Days Go By

So I thought for my next blog I will do a 'Day in the life of' and detail what I would do in an average day to give you more of an insight to the goings on in my world. I'll use mostly experiences from my time at Bato JHS but I'll mix in some experiences from Ogawa JHS to make things more interesting. AS IF I NEED HELP RIGHT?!

Morning;
I wake up about 6:30am to an already bright room. It would appear that the paper screen doors really capture that light and do a bang-up job at making sure I'm always tired. The phone that I brought from Australia wakes me up with its irritating alarm and after serving it's only purpose in this country it continues searching for a network that it will never find. I turn on my computer so I have music to listen to in the shower and I have some sort of western style breakfast - I haven't got the hang of making miso soup yet (read: Haven't or don't want to even try). Japanese people believe that breakfast is very important so while they have some hearty, ricey meal, I eat cereal or toast or something like that.
I leave for work at around 7:15am and with the help of my fm transmitter I chuck on my mp3 player and I sing along to various songs depending on my mood. Sometimes I pretend it's karaoke but none of the songs I listen to are ever on the playlist in karaoke so it's more just for fun. It's about a 40 minute journey to Bato (30 minutes for Ogawa) and there is always at least one rice field in sight at all times. At the moment the rice fields are all flooded so they look like miniature lakes with more recently some showing sprouts growing in almost perfect parallel lines. There are giant colourful koi fish flags flowing in the wind and all the children are on their way so it's quite a nice drive!

Beginning of School;
Morning greetings to the staff and Kouchou-sensei (the principle) is a jumble of 'Ohayou Gozaimasu' from me, to me, from me again, to other teachers, from them, from me, and so on. Usually when I arrive at my desk there is some green tea waiting for me so I drink this while I look over my schedule to check out what classes I have today and what I need to prepare for the classes. Generally it's not much so I sit back and relax / be bored until it's time for my lesson.
On average per day I have about 4 lessons (out of a possible 6) and it's generally a mixed bag of the 3 year levels but I am always evenly spread out across all classes during my time at each school. Bato-chu has 350 students and Ogawa-chu has 199 students so I spend more time at Bato than Ogawa but I still see the students at both schools the same amount - if you get what I mean? Most classes have between 27 - 33 students in them and whilst I am trying to remember their names it's difficult for me to learn Japanese names but I'm working on it!

In Class;
Students in Japan don't move around classrooms for each class like we do, instead they have a homeroom where they stay for all of their lessons and it's the teachers that move around the classes. Students and teachers have a 10 minute break between each class so the students normally stuff around while the teachers go sort themselves out and get their things for the next lesson. I have to enter the classroom through the 'teachers entrance' and not the student entrance or else I'm messing with the whole system. I say good morning/good afternoon and ask how the students are etc. Students don't really like English so I try to make it more fun for them but it depends on their mood and the time of day - classes after lunch can sometimes be like pulling teeth.
In class I say everything that needs to be said in English, run activities and generally act as one part of a comedy duo with the Japanese Teacher. Classes are all generally well put together and when the teacher is explaining grammar or something in Japanese I just walk up and down the rows and interact with the students so I have a lot of fun in these classes.
There are 4 periods in the morning and then we have lunch where I am normally assigned a homeroom to eat lunch with the students. No one really talks while eating lunch and there's pop music playing over the p.a system anyway so it's not that awkward. I try to ask their names but I can't get much more out of them than that. At Ogawa-chu lunch is held in a giant hall with allllll of the students and there's more talking in there so its generally a bit more fun. After lunch I retire to the teachers room to hang out and wait for the next class.

After Class;
After Classes are finished it's time for cleaning so I head to the homeroom that I had lunch in that day and help out with cleaning. I move some tables, do some sweeping and sometimes I help with the waxing of the floor. Some students like to test out new English sentences or say some wierd English that they've heard somewhere in a game, or on tv and so on, which I try to encourage as it's my job and everything. After cleaning if I don't have any marking or anything I change into my P.E clothes and head outside to do some running / whatever sport catches my fancy. I can play most of the sports but baseall because I suuuuuck at throwing! Baseball players are the unofficial cool people of the school so it would be best to avoid embarrassment in front of them I think... Maybe one day in the future they'll rope me in but until then I'll stick to runnning.
The reason I run is because I'm working so much that I can't find much time to exercise and it sure beats trying to stay away at my desk for an hour and a half. At 5pm I'm allowed to go home but these days I normally hang around longer until I feel like going home. I think the teachers appreciate that - but the only exception is Fridays where I need to speed home to teach a private class for the company I work for. I only get paid about $20 but all I have to do is teach two kindergarten children (Shun-kun and Koto-chan) who have never been taught English before. Usually it's something like presenting a colour card and have them dash around the room to touch something of that colour and then getting them to yell it out so it's not that difficult.

Home;
Once I'm in my place I decide on what I want for dinner. Depending on how much free time I've had at school I might have my dinner planned down to exact details but if I ever need anything it's a very quick stroll to the nearest super centre. I say super centre because this place is enormous and has so much more than just groceries and while it's all pretty low quality it's SO cheap! I check my emails and then go to sleep around 11pm to wake up early the next day!

So it's not much but it's my life at the moment and I'm really enjoying it!! The students are awesome, the classes are fun and everything in between is enjoyable also. The one big drag is the waiting between classes if I have a period off with nothing to do so that can get very boring but otherwise everything is going very smoothly! I realise this blog has been a little boring and long so I'll make the effort to make the next one easier to read but I know some people weren't really sure what I was doing over here. Now you know!