As far as holidays go, I'm pretty sure I haven't had one so far, despite my official status of "on holiday" since last thursday. Although I haven't punched in at work since thursday, theres only been two days I haven't been in, Friday and Sunday. On Friday I took a trip to Akihabara to look for a DS 'game' which is essentially a kanji dictionary. I found it but decided not to buy it, due to £20 being too much for something I decided that I probably wouldnt use, I can wait until I properly get into learning kanji I guess.
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At the weekend, apart from an exhausting day of standing in the freezing cold for 5 hours by myself, was pretty relaxing (but the kind of relaxing which is on par with boring). The only interesting thing that happened was managing to catch some of the sunderland game live through a chinese website. Needless to say, watching an english game live via china didn't make for a stable connection, and it was only watchable for a little while but I managed to catch a fair amount of us trouncing West Brom taking us out of the relegation zone... only to go straight back in after Newcastle's 3 - 0 win.-
The english christmas party at Junten, yesterday, was set for fail. For the first half an hour, only 3 people turned up apart from us dirty foreigners. No one had done much advertising, unlike the halloween party where we put posters on every floor of the main building and told every class at least 3 times. Despite our lack of effort (which I still believe was made up for with our effort in making awesome decorations), 2-6 class came to our rescue! Nearly the entire class turned up and meant that a party actually happened. We played a few games, tons of chocolate was dished out and then we sung the 12 days of christmas with pairs having each part. I say pairs, I had to sing the "five golden rings" bit alone, the hardest bit of the entire song for the worst singer. Cheers lads. Needless to say, I forgot to sing a few times, was out of key for the majority and even managed to screw up the rhythm completely, but by the end I was semi-pro I tell thee now. Just before the final game, 1-7 class finally turned up (Junten had them in the JM Hall for some lecture or something), we played pass the parcel (I won nothing, again fairly needless to say). All in all, I have to say: huge success.-
Today was a rather odd tuesday. Our first tuesday 'off', and although I did turn up to work, it obviously wasn't it's normal hectic tuesday. Our lunchtime class gave us £50 each as a gift for our journey to Hokkaido, absolute legends they are, and then Nishimura-san sorted out my gaijin card which I signed up for months ago and forgot to collect. I am now officially an alien, and I have the card to prove it.-
The thing which really made this tuesday strange, though, was that instead of teaching classes all day, I instead practiced shorinji for hours... and hours... and hours. From 2 til 5. Insanity, I tell you now. The shorinji crew were awesome though, during a break I asked for some help with my speech (more on that after) and they spent ages reading through the Japanese, correcting it and re-writing it out. For the 1-6 class students I'm sure it felt good for them to be on the teaching end of the stick, because in my lessons they clearly hate being on the student end. The speech I mentioned was sprung on us yesterday. Apparently at the Junten end of year party, the one where we're the only ones not allowed to drink, we have to give a speech in japanese to a load of rowdy, drunken teachers. Fun, fun, fun, eh? Possibly not, I've been told that they're quite a tough crowd when drunk and probably won't pay attention. I'd prefer the good, sober attention where they're amazed at my Japanese, but I guess no attention is better than getting negative responses.-
Tomorrow should be fun. On the internet I've found a volunteer japanese class that teaches four times a week in the same building as I voluntarily teach english on a wednesday night. I'll be checking that out tomorrow morning which should be good fun, if its still running and the website isn't outdated of course. The great thing about the lessons though, is the website says they're 2 hours long and only cost 100yen each (for the record thats about 50p). That means £2 a week for 8 hours of lessons, should I attend them all. Not bad eh? And on top of the lesson, the hong kong students are arriving tomorrow. They'll be treated to a shorinji performance (which I dont have to take part in, yus!), some singing and a christmas party. That's right, I get to go to another christmas party, with more chocolate. Score! More on how this went in a later update, no doubt.-
Well, I managed to keep this to a small update didn't I... lol. Never mind. I get too carried away with typing when I start.-
Laters!
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