Back to school...

School is back in session and I've now spent two full days at school although I haven't taught any classes yet. But never fear--tomorrow I'm teaching 5.

Monday was the first day of the semester and therefore we had an opening ceremony. It was in the gym and very hot and at the end, one of the kids fainted because of the heat (remind anyone of anything?). Anyway, the kids were all wearing their formal uniforms. Usually they wear uniforms that look like warm-ups you would wear if you were on some sports team. (In fact most of them changed after the ceremony, as did the teachers. But nobody told me and I was stucksweating in my fancy clothes all day.) I noticed that the kids shoes are color coded by their grade. The 7th graders have white shoes with red markings, the 8th graders white shoes with blue markings, and the 9th graders' shoes have green markings. At the ceremony, I had to give a short speech in transliterated Japanese. I think I managed to get most of it out without garbling it too much.

Every day, at the end of classes, the kids clean the school. During this time on Monday I walked around and introduced myself to some of the kids. Some were very shy and tried to avoid talking to me. Others were very enthusiastic, but still turned to their friends for help. When I try talking to the kids, I tend to hear a lot of "YES!" no matter what I say. Which incidently is also what I do when people speak Japanese to me.

Monday was only a half day for the students, so many left at lunchtime. However, after lunch most came back for their various club activities. I worked with the speech contest participants for a while. Afterwards I prepared my self-introduction lessons until it was time for me to go home.

Later, I was walking down the street when I heard shouts of "Rita-sensei! Rita-sensei!" I ran into a group of 3 girls that I had introduced myself to earlier. I stood and talked to them for quite a while. They all needed to consult on everything they or I said.

One of the teachers gave me a bunch of veggies from her grandparents' garden. I got baby eggplant, some sort of little green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and 3 stalks of the biggest, fattest asparagus I have ever seen!

Today the students had testing most of the day. I didn't have too much to do. I spent about half the morning helping one woman who works at the school make these little balls filled with seed. It was a lot of fun. We took breaks to juggle and to play a makeshift basket toss. Later I tried to laminate some pictures and they got stuck in the laminator. Since I messed up a laminator, I officially feel like a teacher. In the afternoon I graded the 9th graders' English tests, which was terrible work.

Tomorrow I actually start teaching. Wish me luck!