Graduation Day!

Tuesday, March 24th, was the Kozakura Kindergarten graduation ceremony. It was a delightful day filled with a ceremony, delicious food, entertainment and drinks. All of which, I enjoyed to my fullest potiential but struggled to stay awake through it all. I think the Japanese differences and language still leave me a bit sleepy from time to time, and after a weekend in Tokyo with no sleep I was "spacey" all day. It was quite hillarious to see all those rugrats in formal clothes, participating in such a formal event that we would only do for a highschool graduation or wedding. It was nice however, to show congratulations to these kids for completing something as easy as Kindgergarten!! Their parents were very proud. In this picture you can see each child got a flower to take home, a diploma and other various gifts. The event was kinda sad for me becuase I was just starting to get used to some of these kids, build relationships with them but now they will move onto elementary school. I had a few buddies around that would help me read hiragana, or we'd draw together, and I'd attempt to teach them English words.

Once the afternoon reception was over I had a few hours to spare before the evening drinking party with the parents began. I ended up being in a rush to get there as usual and part of me didn't want to even go. I felt tired and exhausted just from the hour long meal that afternoon. I went anyways not knowing what to expect. It is difficult becuase I can't really speak Japanese and these people can't speak English. That is the hardest thing for me, not being able to talk as much as I'd like. Despite all of that once you get some drinks going the socializing begins. I had a great time chatting it up with all these parents. Also, I realized how appreciative they were of my teaching their children English, and many commented how their son/daughter loved English class. It's nice to hear that becuase a lot of the time at Kindergarten I don't feel needed or wanted.

A thing to note about Japanese people, especially Nagai people is they love to drink, and they never allow a glass to become empty or even partially empty. I lost track of how many drinks I had. We ended up going to karaoke, which was super fun! I think I even sang a few songs solo which is quite unilke me. By the end of it all, about 2am, I was terribly inebriated and needed to go home for a sleep! These mom's were quite worried and sent me home in a taxi. Once home, I ended up falling asleep on my apartment floor. I think next time I will pay more attention to how many times my glass is re-filled!

There is nothing, but something.

Okay, this is going to start randomly and in middle of my Japan experience. Kind of wish I started back in January when all the crazy random new Japan stuff was messing with my head. There were some tough but very amusing times now in hindsight. Maybe I will tell some stories later on.

This is the whiteboard in my classroom. I always change the date. Writing the date on the board makes me feel like a real teacher. I love to stick images, pictures and crafts with magnets on the whiteboard, draw silly little diagrams, or write answers to vocabulary quizzes like you see on the right. Notice I spelt interrupt with only one 'r'...how embarrassing for an English teacher. The title of this blog comes from tonight's lesson with my ladies class. It was the riddle I made up to quiz them on a particular word. Can you figure out which word it was using the list you see on the right? It's tricky but my Japanese ladies figured it out.


SOOOO yesterday I got internet finally, after being in Japan for two and a half months!! It was exciting, or more painful, I don't know which. Like many "getting settled" experiences in Japan, it was long and confusing. Everything that could possibly go wrong did. I spent the whole morning and afternoon with my manager of the English school I work at, trying to install the internet on his laptop. Many, many phone calls were made between him, Plala and NTT the internet and phone companies until finally a very very smart Japanese person on the other line figured out our problem. We had coffee, ate chocolate cakes, drank juice and ate popcorn. Or rather, I ate popcorn. Today Yoshi told me I ate 90% of the popcorn. What can I say, I've developed a very large appetitie in Japan, especially for comfort food like POPCORN!!

I was very thankful for all Yoshi's help. He is a patient patient man. I would have given up long before, had he not persisted we keep trying. Not having patience is on thing I've learned about myself here in Japan. I want things to work now, start now, happen now. For example the photocopier, printer, the heaters in my apartment, the hot water in my taps. Making friends, knowing the language, understanding the job, in general getting used this place, I wanted it to just happen immediately. Either I have no patience, becuase I had many frustrations with things at first, or the Japanese as a culture are way more patient than Canadians! I think it is a bit of both. Yesterday, I was grateful for the Japanese amount of patience. After many apologies to Yoshi for taking up so much of his time, his response of "daijo bu" (its okay) was very heartwarming. Clearly he had a lot of stuff to do for his daughter's upcoming graduation tomorrow, but he stayed and helped me until it was hooked up. So now I can BLOGG!

In my thanks, I was able to help him construct a sort of confetti ball this afternoon that he needs for the graduation ceremony. Here are some videos of the work in progress and the final product.

Can you beleive this was made out of two bowls, cardboard and shiny gold paper?

To finish I want to show one more picture of my classroom. This is where I feel at home. I know I am still learning to be a good English teacher. I make a lot of mistakes teaching, especially without curriculum to follow. I'm awful in culture/language differences and always do it wrong the first time. I am getting better with it all though, and with time will be real great, I hope! Being the person I am, I know can do a good job unless thoughts of travel distract me too much like they have been recently! tee hee!