September Drinking and Teaching Fun

So here I am at Kuguno Elementary with nothing to do. Lucky you because that means I’m writing a blog post. Not too much has been going on. I’ve now been to all my school’s Sports Festivals. I had 3 in one day. It was a little nuts.

The September birthdays have already started. We had two last weekend. Next weekend we have none though it is a long weekend, and the following week we have three. That is going to be a week of permanent inebriation I’m sure.

I did just find out, and I mean in the last ten minutes, that on November 1st all the English teachers in Takayama are coming to Kuguno Elementary School. To watch me teach a lesson. I might cry. Especially after the three failed attempts to teach the second graders the game I wanted to play this morning. We had to switch to Fruits Basket. And even then the kids couldn’t remember what colour they were until I taped colour cards to their shirts. I hope they’re going to watch me teach the grade 5’s or 6’s. All of my lessons so far, knock on wood, with them have gone smoothly. I live in fear of it being the grade 1’s or 2’s. As one ALT put it at Orientation, those grades are pretty much retarded.

I have been adopted by several of the grade 1’s. They seem intent on leading me around the school and playground. Which is a nice change from the normal lunch recess activity of “Chase Lauren up and down the halls and then attack her”. That one I don’t mind so much. It’s the packs of little girls that corner you and then either grope you, yes that has happened to me, or keep doing something you tell them not to, trying to lift up my shirt in my case.

Now that’s not to say the kids are bad or anything. Far from it. I love them. They’re adorable most of the time. I just occasionally want to murder them. I think that’s just kids in general though. And they seem to like me. If they way they lie in wait for me or try and coax me out of the staff room is any indication. The staff room is the only place they won’t follow me so it’s where I hide when I’m tired. If I manage to escape that is.

Oh I had my first fail of a class. It was my English conversation class and in hindsight I should have realized it was a bad idea. See I decided, because it’s an elective class and I have a blank slate for it, to let the students pick what they want to learn. So that’s what we did the first class. The problem was it was probably boring for them, a whole lot of English as I tried to explain what everything was, and I talk too fast when I get excited.

But now that that’s done, I know what I’m doing with them until November. Which is nice. And I don’t care that my Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog unit only got 1 vote. We’re doing it anyways because I want to do it. And I think they’ll like it.

So that’s about all that’s been going on with me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear small children attempting English outside.