Tomorrow I have my second class with the little kids. It's more work than my other classes, and I'm not alone in that either; the two women I work with also spend more time prepping for our Saturday classes than for any other class.

Last week Saturday, my first day with the kids, was one of the most stressful starts to a day I've had in a long while. It wasn't that I had no experience working with kiddies--I taught a class of them for a year the last time I was in Japan--the problem was that it'd been five years since that experience, and I was feeling way out of my element. Teaching adults, or people approximating adults, that's my thing. I can reason with them. I can often have real conversations, with depth and meaning. I can tell them to get out of my class if they irritate me too much, and I won't have to speak to their parents. But kids...well, I can't yell, and the parents are just outside the door (sometimes literally), and they're paying good money, so...

In the whole program we have only about 16 or 17 kids, three teachers, one staff assistant, and six student assistants, with all assistants being Japanese. That's a great ratio of adults to kids, and a not-too-bad ratio of native speakers to kids. The day starts at 10 and finishes at 2, with a one hour lunch/recess. We have two periods before lunch that are language oriented, and then in the period after lunch, we join all the classes together for some activity. Last week we played a Japanese game called kendama (a ball attached by string to a handle with different cups to catch the ball), and tomorrow we are going to learn a Japanese dance.

For the most part, I have good kids. I only have five, so that's a good thing. Two boys, three girls. The boys are troublesome. Penance, I suppose. One of them wouldn't draw a picture to save his life...not that he can't, but he won't. Simply refused. And the other boy wouldn't answer questions in English, just kept saying (in Japanese) "I won't say." The closest I came to raising my voice. I finally got him by just asking again and again...but I hate contests of will like that.

My favorite student (we teachers all have them) is a girl named Sakura. She's so cute...quiet but she'll answer questions. She's very gentle and pleasant. In another class is a little boy named Shun, who attends an international school, so his English is fluent. He's so small but so cute...or maybe cute because he's so small.

I teach the lowest level kids, the ones just starting out. Which is all the more difficult for someone used to adults who speak English passably to begin with. So, I'm trying out some techniques I read about when I did my MA, and going over basics like colors, shapes, body parts, etc.

Alright, enough about the kids.

Though there isn't much else. The weather's cooled off quite a bit here. Tomorrow is supposed to have a high of just 60, though the highs are usually around 68 to 70. I like it, at least when the sun is out. I can go for a leisurely bike ride and barely break a sweat. The foliage is just starting to turn, and that's exciting. I live so close to Kyoto that it will be so easy to get there to see some of my favorite places in the full blaze of autumn.

I miss my niece a lot. Here's my new favorite picture...it's not that recent, but every time I see it, I laugh, she's so CUTE.

School has begun

In the last two weeks, it feels like I've done more than I've had time to do. I honestly can't even remember it all. And that's a good thing for this blog, as it would take too much effort to read all that.

Some of the highlights, though, if you will.

- My Uncle Travis came to town, and we hung out around Umeda (the area around the main train stations in Osaka) and then went to the Osaka Aquarium, which is awesome. The centerpiece of this aquarium is a HUGE tank around which you slowly walk down from the top. The star of the tank is a whale shark...I think there used to be two, but one died since I'd been there last. The place is still great, though, well worth the admission price, and the best part of it all is right at the end, an amazing display of jellyfish.

- I met up with my old friends Ryota and Sunao from Kyoto. I first met them seven years ago, shortly after I arrived in Japan, a chance meeting through a friend of a friend, but I soon got to be quite close to them, visiting them often. However, once I left Japan, I hadn't heard from them much, so this past spring I was happily surprised to find out that they have a daughter, Himari, whom I got to meet. I went over to hang out and have lunch with them, and later in the afternoon three more friends came over (two of whom I already knew), and we ate dinner. I love going back to places, seeing old friends, and finding that the years between have not diminished the relationship.

- One of my former students from my last stay in Japan, Kurara, has been living in Canada for the last five years, most of it in Ottawa where she went to school and later worked. This past March, she returned to Japan with her fiance to live and work for a while. I got to meet up with her last week, the first time I've seen in three and a half years, since I went up to Ottawa. Also with her was her fiance, Daniel, a pleasant, talkative guy the exact same age as Kurara, and her younger sister Agune, whom I'd met five years ago, though we'd not talked at all then. The four of us hung out for a bit in Umeda, then went to visit Kurara's other sister, Anna, who is married and just had her second daughter. Anna's husband, Yuuki, is a really funny guy.
Kurara, Agune, Anna, Mirie, Yuuki, Daniel






- Dani. That's not a person. No, that's the Japanese name for a tiny bug, maybe a mite, that is believed to be the culprit in attacking my right arm with so many bites that at first I thought it was a rash. My arm got so itchy the night of the bites, I woke up, but (surprisingly) had the presence of mind to think to put ice on it before I scratched through my skin. I wish I'd taken a picture of my arm...it was terrible. Anyway, my friend helped me do one of those DIY insect bombs in the apartment, and then the pros came here this week, so for three nights I had to stay with my colleague...quite a pain, considering I'd just cleaned everything. Anyway, that's done, and I'm back in my place, but I've thrown out all the old bedding, all the old pillows, as they might not have been saved from the professional treatment, and I don't want to risk getting infested again. What this means for me right now is that I've gotten rid of the bed, since I didn't want to buy a new mattress and I like sleeping on futon. The school is taking care of me, though, and is getting me some nice futon soon...direct from the President's wife (a woman from Hawaii).

School. Finally, I had to return to work. I think that was the longest break from work I've had since I started working after college. Maybe not. Well, at least since I was in Japan in 2000. I stopped working at the ELI in Virginia at the end of June, so three months with no work. It was nice. But I started again on Monday, and it was a rough start, but not too bad as returning to work goes.

My schedule is light, for which I'm very, very grateful, as it gives me lots of time to goof off and do other stuff, though I'm still settling in and getting things in order (like the dani). The trouble on Monday was mainly that I'm a T.A. for two classes, which I thought would be nice and easy, but has ended up feeling demeaning instead, soley because of the personality of the woman who runs the class...remotely, via the internet, and who has NO IDEA how to teach ESL students. It's painful to watch the students struggle and not understand what she's saying. So, that set the mood for the day to "Unpleasant," but by that evening I'd vented enough and gotten back my perspective, so on Tuesday I was able to enjoy myself, especially after teaching my own class that afternoon...felt sort of revalidated.

Today I have a meeting for the kids program, which kicks off next Saturday. I'll have to let you know how that goes later, but I think it'll be fun and I think it'll provide a nice counterpoint to teaching the university students.

That's it for now...Aloha.