July 15th Training, day one. I went with Virginia, who is from the Phillipines and is a wonderful woman. She was excited to finally have another female teacher! I observed rhythmic II classes, where I met Chikako, the Japanese assistant. The little kids are adorable, especially a cutie named Ayana, whob I actually got to talk to me a little. Next, grade school kids, and then the junior high boys, who were very smart and extremely wild. Later we had high school students. All in all it was a pretty good day. Afterwards, I went for dinner and drinks with Barry and Matthew.
July 16th Today I observed Tom. Tom had fun classes, but his grade school kids were wild. he also had a rhythmic I class, which is two and three year olds. The two year old was not in the mood. Afterwards, Rhythmic II. One of the boys, Takaaki, talked to me for awhile. He was about four and extremely silly, but he was a lot of fun to watch. Tom and his wife, Ayako, came to see me in the evening and taught me to use my washing machine, which is extremely temperamental, and gave me a handy map of Komaki. I can find food now! Yay!!
July 17th Today I went shopping. i found the department and grocery stores. Yay! Later I went with Matthew. He's a nice guy. His classes were mostly children. One group of six and seven year olds were crazy. One of the kids has a total penis fixation; I heard the word in Japanese about five times that hour. ("chin-chin", in little kid talk) They mostly ran around and shrieked. Matthew said it was a good day for them. Mrs. Katsuda is working on my web connection, so I should have it soon.
Sentence of the day: "Ryosuke! Do not put that down your pants!"
July 18th Today I went with Barry, and taught my first class. I taught a group of nine year olds. They were sweet, very quiet. I was nervous, but it went okay. Barry said he thought that the kids responded well to me and I would make a good teacher; it just takes time and practice.
July 19th I stayed at the Komaki school with Tom. He's a nice guy. One of his high school classes has a group of girls who love to tease him. They know how to say "Tom is cute" and they say it a lot. Their first question was if I had a boyfriend...you can tell what they're interested in. The boys were very shy, so the girls chattered the whole time. I hope my classes are like that; they're a lot of fun.
July 20th I spent a quiet day napping and trying to figure out the bus schedule. Then, I went to Nagoya at about 5. Luckily, Barry was taking the same bus and taught me how to use it. I met Seiichiro at 6 at Nagoya station, as well as Kumiko and Takuya, who are incredibly sweet people. Unfortunately Naoki couldn't come. After much wandering, we went to a little izakaya type place for dinner. We had tons of good stuff--sashimi, tenpura, spicy chicken wings, daikon salad, a hotpot of chicken and rice, and so on. Takuya insisted on ice cream for dessert. I really wanted to take the waiter home...but I thought, given the current company, saying so would be crass, so I was my usual reserved self. During dinner, Seiichiro called Masayoshi so I could talk to him. We talked a little, but got stuck after awhile. He speaks fast and with a dialect, and my Japanese isn't all that great. I had a really nice evening. Hopefully next time I'll be able to meet Naoki, and see Masayoshi again. When they took me home, they gave me a present; a box of many kinds of jelly. Apple, peach, strawberry, grape, orange and what what appears to be cantaloupe. It was really sweet of them, since jelly is very expensive here!
July 21st A quiet day doing laundry...which takes forever...and went to the web cafe.
