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Ahh, Friday. My easiest day of the week... sort of.
The good thing about Fridays is that I only have 3 classes to teach and they're all in the evening -- 6,7, and 9pm. The bad thing is that the 6pm class is the 8-year-olds that I still don't know how to handle.
So I came to work and signed in a bit before 1pm, and did some paperwork, and then told everyone I was heading out for a bit to do some shopping. Which is exactly what I did -- I went to Kawaguchi to look for some 100-yen shops to find toys for that kids' class. Sadly, though, I didn't find the toys I wanted (specifically a big plastic hammer that squeaks, and more sticky balls to throw at the whiteboard). I did, however, find another good tempura shop and had a pretty gigantic and tasty lunch for only 580 yen.
Came back to Akabane mostly empty-handed (I did buy two packages of stickers to use for marking homework, and a package of Bingo cards to use for warmup games, but I didn't find the toys I wanted to get or any reasonable substitutes), and got changed and got ready for evening classes.
The kids' class actually went well, though -- only two of them showed up and I pretty much played games 90% of the time, including a variation of Musical Chairs that I made up that involved tagging vocabulary cards when the music stopped. (Anything that gets these kids running around the room is generally good because then they're too tired to protest doing workbook exercises afterwards.) Also, I had bought Pooh stickers and it turns out they like Pooh, so that is good. The only funny part was the end when I'm like "Class is over! Please do chapter 17 of your workbook for next week," and they said "Juu-nana?" "Seventeen." "JUU-NANA!!!" and they started writing on my whiteboard in Japanese, how to say 17 in Japanese, so I just kept saying "No, seventeen! In English!!" Ehh, whatever, they were laughing so I guess it was okay. They also have a habit of just looking through all of my stuff, and they discovered the little bag of Kintaro-kun candies that Mitsuko gave me, and asked if they could have one... in Japanese. So I said in English, "Do you like Kintaro candy?" "Yes, I like it." "Ask for one in English? Can I..." "Can I have a Kintaro candy?" "Yes, you can."
Anyway, once that was over the rest of the day was easy. My next class was the Sprint 7Y lesson that I already had taught on Tuesday (great timing there, seriously) with one of my nicest students, and then my 9pm students didn't show up. BUT of course I didn't have time to relax -- turns out there's all of this paperwork I have to do around the 20th of the month, so I spent the last two hours working on that, and checking homework, and preparing Saturday lessons, and taking out the trash, and so on. Whee.
Oh yeah, it turns out Duane used to be a software engineer back when he was in Canada. Funny that. I was doing all of my paperwork math in my head; Sachi asked if I needed help with it, and I joked, "Don't mess with me, I used to be a computer science major!" and Duane's like "Oh really? Don't mess with me either, I'm DONE with being a computer scientist!" "WHAT?" Though it sounds like we both have similar goals working at GEOS -- learn Japanese and Japan well enough to find a software engineering job in Japan down the line. Thing is, I don't really understand Duane at all, he doesn't remind me of my other CS friends. Maybe it's a Canada thing.
Anyway, I did get out of there around 10:30, and I went to Nishi-Kawaguchi again and found the kaitensushi place that closes at 11:30. I got there at 10:55 but they were already in mostly-taking-orders mode with very little on the belt. The sushi was really good and cheap though, so I'm not complaining. Then I actually walked home MOSTLY straightforward -- only this time I went one street further, so I could see the Kawaguchi municipal baseball stadium, which is REALLY close to where I live. I wonder what goes on there. Due to walking home that way, I found the Denny's and Jonathan's which are only a few blocks from where I live -- and open all night. Again, not that useful in general but might be nicer for late-night sitting out somewhere and working on homework if needed.
And now it is Saturday morning and GET THIS, it's AWESOME outside. It started raining shortly after I got home last night and now it's totally cloudy and overcast and like... 26 degrees Celsius out, which is like 80 degrees Fahrenheit. SO NICE.
The good thing about Fridays is that I only have 3 classes to teach and they're all in the evening -- 6,7, and 9pm. The bad thing is that the 6pm class is the 8-year-olds that I still don't know how to handle.
So I came to work and signed in a bit before 1pm, and did some paperwork, and then told everyone I was heading out for a bit to do some shopping. Which is exactly what I did -- I went to Kawaguchi to look for some 100-yen shops to find toys for that kids' class. Sadly, though, I didn't find the toys I wanted (specifically a big plastic hammer that squeaks, and more sticky balls to throw at the whiteboard). I did, however, find another good tempura shop and had a pretty gigantic and tasty lunch for only 580 yen.
Came back to Akabane mostly empty-handed (I did buy two packages of stickers to use for marking homework, and a package of Bingo cards to use for warmup games, but I didn't find the toys I wanted to get or any reasonable substitutes), and got changed and got ready for evening classes.
The kids' class actually went well, though -- only two of them showed up and I pretty much played games 90% of the time, including a variation of Musical Chairs that I made up that involved tagging vocabulary cards when the music stopped. (Anything that gets these kids running around the room is generally good because then they're too tired to protest doing workbook exercises afterwards.) Also, I had bought Pooh stickers and it turns out they like Pooh, so that is good. The only funny part was the end when I'm like "Class is over! Please do chapter 17 of your workbook for next week," and they said "Juu-nana?" "Seventeen." "JUU-NANA!!!" and they started writing on my whiteboard in Japanese, how to say 17 in Japanese, so I just kept saying "No, seventeen! In English!!" Ehh, whatever, they were laughing so I guess it was okay. They also have a habit of just looking through all of my stuff, and they discovered the little bag of Kintaro-kun candies that Mitsuko gave me, and asked if they could have one... in Japanese. So I said in English, "Do you like Kintaro candy?" "Yes, I like it." "Ask for one in English? Can I..." "Can I have a Kintaro candy?" "Yes, you can."
Anyway, once that was over the rest of the day was easy. My next class was the Sprint 7Y lesson that I already had taught on Tuesday (great timing there, seriously) with one of my nicest students, and then my 9pm students didn't show up. BUT of course I didn't have time to relax -- turns out there's all of this paperwork I have to do around the 20th of the month, so I spent the last two hours working on that, and checking homework, and preparing Saturday lessons, and taking out the trash, and so on. Whee.
Oh yeah, it turns out Duane used to be a software engineer back when he was in Canada. Funny that. I was doing all of my paperwork math in my head; Sachi asked if I needed help with it, and I joked, "Don't mess with me, I used to be a computer science major!" and Duane's like "Oh really? Don't mess with me either, I'm DONE with being a computer scientist!" "WHAT?" Though it sounds like we both have similar goals working at GEOS -- learn Japanese and Japan well enough to find a software engineering job in Japan down the line. Thing is, I don't really understand Duane at all, he doesn't remind me of my other CS friends. Maybe it's a Canada thing.
Anyway, I did get out of there around 10:30, and I went to Nishi-Kawaguchi again and found the kaitensushi place that closes at 11:30. I got there at 10:55 but they were already in mostly-taking-orders mode with very little on the belt. The sushi was really good and cheap though, so I'm not complaining. Then I actually walked home MOSTLY straightforward -- only this time I went one street further, so I could see the Kawaguchi municipal baseball stadium, which is REALLY close to where I live. I wonder what goes on there. Due to walking home that way, I found the Denny's and Jonathan's which are only a few blocks from where I live -- and open all night. Again, not that useful in general but might be nicer for late-night sitting out somewhere and working on homework if needed.
And now it is Saturday morning and GET THIS, it's AWESOME outside. It started raining shortly after I got home last night and now it's totally cloudy and overcast and like... 26 degrees Celsius out, which is like 80 degrees Fahrenheit. SO NICE.
