First day of class!

Well, first of all, thanks to my friends who commented. Love you guys, makes me feel closer to you all even though I'm so far away. Except Steve and Aaron, I've never liked them.

I can't believe I have time to type again. Or mabye this is just a lot more fun than other things I could be doing.

Well, first day of classes was today. Teaching here is so different than what I thought it would be like. After the orientation where I was told that everyone would be shy of me and super respectful, neither has been completely the case. So far I've taught in the Junior High School, the ni-nen-sei. In Junior High 7th 8th and 9th grades are called 1st, second, and third grades repectively, since Junior High is it's own school in and of itself. I taught 2nd grade, or ni-nen-sai (ni = 2, nen =year, sei = student), and there was a "slow" class and a "fast" class. Actually, I think it would be better to say it was an undisciplined class and a disciplined class, or maybe a attentive class and an inattentive class. It was definitely a huge difference between the classes, but I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. I had a self-introduction class. I basically had lots of pictures of me, my family, boston, my friends, Kung Fu, all that good stuff, and spoke about me. I think most of the English went over there heads. But it's hard to prepare for a class when you haven't taught the students yet, and not just that, but when you haven't even taught a class yet! One thing I knew I should have done but didn't was bring more "realia." Realia is any real object that I may have. I wanted to pass stuff around so the kids actually have something. Some of them definitely looked bored out of their minds while I was giving my "speech." Oh well, next time.

After my two classes, which really isn't anything, I had lunch. The really good part about Japanese schools is that they instill a real sense of responsibility. All the kids help serve each other in a real ordered formation. The senseis all sit with a grade and class, and rotate throughout the year. There's cleaning time at the end of the day, where all the kids must clean the school. They basically have to take care of things, while in America that stuff is left to the janitor. Maybe that's why when I went to college in America the dorm kids would crap in the toilets and not flush. Some of them would even throw unwrapped TP in the toilets, all my (guy) friends from College Park know what I am talking about. I still can't get over how retarded you have to be to do something like that.

But the kids, and Agematsu-machi in general, like I said in the previous post, is a lot more relaxed than perhaps other places. The cultural formalities are still there, but people are just very laid back. And kids are kids.

Sorry to all my readers, my blog might be a lot about teaching, not necessarily cool stories of canyoning in the Japanese Alps. Oh well, I'm sure there will be some of those stories too.

After lunch, I saw two kids in the hallway that I see all the time. They are phillipino, so I believe they've been exposed to lots of English, and there English is good. They asked me if I wanted to go to the gym, my mind was like thank God, I really spend too much time in the teachers room, and we ran ball. I taught them 21. Refreshing.

I really think I am going to like teaching. And this might turn out to be my career choice. I feel like I've made a difference, and I get to interact with kids. It can be fun too. We'll see, but I might end up doing this when I get back to America.

It's raining outside. I brought my umbrella yesterday and it didn't rain, I didn't bring my umbrella today and it's raining. Maan...