June 1st
Back at base school!
I meant to update more while in visiting school but for some strange reason Tumblr wouldn’t let me log in on visiting school’s ancient computer. Visiting school’s ancient computer is also a bitch because it refuses to let me make any changes to it whatsoever. No Javascript updates, no installing of cute fonts, nothing. D<
So if there’s one thing I’m grateful for, it’s base school’s really slow but change un-resistant computer.
May has been the fastest month ever. It feels like I never left base school because I’ve been joining band practice on the sly but coming into the staffroom felt a little strange. My vice-principal is as awesome as ever (omiyage from Ozu!) but getting used to a staffroom without my now favourite principal at visiting school is going to take at least a week.
I met some of my band kids while walking back from first period class and they were like ‘ARE YOU COMING FOR PRACTICE!?’
Yes, I am.
April 26
I have a free period because timetables are being randomly weird again due to a bunch of activities like disaster evacuation drills. So my JTE and I walked up to class and found the class lining up outside, ready to move to the arts and crafts room.
Since term started, I haven’t been to any other grade except the first. They’re still quite adorable and relatively genki because they’re fresh from elementary school. Once club activities start, I’m expecting to see a drop in their energy levels. There is a first year boy whose brother used to greet me when he saw me cycle past in the morning on my way to my visiting junior high/ES near the airport. He’s graduated now but on Tuesday, when I went to my ES, I spotted his kid brother (who is the spitting image of him) walking to school and it warmed the cockles of my heart to hear his brother yell out a greeting at me too. Unfortunately, they’re both not very good students. The younger of the two is still noisy but the older one just couldn’t be bothered in class. :x
It was my first time at ES since graduation ceremony mid-March and I’ve got a new principal, a new head JTE and A BRAND NEW ENGLISH CLASSROOM! I’ve been officially told that I can head off early on the days I don’t have English club too! My head JTE seems really nice too. The new fifth graders aren’t as cute as the last batch but I guess I’ll warm up to them soon.
URGH. As I was leaving school on Tuesday, I ran into two of them who were like ‘Come!! Look at this!!’ and I spotted a black and red striped caterpillar crawling around on one of their shirts. It was terrifying. I had to remain calm and pretend that I wasn’t on the verge of running away and screaming. Somehow, I managed to maintain my composure enough to take a close look at it and say ‘Ooooh. Are you sure it isn’t poisonous…?’. I then backed away really slowly and bolted for my bike. Haha. Close shave. I was so afraid they were going to throw it at me or something!!!!!
Little boys. Sigh.
My third year students are back from their school trip to Kyoto. They’re a good bunch so it’s a bit sad I haven’t been to their classes yet. I’ll be leaving for my visiting school next week so I’ll only get to see them in June. I like chatting with the girls who are really friendly for the most part. I also miss my english elective classes which have been cut this year. :(
It’s almost the weekend…and this week has gone by really slowly. Maybe because next week’s Golden Week and everyone’s waiting impatiently for it!
whitepaperquotesApril 23rd
My teeth/jaws are hurting from the exceptionally rubbery calamari rings we had today for school lunch.
We got a new temporary cleaning crew in the staffroom today and a boy swept out a fallen calamari ring from under someone’s desk. And I hilariously found a piece of kokutou-pan that we’d eaten last week under another teacher’s.
Kung-fu Panda kid on kyushoku duty got chided for trying to strike up a conversation with me while blatantly adjusting his belt. I was dumping a load of ika-rings into the waste bin and trying not to laugh.
The first years are having their block matches now. I’m off!
fairycastleApril 12th
It’s been a while since my last update and since I’m officially sick of making powerpoint flashcards (this time I’m about to puke from individually searching up japanese meanings to english vocabulary), here I am.
I’ve attended 2 more work enkais where I said goodbye to a bunch of teachers in one and welcomed a bunch of new ones in the other. I think I’ve started to get the hang of how things work during these events. I spend a lot more time talking to people now and pouring drinks. Of course I make it back to my table in time to eat the delicious food (I am NOT missing out on 京料理 D:) and I was happily seated next to the resident gourmand teacher during my last enkai so we did nothing but scarf extra portions of food during the times we weren’t engaged in conversation with other people.
I was definitely sad to see some of the teachers I liked go (I was very touched because my JTE left a pretty towel for me before she left that I discovered when I came back from my spring vacation) but my new teachers seem nice. Most of them anyway. I have one new JTE and I’ve heard good things about her so I’m looking forward to going to my new third-year classes with her!
At my school’s farewell enkai I got taught new Japanese words by the nice teacher who’s leaving because I had thanked him for always randomly teaching me words during kyushoku preparation. He helped me figure out how to eat the Taimeshi which came in a strange pot. I also talked to the 国語 teacher for 20 minutes about Singapore and weirdly enough, Valentine’s Day. It was a bit of a pity that I didn’t manage to talk to my kyoto-sensei and kocho-sensei because they were surrounded by teachers. :x
On the bright side, my new kyoto-sensei really is something. My previous one was rather low-key but this one has such a personality. In the first place, a female kyoto-sensei is really rare in Japan (unlike in Singapore where almost all the principals and vice-principals are female and the female teacher to male teacher ratio is like 5:1 or something) so things are going to be interesting. In 2 weeks, I’ve already spoken to her more times than I did with my previous kyoto-sensei who went off to become a principal at an island school. She makes me feel like I’ve known her for a long time. PLUS SHE IS ALSO A MUSIC TEACHER! Speak of the devil, she just came and deposited a cake on my desk!
Recently, I’ve been made to feel like it’s going to be difficult for me to leave the school this year. Yes, if given a choice, I wish to stay at my base school next year. The thought of starting all over again seems daunting to me but what’s made me change my mind is my teachers telling me that they’d all like me to stay. I was surprised and slightly to relieved to hear that because it means that I’ve been doing good! Sometimes I feel like I’m in one of those drowning person scenarios where they’re trying to swim to the surface but don’t know which way is up or down. So finding out for sure that they aren’t waiting to kick me out makes things so much better. :D
Also, my school groups change in August and as much as I adore my elementary school, I feel as if I’m ready to let them go. My visiting school has also seen changes because the dreadfully boring kyoto-sensei is off to plague another school with his OHP English Lessons. So honestly, if I’d been placed in the same grouping next year, I’d have been ready to work with that. But my schools have gone splitsville so that’s not possible anymore… Well. We have another interview with the BOE in May and June so everything is still up in the air!
If I do have to switch schools, I am going to tell the BOE that 1) I would really like to be sent to the school with the koto club. 2)I would like to be sent to a group with a lot of elementary schools. 3)Most importantly, NO SCHOOLS THAT HAVE ALREADY HAD A SINGAPOREAN ALT! D< The kids need to meet foreigners from new countries! If they choose to transfer me out of my base school because of this reason they had better not transfer me to a school previously occupied by a Singaporean either!!!
…
I went to watch 2 concerts in March and they could not be any more different.
The first was a joint concert between my school band and Helena’s. I’d been sneaking around my school band’s combined practice room, trying to listen to them when the music teacher spotted me and was like ‘STOP HIDINGGGG.’ So I ashamedly walked out and asked them about the concert flyer I’d seen tacked to the shokuinshitsu wall. He then proceeded to boss a student in charge of publicity into getting a flyer for me and then the entire band into saying ‘PLEASE COME!’
And of course I did. Dragging with me other ALTs because I figured my kids would enjoy the extra attention. They’d also lit up with visible excitement when I asked if I could invite my friends. So we made the 20 minute cycle out to my school on a Saturday. Before the concert, Helena was joking with me about how her school band was going to outshine mine but quite frankly, it was the opposite. :x I didn’t really think there was going to be much of a difference between the two but Helena’s school band’s performance was just like them…stoic and dispassionate. Apparently her school has a reputation for having really indifferent kids but I wasn’t expecting that to carry over to their brass band as well. My kids made me really proud though!! They greeted us cheerfully. In English! (so pleased with them!!) And their performance was nothing short of fun! They were lively and I felt like they were really enjoying themselves. Which was great.
The second concert happened quite by accident because Xiaotong had free tickets to the Matsuyama Symphonic Band concert at the 市民会館 and couldn’t make it so she handed them to me. Funnily enough, they fell on the same weekend so I managed to soak up a lot of live music that week. The performance setlist was pretty boring, unfortunately. Vicky, Catherine and I made a break for it during the second interval!
Speaking of concerts, I didn’t manage to get my Ayaka tickets. T.T I was there at Lawson at 10 on the dot but this guy in front of me took his time and by the time I got to the machine at 10.03, they were all sold out! No! Well, there’s always next time, I guess.
I’m going to write about my spring vacation because it was such a crazy one but it’ll be a long one so that will have to wait. Kyushoku preparations should be starting anytime soon and I’ve heard from Jia that they’ll use my desk for it now since they moved me to where Jia and Nicky used to sit. The staffroom has expanded to include 5 more people and I’ve been shifted to the middle of the staffroom where I’m all by myself. It’s definitely a downgrade (not like there’s much of a choice because there’s simply no room) and people keep coming up to me saying how sorry they are that I have to be here or how lonely my new place is. I am quite bemused by this.
I don’t mind that much for now since I’m familiar with a lot of the teachers already but I feel sorry for Jia Ern and Nicky because they were put here when they first came. It must have been awful. Jia Ern said that she always felt isolated and I can see why. I’m already more or less settled in and comfortable with the people here so I can deal with it.
Leaving the long story of my 春休み until later. Powerpoints and Kyushoku beckons!
