I've been really busy doing things around town. Between getting all settled into my house (ie cleaning like CRAZY), visiting schools, meeting teachers, and planning lessons, I've been pretty pressed for time.
This week I've mostly been practicing riding the bus to various places around town and planning Elementary school lessons. At my biggest Elementary, I'm pretty much in charge of planning lessons for the 1st through 4th graders. However, the way things work out I'm going to only have to plan 6 lessons to get me through the end of the academic year (late March). Each lesson will be used across all four grades, just with more intense grammar/vocabulary/material as the grades get higher. Each lessons will be used 6 times (once for 1st grade, once for 2nd, twice for 3rd & 4th grade because they are split into two classes). It's actually kind of nice to be given the freedom to create my own lessons. My predecessor covered the following topics: 1) Greetings & Feelings, 2) Animals, 3) Numbers 1-20, 4) Foods, 5) Body Parts, & 6) Sports. I've made a rough outline of the topics I hope to discuss (each one is about 20 minutes explanation, 20 minutes activity/game, and 10 minutes opening/closing/review). The six that I think I have decided on are: 1) Colors, 2) Family, 3) Using/telling time, 4) Weather/Seasons, 5) Transportation, & 6) Basic Directions.
In my spare time I've been continuing practicing Taiko with some of my elementary kids. Practices are three times a week: Thursdays from 5:30-7:00pm + Saturdays & Sundays from 6:00-9:00pm. So yeah, I'm pretty busy. Eventually, I plan on getting an adult English class set up in my community. It will probably be 2 hours every other week. I also hope to join the Table Tennis club at one of my Elementarys and possibly set up an after school English club at one of my Junior Highs. Needless to say, I probably won't make it out of my town too much haha. But its okay, some of the people I have met so far are amazing.
Two of my kids in the Taiko group already stand out quite a bit. It's been really fun getting to know them, and they are both extremely gifted. One of them is the 4th grade girl I mentioned earlier, and the other is a 6th grade boy who pretty much does everything and is the student leader of the group. Also, today as I was walking down the street I walked past a woman who displayed a LOT of interest in me, and I could tell a "stop and chat" was in order (and this is saying something - I get looks everywhere I go in my town). I was looking forward to another advanced version of charades with her, but lo and behold: she whipped out her PERFECT English on me. As it turns out, she actually lived in New York for 8 years. Hello, friend!
Of course there is still my supervisor who is pretty awesome, and the office lady I mentioned before who I've been chatting with everyday on remarkably deep subjects, especially considering the struggle we go through to communicate with one another (just today we discussed 9/11 and her/my perspective on it). That was surely a run-on sentence. I don't care.... Back on subject: There is also another older man in the office who I'm starting to like quite a bit. My predecessor told me that he was pretty funny, but I just wasn't seeing it at first; I thought he hated me. But I'm slowly catching on to his humor. He frequently sleeps (and snores) at his desk (which is pretty centrally located in the rather small office), he waters all the plants outside when he gets especially bored (although it rains practically everyday here), and he has taken it upon himself to come help me with Japanese when I'm studying. Today we exchanged American/Japanese tongue-twisters with one another. Another thing that he does which pretty much makes me crack a smile or chuckle every single time: whenever he sits down or gets up from his chair, he loudly proclaims "YOSH!" in his awesome older man voice. (This basically means "All right!" or "Let's do this!" or "Yes!")
Alright, this "quick" update has become rather lengthy. My original intention was just to post four videos and call it a day... I guess I got a little carried away there.
Anyway here they are (please make sure you have the sound on! - a shout-out to my Brookfield peeps).
A Video Tour of my House in Rural Japan
Riding the Limited Express Train in Rural Japan
Kumano Fireworks
(the BEST firework I've ever seen in my life! This video doesn't do it justice as it's hard to get a sense of scale. The best moment to grasp the scale is the very first scene - if you look close enough you can see a man walking on the beach. The show was 2 hours and featured over 10,000 fireworks... right on the beach!)
Taiko Festival in Kumano
Okay thanks for reading and watching! See you next time!
Jordan
PS. Please forgive my spelling/grammar - as usual I wrote this pretty fast without bothering to read what I was writing.
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