9/19/2019

The reason this is always slow to update is because I'm always exhausted when I get home. The only time I really am awake enough to do this is during school when there's nothing for me to be working on. And so here I am again.

On 9/3 there was the Honjo-Yuri English Speech and Recitation contest. It was an all day event, but the highlight of it was definitely the kid from my school winning first place at the speech. I was very proud of both her and the recitation kid from my school, because they both did their best out there. Because the speech kid won, that meant that she was going to the prefectural level competition. Which turned out to be next week. 

The rest of the week was very chill as I began to start getting into a little bit of a rhythm, trying new things occasionally and feeling out how to actually teach and what my responsibilities are here. That Thursday, the 5th, was my first time teaching at a small English class in the community center, where older people try learning English by reading simple newspaper articles and talking about them. It's good practice for them and a good thing for me to do after school. 

That Saturday, I went to a small bar and karaoke place near the Nikaho station with one of the other ALTs. This is when I discovered that I was on the front page of the Nikaho city magazine for this month. I was recognized when I went there as people pulled out the magazine and pointed at me, which was humbling yet still odd in a way. How do you react to that?

The next Monday, the 9th, I had my first D&D session with other ALTs, using 5E as the system. It has been fun so far, and I'm looking forward to where it goes. I'm a player this time, and not DMing, which does decrease the workload quite a bit. 

The next day, Tuesday, was my first time going to the Hirasawa Elementary school, which was interesting too. It runs completely differently than the other elementary school I go to. It was a little weird doing introductions a month after I had arrived.

Wednesday began the first of the after school English classes I am teaching to a group of 8th graders who are going to be going to Oklahoma on exchange. I'm teaching them basic survival phrases and how to communicate with their host families and friends that they will meet while in the US. It's me and another ALT almost every Wednesday for an hour.

Thursday was the Prefectural English Speech and Recitation Competition. This was another all day event, and was an hour drive away from the middle school. This whole week involed me staying after school coaching the speech kid, and focusing on how she presented and putting emotion into her speech. She worked really hard, and ended up getting first place in the prefectural competition as well! This means that she goes straight to Nationals, in Tokyo. I hope I'm able to go to, but my guess is that they're not gonna pay for an ALT to go to Tokyo, considering they already have to pay for the English teacher to go already.

Friday I was the DD for the ALT trip to Socket, a karaoke bar that has all-you-can-drink. 

And so after all of that busy week, I spent Saturday relaxing. Sunday was a festival in Yurihonjo, so I went there to see some of the floats that were around. Monday was a holiday, and so I went with a friend to my first hot spring, which I can't say I'm a huge fan of, and then went to play D&D for 6 hours.

That Tuesday, the 17th, was a Scheduled Lesson, where my English Teacher and I had to team teach to a class while being evaluated by a group of other teachers. It was pretty stressful, and they had a lot of things to say about our class. It was a very formal affair, although because it was all in Japanese I don't really know what kind of impact it has on my job. Obviously I want to do well, but they had a lot of things they wanted us to improve on. It makes me nervous for when I have to do this again next month.

Yesterday after school I watched the auditions for performances that are going to take place during the school festival. There were a lot of dances and some singing too, and all of it made me very impressed on how much time the kids had spent remembering and practicing everything. Japanese middle-schoolers really do have a lot of things to do.

And today isn't anything really special. I've got the community English class, like I do every Thursday, so that's really all I've got.

Writing all of this out makes me realize that I've been busy, so I can hopefully keep putting these posts out. I'm going out to Sendai this Saturday to meet up with people from college, so it'll be yet another adventure. Until next time.