Monday, October 06, 2003
Sorry that I haven`t been a good blogger lately...
Anywayz, on Friday night, there was a party for "Poplar", one of our more "legendary" groups at Berlitz (we name our groups after trees and flowers). That night had been the last lesson of MK, the last of the remaining "poplar-ites", so she invited a bunch of us teachers and the other two poplar-ites, K-san, and KS, to a really nice Japanese-style restaurant. I had actually been there before with KM and some of his friends, downing shots of sake...hehe. Anywayz, the food was simply delicious! I didn`t down as much alcohol this time, of course. I still had a good time though. I found out that K-san is so hilarious when drunk! Also, it ended up being a really good opportunity to practice my Japanese with the poplar-ites....they were surprised that their English teacher could get by in Japanese! And actually, I was pretty surprised at myself...considering that I hadn`t been speaking that much Japanese lately...
Saturday ended up being a horrible day...I had two kids classes that didn`t go well...the second one was practically a disaster. And I became very frustrated with my student in my one adult class of the day and almost lost my patience with him. I don`t know what it was, but something that brought me down...I think that it contributed to my classes going badly...which made me feel even worse. I felt that there was a very thin barrier that kept me from breaking down. It was just bad...
But the Soka Jr. High School Festival on Sunday was just what I needed...
On Sunday at 10am, I met up with A, one of the current UD students at Soka, and NY, who is one of KM`s friends (he is the "sexy" guy who sang "Scar Tissue" when I went to karaoke at the end of July). We took a train to Kodaira, the town where Soka Gakuen is in and met KM there. Actually, this was a festival, known as Jounetsu no hi (Day of Enthusiasm) for Soka elementary school, jr. high school, and high school. It was so wierd seeing KM in a suit and being referred to as sensei! So KM, NY, A, and I pretty much walked around Soka Jr. High and High School, looking at the booths or activity stands each classroom had set up. He took us to his classroom, where his students had organized a games activity stand. We played a concentration game and the loser had to wear a silly wig or hat. Needless to say I wore one more than once. We stopped by a high school classroom that was giving three-minute massages for 500 yen. That was nice. We also saw two murals made completely from small pieces of colored paper. One of them was as tall as the school!! We had lunch at the school`s cafeteria and saw part of a performance of a professional Russian dance troupe. While at the festival, I met four more exchange students. Two girls from Venezuela, a guy from Argentina...and a guy named JS....who happens to be the brother of my coworker, DS....they look so much alike! Over all I had a really good time. It was a really nice distraction after such a stressful week. I will soon be posting pictures on my phlog.
Anywayz, on Friday night, there was a party for "Poplar", one of our more "legendary" groups at Berlitz (we name our groups after trees and flowers). That night had been the last lesson of MK, the last of the remaining "poplar-ites", so she invited a bunch of us teachers and the other two poplar-ites, K-san, and KS, to a really nice Japanese-style restaurant. I had actually been there before with KM and some of his friends, downing shots of sake...hehe. Anywayz, the food was simply delicious! I didn`t down as much alcohol this time, of course. I still had a good time though. I found out that K-san is so hilarious when drunk! Also, it ended up being a really good opportunity to practice my Japanese with the poplar-ites....they were surprised that their English teacher could get by in Japanese! And actually, I was pretty surprised at myself...considering that I hadn`t been speaking that much Japanese lately...
Saturday ended up being a horrible day...I had two kids classes that didn`t go well...the second one was practically a disaster. And I became very frustrated with my student in my one adult class of the day and almost lost my patience with him. I don`t know what it was, but something that brought me down...I think that it contributed to my classes going badly...which made me feel even worse. I felt that there was a very thin barrier that kept me from breaking down. It was just bad...
But the Soka Jr. High School Festival on Sunday was just what I needed...
On Sunday at 10am, I met up with A, one of the current UD students at Soka, and NY, who is one of KM`s friends (he is the "sexy" guy who sang "Scar Tissue" when I went to karaoke at the end of July). We took a train to Kodaira, the town where Soka Gakuen is in and met KM there. Actually, this was a festival, known as Jounetsu no hi (Day of Enthusiasm) for Soka elementary school, jr. high school, and high school. It was so wierd seeing KM in a suit and being referred to as sensei! So KM, NY, A, and I pretty much walked around Soka Jr. High and High School, looking at the booths or activity stands each classroom had set up. He took us to his classroom, where his students had organized a games activity stand. We played a concentration game and the loser had to wear a silly wig or hat. Needless to say I wore one more than once. We stopped by a high school classroom that was giving three-minute massages for 500 yen. That was nice. We also saw two murals made completely from small pieces of colored paper. One of them was as tall as the school!! We had lunch at the school`s cafeteria and saw part of a performance of a professional Russian dance troupe. While at the festival, I met four more exchange students. Two girls from Venezuela, a guy from Argentina...and a guy named JS....who happens to be the brother of my coworker, DS....they look so much alike! Over all I had a really good time. It was a really nice distraction after such a stressful week. I will soon be posting pictures on my phlog.
