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keitai BOUGHT! but not GET!
Man, this is crazy. I'm taking a break from working on lesson plans to write this; it's about 1:30am. Hopefully tomorrow I will actually have a real cellphone and won't have to keep resorting to these crazy wireless-leeching binges. More on that in a second.
Anyway, today was a VERY light day for me in terms of teaching responsiblities -- only three classes, and the first one wasn't until 6pm, but I still arrived at GEOS at 12:40pm as usual to sign in. I had a hirekatsu sandwich for lunch that I'd grabbed quickly from Akabane station, and then I worked on preparing my kids lesson for 6pm a bit.
At 2:15 or so I went to Mizuho bank to turn my traveller's checks into money. I was really worried that I'd get in trouble because Duane and Eri were both teaching classes at the time and Duane's student's son was still in the lobby playing PSP games, so there wasn't anyone watching him for about 20 minutes while I was at the bank, but apparently that wasn't a problem after all.
(The bank experience was interesting. I forgot to bring my electronic dictionary so I had to negotiate it all in Japanese, but the bank worker was patient with me. Only problem was that there were like 10-15 minutes of me just sitting there waiting for something to happen, like after they looked at my passport, and then after I signed the checks, and... but, eventually it all went through, so now I have money to use for the next few weeks. Yay.)
I worked a little more on the kids' lesson after that and then Eri and I went shopping for cellphones. Boy, was that an experience. We went first to a store that sold all keitais, near the station, and looked at some and found out about plans. Then we went to the au/kddi store, which was airconditioned, and looked at more crazy phones. I saw some amazing camera phones and TV phones and whatnot, but I was pretty partial to this one bright blue phone, which was bilingual and worked with all the network plans they had... so we went back to the original store and I bought it from there. Only problem is they didn't have that phone in stock, but they said they could get it for me tomorrow afternoon, so, I signed up for it all and paid for a charger and they said to come back after 12:30pm Saturday to get it.
Eri translated for me all of the plan stuff and the stuff on the forms -- I mean, I understood some of what was going on but I think it would have taken forever if I was on my own, so that was good. Hopefully she can go with me to pick up the phone as well just in case anything weird happens.
So, I did the kids lesson at 6. It was... an experience. This class normally has four kids, three girls and a boy, but the boy didn't show up. The girls pretty much just want to play games. They did NOT want to do the CD listening exercises. Eventually the class degenerated into running around the room playing tag until they all fell over tired and I made them review vocabulary again. Sigh. I'll have to come up with some better games for next week, I think.
I had a sprint class at 7pm, with one student. She was really nice and the lesson actually went very well. I followed my lesson plan, covered the grammar point, and we had some nice discussions about hobbies and movies. I told her I like SMAP, and she said that Katori Shingo is a customer at the bank she works at, he lives near there. "Come visit my bank and maybe you will see him!" That was pretty funny.
(Seriously, I am so glad I got back into SMAP in the last year or two, it's provided some pretty good discussion so far in classes.)
I would have spent the next hour preparing my Millennium B class, except that I had come out to the lobby to work on sorting some props, so Eri brought out one of her students, a really nice college student who is in pre-med. He said that he heard I liked baseball, so we got into a talk about that; he asked me questions about America and baseball and stuff, and I asked him questions about college and other sports (he said he liked Sumo too). We talked for about 30-40 minutes, and Eri was really happy and proud of him for it, she was worried he'd be too shy to talk to me, but she said later that I had a good reaction to him, very smiley and friendly, and my talking speed was really good.
Unfortunately I spent so long talking that I didn't manage to get as much preparation as I would have liked for Mill B. I also thought that I only had one student -- I forgot that one of my students from Tuesday was coming back to make up next week's lesson since he is leaving for Obon. Worse, I forgot that he doesn't have the textbook and I am supposed to copy it for him. Oops! But, we had an okay class discussion anyway; though, it was on body language, non-verbal communication, and well, let's face it, Japanese people aren't used to acting angry at each other, so I had trouble getting them to act out the non-verbal cues, because they were like "I think it is strange to shake my fists at him and yell, why am I doing that?" They did tell me some funny other ones, like "When my boss is mad at me he just comes up to me and grabs my tie and yells at me," so, at least we had some discussion, but, I think I talked too much again.
After that Duane taught me how to clean up the school and take out the garbage. Exciting. I was going to stay around to prepare classes, and then... and then I realized that I didn't have the key to lock up! But everyone had left by then, so I called Duane's phone and he came back and locked up, and I rode back to Warabi with him, he explained about one of our Saturday students that will be working with both of us.
I know there's nothing much open in my side of Warabi once it gets past 10pm, and I was starving, so I checked out the other side of the station, where there seems to be a lot more. I ended up eating dinner at Mos Burger. Whee. I had brought home a bunch of textbooks so I just got them out and read through some of the lessons there.
Walked home, worked on more lessons, and...
...fell asleep writing this entry, actually. So now it is morning, I am watching Ichiro's old high school Aikodai Meiden play at Koshien (they're getting beaten by the West Tokyo school (Soka?), which is the one that beat Eri's high school so I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that), and I have basically prepared my first lesson but no others. I've looked through the others but I'm not sure I have enough to work through all of the lesson yet. (Unfortunately the others are two Active classes, and I'm not so good at preparing those yet...)
Anyway, I should go. On Saturdays, I start at 11am but I get out at 5:30pm. Yay. And I should have a cellphone later too! Whee!
Anyway, today was a VERY light day for me in terms of teaching responsiblities -- only three classes, and the first one wasn't until 6pm, but I still arrived at GEOS at 12:40pm as usual to sign in. I had a hirekatsu sandwich for lunch that I'd grabbed quickly from Akabane station, and then I worked on preparing my kids lesson for 6pm a bit.
At 2:15 or so I went to Mizuho bank to turn my traveller's checks into money. I was really worried that I'd get in trouble because Duane and Eri were both teaching classes at the time and Duane's student's son was still in the lobby playing PSP games, so there wasn't anyone watching him for about 20 minutes while I was at the bank, but apparently that wasn't a problem after all.
(The bank experience was interesting. I forgot to bring my electronic dictionary so I had to negotiate it all in Japanese, but the bank worker was patient with me. Only problem was that there were like 10-15 minutes of me just sitting there waiting for something to happen, like after they looked at my passport, and then after I signed the checks, and... but, eventually it all went through, so now I have money to use for the next few weeks. Yay.)
I worked a little more on the kids' lesson after that and then Eri and I went shopping for cellphones. Boy, was that an experience. We went first to a store that sold all keitais, near the station, and looked at some and found out about plans. Then we went to the au/kddi store, which was airconditioned, and looked at more crazy phones. I saw some amazing camera phones and TV phones and whatnot, but I was pretty partial to this one bright blue phone, which was bilingual and worked with all the network plans they had... so we went back to the original store and I bought it from there. Only problem is they didn't have that phone in stock, but they said they could get it for me tomorrow afternoon, so, I signed up for it all and paid for a charger and they said to come back after 12:30pm Saturday to get it.
Eri translated for me all of the plan stuff and the stuff on the forms -- I mean, I understood some of what was going on but I think it would have taken forever if I was on my own, so that was good. Hopefully she can go with me to pick up the phone as well just in case anything weird happens.
So, I did the kids lesson at 6. It was... an experience. This class normally has four kids, three girls and a boy, but the boy didn't show up. The girls pretty much just want to play games. They did NOT want to do the CD listening exercises. Eventually the class degenerated into running around the room playing tag until they all fell over tired and I made them review vocabulary again. Sigh. I'll have to come up with some better games for next week, I think.
I had a sprint class at 7pm, with one student. She was really nice and the lesson actually went very well. I followed my lesson plan, covered the grammar point, and we had some nice discussions about hobbies and movies. I told her I like SMAP, and she said that Katori Shingo is a customer at the bank she works at, he lives near there. "Come visit my bank and maybe you will see him!" That was pretty funny.
(Seriously, I am so glad I got back into SMAP in the last year or two, it's provided some pretty good discussion so far in classes.)
I would have spent the next hour preparing my Millennium B class, except that I had come out to the lobby to work on sorting some props, so Eri brought out one of her students, a really nice college student who is in pre-med. He said that he heard I liked baseball, so we got into a talk about that; he asked me questions about America and baseball and stuff, and I asked him questions about college and other sports (he said he liked Sumo too). We talked for about 30-40 minutes, and Eri was really happy and proud of him for it, she was worried he'd be too shy to talk to me, but she said later that I had a good reaction to him, very smiley and friendly, and my talking speed was really good.
Unfortunately I spent so long talking that I didn't manage to get as much preparation as I would have liked for Mill B. I also thought that I only had one student -- I forgot that one of my students from Tuesday was coming back to make up next week's lesson since he is leaving for Obon. Worse, I forgot that he doesn't have the textbook and I am supposed to copy it for him. Oops! But, we had an okay class discussion anyway; though, it was on body language, non-verbal communication, and well, let's face it, Japanese people aren't used to acting angry at each other, so I had trouble getting them to act out the non-verbal cues, because they were like "I think it is strange to shake my fists at him and yell, why am I doing that?" They did tell me some funny other ones, like "When my boss is mad at me he just comes up to me and grabs my tie and yells at me," so, at least we had some discussion, but, I think I talked too much again.
After that Duane taught me how to clean up the school and take out the garbage. Exciting. I was going to stay around to prepare classes, and then... and then I realized that I didn't have the key to lock up! But everyone had left by then, so I called Duane's phone and he came back and locked up, and I rode back to Warabi with him, he explained about one of our Saturday students that will be working with both of us.
I know there's nothing much open in my side of Warabi once it gets past 10pm, and I was starving, so I checked out the other side of the station, where there seems to be a lot more. I ended up eating dinner at Mos Burger. Whee. I had brought home a bunch of textbooks so I just got them out and read through some of the lessons there.
Walked home, worked on more lessons, and...
...fell asleep writing this entry, actually. So now it is morning, I am watching Ichiro's old high school Aikodai Meiden play at Koshien (they're getting beaten by the West Tokyo school (Soka?), which is the one that beat Eri's high school so I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that), and I have basically prepared my first lesson but no others. I've looked through the others but I'm not sure I have enough to work through all of the lesson yet. (Unfortunately the others are two Active classes, and I'm not so good at preparing those yet...)
Anyway, I should go. On Saturdays, I start at 11am but I get out at 5:30pm. Yay. And I should have a cellphone later too! Whee!