After the updates I kinda feel more like updating this thing more often, its spurred me on to post more than I was before (i.e. at all). Ive done a fair amount since those updates, we had a three day weekend (which was necessary, lazing around has never felt so good) and then we properly started work (I say we properly started because we've now started the 10 minute early morning lessons with the year 1 junior classes and we've also started evening classes).
Firstly, the weekend. After spending 2 days lazing around doing nothing except sleeping, eating and making katakana/hiragana flash cards (exciting stuff) I finally got to leave the house on Sunday after Lynsey and Tom invited us out to the Indian festival in harajuku. After a burger lunch in Shibuya (shiBOOYA) we walked to harajuku to visit the Meiji shrine before going to the festival. Meiji shrine is huge, infact the gardens themselves are massive - it takes a decent 5 - 10 minutes of walking just to reach the shrine after going through the gate. After taking pictures of a wedding that was taking place there (a very public wedding infront of 20 billion tourists) we threw a 5 yen coin (the luckiest coin to put in apparently) into this... box... or something and made a wish. Apparently this wasnt enough for Erling who paid 500yen (about £2.50) more for a little wooden plaque to write a wish on and to hang up in the shrine. Till this day it remains a mystery what was actually wrote on that plaque, scholars maintain the translation was lost hundreds of years ago but I believe it had something to do with beer, curry and karaoke. Lukcily the gods looked down upon Erling that day and it was granted in the form of an Indian festival followed by karaoke. All in all, a good day.
After a hugely busy day on monday (10 minute morning lesson, five 50 minute lessons during the day and an evening class at 6) I was fairly knackered and a bit worried about being far too busy from now on (I miss my lazy life). This feeling however has completely been decimated after an amazing day today. We had the same 10 minute morning lesson, the same five 50 minute lessons but then we also had the PTA (parent-teacher association) class for an hour. I was terrified, first lesson teaching alone and I had to prepare it all before hand. In the end it was ace, I was taking the intermediate class which only consists of 4 people with pretty good English, and they put so much effort in it was unreal. The lesson Id planned led on to a massive chat for the last 15 minutes (by accident, it wasnt planned - but it was good practice for them, and less teaching for me), and then the feedback was great aswell - its a massive confidence boost for a nerve-wracking lesson to go well. And straight after that class finished I went up to the JM hall for my first Shorinji Kempo practice (a martial art Im starting), again a little nervous for me because none of them speak English but it ended up being ridiculously fun. The students were friendly as owt (possibly because I dont teach any of them), and some of them were a proper laugh - they were trying their best to speak english and I was throwing in Japanese where I could but the language barrier didnt really matter because they were funny as hell and immensely friendly. Its just too bad I dont teach kids like them (I hope none of my students ever read this - if they do then this is...erm...english humour... yeah thatll do...). They were also really impressed with my karate katas for some unknown reason (probably because karate is way cooler than shorinji kempo), which is weird because in england if you said you did karate people really dont care, but in Japan you tend to get a lot of "ooooooh karate!" and they sound genuinely impressed (hopefully not just humouring me). All in all, this was the funnest day at work so far and its really sealed the deal that this year is gonna be mint.
Wow, it seems I cant stop talking about myself, so yeah, I'll stop now before this post gets waaaay too long. Leave some comments or email me etc, let me know how stuffs going down back at home.
Mike.
Firstly, the weekend. After spending 2 days lazing around doing nothing except sleeping, eating and making katakana/hiragana flash cards (exciting stuff) I finally got to leave the house on Sunday after Lynsey and Tom invited us out to the Indian festival in harajuku. After a burger lunch in Shibuya (shiBOOYA) we walked to harajuku to visit the Meiji shrine before going to the festival. Meiji shrine is huge, infact the gardens themselves are massive - it takes a decent 5 - 10 minutes of walking just to reach the shrine after going through the gate. After taking pictures of a wedding that was taking place there (a very public wedding infront of 20 billion tourists) we threw a 5 yen coin (the luckiest coin to put in apparently) into this... box... or something and made a wish. Apparently this wasnt enough for Erling who paid 500yen (about £2.50) more for a little wooden plaque to write a wish on and to hang up in the shrine. Till this day it remains a mystery what was actually wrote on that plaque, scholars maintain the translation was lost hundreds of years ago but I believe it had something to do with beer, curry and karaoke. Lukcily the gods looked down upon Erling that day and it was granted in the form of an Indian festival followed by karaoke. All in all, a good day.
After a hugely busy day on monday (10 minute morning lesson, five 50 minute lessons during the day and an evening class at 6) I was fairly knackered and a bit worried about being far too busy from now on (I miss my lazy life). This feeling however has completely been decimated after an amazing day today. We had the same 10 minute morning lesson, the same five 50 minute lessons but then we also had the PTA (parent-teacher association) class for an hour. I was terrified, first lesson teaching alone and I had to prepare it all before hand. In the end it was ace, I was taking the intermediate class which only consists of 4 people with pretty good English, and they put so much effort in it was unreal. The lesson Id planned led on to a massive chat for the last 15 minutes (by accident, it wasnt planned - but it was good practice for them, and less teaching for me), and then the feedback was great aswell - its a massive confidence boost for a nerve-wracking lesson to go well. And straight after that class finished I went up to the JM hall for my first Shorinji Kempo practice (a martial art Im starting), again a little nervous for me because none of them speak English but it ended up being ridiculously fun. The students were friendly as owt (possibly because I dont teach any of them), and some of them were a proper laugh - they were trying their best to speak english and I was throwing in Japanese where I could but the language barrier didnt really matter because they were funny as hell and immensely friendly. Its just too bad I dont teach kids like them (I hope none of my students ever read this - if they do then this is...erm...english humour... yeah thatll do...). They were also really impressed with my karate katas for some unknown reason (probably because karate is way cooler than shorinji kempo), which is weird because in england if you said you did karate people really dont care, but in Japan you tend to get a lot of "ooooooh karate!" and they sound genuinely impressed (hopefully not just humouring me). All in all, this was the funnest day at work so far and its really sealed the deal that this year is gonna be mint.
Wow, it seems I cant stop talking about myself, so yeah, I'll stop now before this post gets waaaay too long. Leave some comments or email me etc, let me know how stuffs going down back at home.
Mike.
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