It's going to be... interesting because its 5 grade 1 classes.  That means the same 45 minute lesson 5 times over.  Thank god its only once or twice a month.  Although, if there are that many classes in each grade, and I only go there 1-2 times a month, they must get English like once a term.  Unless there are other ALTs who go there too?  I don't know.  It's strange.  And I thought 20 minutes a week in Funabashi was bad.

Anyway, I think I'll survive.  It's something to fill my days up with and bring some money in anyway.  And eat really good, cheap lunch.  :)