September 29, 2009

The weekend was fun, what with Gifu and the punk show and karaoke at Korona World with the other teachers, including Kyle, who just left/got married. I went to visit his new apartment with Jacob on Sunday, and it was so big and nice! The kitchen especially. We drank beer and watched a movie with Jenna Jameson about zombie strippers. In fact, it was called Zombie Strippers. High quality entertainment. We also went to the Hard Off and looked at used keyboards and record players and all sorts of other fun stuff. And I got gyoza and a fried pork sandwich for like three bucks total.

Yesterday was a little less exciting. Went to a curry place for lunch with John. Watched Jacob in his classes, where I learned that giving people set clocks on a piece of paper with times like noon, one, two, etc. is not very helpful when you’re asking them what time they got up, and they look to find it on the page. Time seems like a difficult subject to cover. And one girl was so rude, she wouldn’t give back her book to have the homework corrected and Jacob essentially had to rip it out of her hands. Not looking forward to dealing with that at all.

His S2 class went well though, with lots of fun games (though stickyball stunk—the kids can’t get the ball to stick to the flashcard). Acting like a bear and playing freeze tag was successful, and the kids were smart, got their bookwork pretty easily. S6 was a disaster, though having the kids work in teams to write stuff about the guy on the flashcard went alright. They cheat, but at least they do it. S4 was a crapshoot—always seeming to get out of control, and his game where the kids have to hide in certain “locations” (on the mountain, near the river, etc.) was kind of a bust, if only because they just run around and he’s the only one who says/learns anything.

I also went shopping last night for essentially the first time with Jacob (the guy’s a real life saver!) Picked up some cheap gyoza, some glass noodles and bean sprouts, and a little package of premade pancakes which—though they don’t cook particularly awesomely in the frying pan—are delicious. Now I’ve got to prepare my three games for today’s training, and then it’s off to Furokita and Hashima. Long day ahead! At least I got to study some and even exercise last night. Overall, I’d call it possibly my most successful 24 hours yet.