Tuesday 18 September 2007
Sports Day and Eikaiwa
Good evening
It has been quite a long day today as I was up at 7am to sort out recycling and then spent most of the day at the Junior High for the Sports Day. It was good to see them FINALLY running about rather than just standing about for hours on end practicing. I spent hours watching them practice two specific events which were over in literally two minutes. I competed in quite a few parent/teacher events including the three legged race and rely. Me and one of my students managed to do well in the race considering he was half my height and about double my weight. We fell over at the end because we ran into the pair who were meant to go next but my kid was great and we had a good laugh. I even managed to communicate my thoughts on the matter using the roughly five Japanese words I know. The rely race team composed of six guys from the Board of Education and we absolutely destroyed the other teams. Fair enough we were all youngish men but we beat the Junior High teachers which was cool. We were winning all the way and myself and Noah showed no mercy in the last two laps where we nearly lapped a few people. I went last and they hadn't even had time to put up the finishing tape. Gaijin rule! I took some pictures that I will upload sometime.
One last thought on the matter. For some unknown reason the whole school did warm up and warm down exercises to a horrendous song by Celine Dion. I even saw the baseball captain singing along to it in the front row.
After all that I returned to the office to do some sweaty/dirty preperatiorn for my first adult class. I teach the advanced lot which is great because I can talk in English and they understand most of what I say. If I'm being honest... some of them probably know more about the structure of the language than me. I was surprisngly nervous the hour or so before it started and I did far too much preperation than was required. I decieded to wear my full suit (mainly because my other trousers are crushed/dirty/drying) but I looked damn good regardless. I spent most of the 90 minutes talking about myself and Scotland. I kept trying to end it and move onto some proper English teaching but they were genuinely interested in where I came from and what I liked.
We even got talking about the problems of religion in Scotland, the different types of whisky and how genius/manufactured the Loch Ness tourist trade is. I brought some shortbread for everyone to try and played them some bagpipe music. I even did some bloody Highland dancing which looking back on now shows how much I've come along since just arriving here. If you'd have told me a few months ago I'd be in a room teaching English and Highland dancing to Japanese women well... I wouldn't have believed you. The class went better than I expected and I was feeling quite good until I came home and then I started to get a few twinges of missing home since I'd just talked about it all evening. I was quite aware that many of the students might not understand me but then of the younger ones reassured me it was "The most beautiful accent" which was quite unexpected.
I should think about going to bed soon which reminds me of something quite strange. When I woke up on Sunday morning for the cancelled Sports Day I noticed a small frog in my bedroom. I was so tired I didn't care and went back to bed. I've not even thought about looking for it since then. Maybe I imagined it.
It has been quite a long day today as I was up at 7am to sort out recycling and then spent most of the day at the Junior High for the Sports Day. It was good to see them FINALLY running about rather than just standing about for hours on end practicing. I spent hours watching them practice two specific events which were over in literally two minutes. I competed in quite a few parent/teacher events including the three legged race and rely. Me and one of my students managed to do well in the race considering he was half my height and about double my weight. We fell over at the end because we ran into the pair who were meant to go next but my kid was great and we had a good laugh. I even managed to communicate my thoughts on the matter using the roughly five Japanese words I know. The rely race team composed of six guys from the Board of Education and we absolutely destroyed the other teams. Fair enough we were all youngish men but we beat the Junior High teachers which was cool. We were winning all the way and myself and Noah showed no mercy in the last two laps where we nearly lapped a few people. I went last and they hadn't even had time to put up the finishing tape. Gaijin rule! I took some pictures that I will upload sometime.
One last thought on the matter. For some unknown reason the whole school did warm up and warm down exercises to a horrendous song by Celine Dion. I even saw the baseball captain singing along to it in the front row.
After all that I returned to the office to do some sweaty/dirty preperatiorn for my first adult class. I teach the advanced lot which is great because I can talk in English and they understand most of what I say. If I'm being honest... some of them probably know more about the structure of the language than me. I was surprisngly nervous the hour or so before it started and I did far too much preperation than was required. I decieded to wear my full suit (mainly because my other trousers are crushed/dirty/drying) but I looked damn good regardless. I spent most of the 90 minutes talking about myself and Scotland. I kept trying to end it and move onto some proper English teaching but they were genuinely interested in where I came from and what I liked.
We even got talking about the problems of religion in Scotland, the different types of whisky and how genius/manufactured the Loch Ness tourist trade is. I brought some shortbread for everyone to try and played them some bagpipe music. I even did some bloody Highland dancing which looking back on now shows how much I've come along since just arriving here. If you'd have told me a few months ago I'd be in a room teaching English and Highland dancing to Japanese women well... I wouldn't have believed you. The class went better than I expected and I was feeling quite good until I came home and then I started to get a few twinges of missing home since I'd just talked about it all evening. I was quite aware that many of the students might not understand me but then of the younger ones reassured me it was "The most beautiful accent" which was quite unexpected.
I should think about going to bed soon which reminds me of something quite strange. When I woke up on Sunday morning for the cancelled Sports Day I noticed a small frog in my bedroom. I was so tired I didn't care and went back to bed. I've not even thought about looking for it since then. Maybe I imagined it.
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