It's been a long week.
The fact that I'm writing this on a Saturday, and not a Friday, should tell you something. But let's get back to the beginning.
It all started on Monday, with great news actually. I get on the computer and see that the Panthers defeated the heavily-favored Chargers with a last minute touchdown by my man Jake Delhomme. It's a good start. But then Mr. Goto, the English teacher, is sick for the day, so we can't advance in the textbook, so I have to fill in and try to get the kids to do self-study (various notebooks and workbooks that they have to complete). Well, obviously some of the kids can't sit still for that long or just hate studying English, so they start goofing around, harrasing the other students, etc.
After two class periods of that, it was feeling like a pretty long day, and in fact, I was thinking of "tomorrow" as Wednesday even though it was still just good ol' Monday. But it wasn't over yet, helping one of my students prepare for the English speech contest, and practicing the same speech over, and over, and over. On the plus side, she is really improving, so that is a bright spot.
On Tuesday, I had my conversation class, again with the 3nen seis, but the problem is they just won't conversate- it's very depressing trying to get these kids to talk, in an elective class where the whole point is to practice talking. But hey, I did get them into new assigned seats, and that seemed to help out a little bit. More speech practice in the afternoon.
Wednesday, it was time to practice for the Sports Day festival, so we did a run-through of almost all of the ceremonies and events, complete with lots of setting up and cleaning up, all in the nice hot outdoors.
Thursday, I was so tired that I could have slept the entire morning. And without any English classes, that's almost what I did. Trying to study Japanese, I would fall asleep at my desk. Now that happens quite often, but it seemed to be really bad that day. I was really incapable of doing anything. Fortunately, after lunch I got some of my wind back for more Sports Day preparation.
Friday, Mr. Goto was back at Ono, and the kids must have been in some kind of rotten mood, because they decided to be total jerks. Not listening, not paying attention, being disrespectful, etc. For everyone who might have told you that Japanese school kids are well behaved (including me possilby), don't believe it. More speech practice in the afternoon.
Well, the week's not over yet- Sports Day is all day Saturday. So, got to school bright and early, and was assigned the job of photographer. No big deal, so spent all day running around, trying to get the best shot. I also participated in one of the events, running a three-legged race with one of the students, as well as one of the little dances that the students did. It was all good fun, but enough to get you plenty tired, especially considering after all that you've got to clean up, take down all of the tents, etc. And this being Japan, there was a nomikai dinner afterwards, with plenty of drinking and socializing and whatnot, fortunately I managed to get out of there after too long, although some miscommunication meant that is cost me a $35 taxi ride back home (no, I didn't expect it to be that much).
So that was my really long week. Hope that you enjoyed it. Good news is, Monday is a holiday here. I will be looking forward to sleeping in.