Caramel Apples and 手巻き寿司

This week started off with a care package from home. I got some goodies and everything I needed to make caramel apples! My week was pretty slow because my school has started getting ready for their culture festival in a few weeks, so there were only four classes a day instead of six. I didn't do much during the week, I got dinner with some friend on Wednesday at a Turkish restaurant and Patrick came over on Thursday. Although my week was uneventful, it was a great week.

Things picked up on Friday when I had both a small English party with some students and a girls night in at my place. At school I made caramel apples from the supplies my parents sent. In Japan people don't eat caramel apples, the closest I've seen is りんご飴 (ringo ame, candied apples), which is a hard candy shell around an apple like you find at carnivals. It's usually found during festivals, but I've never seen one with caramel. I made the caramel apples in the home economics room during the day and after school met with the students who had participated in English speech contest. We had a little English party with one of the English teachers at the school. I cut up the apples and let all the students try some. They really enjoyed the caramel apples! We talked a bit in English and listened to English music before heading home.

I ran to the grocery store on the way home to get some sushi grade fish. Because Leah and I had picked up some nice sake in Kobe, we wanted to have a little dinner party and pair it with some sushi! Leah came over a little early to help me prepare and we made a nice plate of fish and vegetables. Megan came over a little later and we had 日本酒 (nihonshu, sake) and 手巻き寿司 (temaki zushi, hand-rolled sushi) for dinner. I've had 手巻き寿司 before and love it, but I'd never been the one to host it before. It was a lot of fun and it was really nice to have a bit of a girls night!

On Saturday I met Leah for lunch before going shopping. We're both working on our Halloween costumes, so we went out looking for costume pieces and craft stuff to make any parts we couldn't find. It was a beautiful day, so we walked from my house to the restaurant for lunch, then across the street to Don Quixote (a variety store), then to Kokura station to check out Aru Aru city, then back to my apartment, stopping in stores along the way. Leah found some good stuff at Don Quixote and Aru Aru city, and although I found stuff at other stores, the ￥100 store turned out to be the store I found most of the stuff I need!

Saturday was also Juha's birthday, so I met him for a night of pub quiz! Our team was Juha, Kyoko, Leah, Megan, and me. Later on more of our friends came to join us. We bought Juha is favorite beer and did our best to answer all the questions. We didn't place, but still had a lot of fun! Afterwards we went for hamburgers and then over to karaoke. Despite it being Saturday night we got a room right away and sang our hearts out until it was time for everyone to catch the last train or bus home. Megan ended up coming home with me to watch some movies before we finally went to sleep.

Sunday was pretty quiet. I made breakfast for Megan and I in the morning and we watched one final movie before she had to go home. I spent the afternoon cleaning and relaxing until I went over to Kikumi's around four thirty. She'd gone to Costco with some friends who were craving tacos. They bought taco meat, soft tortillas, jalapenos, and even real cheese. A bunch of people came over and we all helped prepare everything. It was Kikumi's first time having tacos and she really liked them. It was nice to sit around the table and talk with everyone.

This week I'm hoping with go by quickly because I have a Halloween party on Saturday in Fukuoka! The party is called Night Walker and I went with Patrick and Emily last year. More of my friends will be coming this year and I will have a costume, so I'm really excited! So far I only have one part of my costume done (I made it from the things I found in the ￥100 store). Can you guess who I'll be?

Kobe and So Much More!

My last few posts have been a bit short, but this post will probably be pretty long! This week I've celebrated a birthday, seen an eclipse, been observed during a lesson, performed with a band from Tokyo, and taken a trip to Kobe. It's been quite a week!

Thankfully Monday was an easy day that let me get ready for the week ahead. Tuesday I had a a nice surprise fourth period when the PTA made duck and leek soba for all the teachers. They even made a mochi and red bean dessert that was incredibly delicious! It was a great surprise and a really nice way to interact more with the teachers at Ishimine over some really incredible food. At school I continued to get ready for my observation lesson and change the ALT boards before heading home to start dinner. Tuesday was also Patrick's birthday and he came over to my apartment to celebrate. I splurged on steak and made some green beans and mashed kabocha to go with it. It was a nice, very relaxing night with nice dinner and wine.

Wednesday I left school early for an ALT meeting in Kokura. Even though it meant less preparation time at school, I needed to be in Kokura for band practice that afternoon and leaving Ishimine early was a big help. So, after my ALT meeting I went straight to band practice at Heart Key for a few hours. I love hanging out with everyone and it was a nice break for me before before meeting back up with the ALTs and Kitakyushu Board of Education staff for a welcome party for the new JETs. We went to a nice restaurant on the third floor with a great view. The moon that night was a big, orange harvest moon and during the course of our enkai we could see the eclipse that was happening! It was so cool to have good food and drinks, be surrounded by friends, watching the eclipse. Even after the enkai I walked home with an ALT I haven't had the chance to talk with much. It was great getting to know her more and I hope to hang out with her more during this year!

Thursday I finished putting up the new ALT boards and making sure they were perfect and finalized the plans with my JTE for our observation class the next day. That preparation plus teaching four classes made the day fly by and before I knew it I was out of school and on the bus back to Kokura. I met my friend Caol at Tetsunabe for dinner after getting back to the station to celebrate with him. A year ago, when we were both new JETs, he started having some health problems. The doctors thought he might have cancer and for about two months they ran all sorts of tests on him. I was one of the few people he talked with about it and thankfully his health problem was not nearly as serious as the initially fears. This was the week last year when his results come back negative for cancer and we decided to have dinner to celebrate a year of good health. We stuffed ourselves with gyoza for dinner and went sang two hours of karaoke. It was a great night and I'm glad to still be so close with him even if we see each other less than we did when we first arrived.

Friday was probably one of my busiest days in Japan so far. In the morning, I spent equal time teaching, cleaning, and finalizing the observation class plan. After lunch my JTE and I set up stools in the back of the classroom and desk outside with perfectly printed lesson plans for the observers. twenty minutes before class other elementary school and junior high school English teachers and higher ups from the Kitakyushu Board of Education started arriving. While my JTE finished up the last of the cleaning I showed our visitors the English boards I worked on. Some even took the worksheets from the boards to use in their own schools! By the time the bell rang and class started, a little over twenty people from other schools and the Board of Education were sitting in the back of our classroom. The class went smoothly (although it was a bit difficult with so many people watching us) and I think the students enjoyed the lesson as well. After the class we had a big meeting in the library where the people who observed us commented on the lesson. There were some good suggestions to improve the lesson and lot of helpful feedback! There was also lots of things people liked about the lesson and the overall everyone thought the lesson was good. By the time the meeting was over, school was also ending and I was lucky enough to get a ride back to Kokura from my supervisors.

After getting home I quickly got ready to go back out. I changed and got to Swing21 by 6:00 for a mic check. I met the other two bands and they were incredibly nice! We had a quick dinner before opening the doors for people to come in. Leah came and even got to sit with me in the performers corner. The concert was just amazing. I don't even really know what to say about it. It was a small venue, but there was about 60 people packed into the the little room! Everyone was having a great time and the energy was fantastic. We even got to sing along with the band from Tokyo! You can check out me singing with my friend Kikumi with the band Orange Key on YouTube (I come in for the second song about halfway through). Chris and Becca also came and we had a blast listening to the bands play. We went to Kikumi's bar for an after party and got to talk with the band from Tokyo a lot. It was just so much fun! We made sure not to stay out too late though so we'd have plenty of energy for Saturday.

The next morning I got up and had breakfast with Leah before we took the shinkansen to Kobe! We found our hotel close to Shin-Kobe station and realized we were right next to an herb garden and ropeway. We decided to go there first and I'm so glad we did! It started with a ropeway that took us up Nunobiki mountain. We weren't sure what to expect, but we found out it was Japan's largest herb garden with about 75,000 different herbs and flowers and fourteen different gardens. We spent the entire afternoon there looking at the flowers and the view of Kobe from the top of the mountain. We could even see Osaka! There was an Oktoberfest going on as well, so we had lunch up there. There was even a small museum and an herbal footbath! After hours of walking around the gardens we went back down to our hotel before going to Harborland for dinner. We had a delicious dinner outside in beautiful weather looking out across the Port of Kobe. We ended the night by riding the Ferris wheel near the port and getting a beautiful view of the city before calling it a night.

The next day we found a little cafe to get some breakfast. We walked around before heading to Sannomiya station where we found a great place for lunch and had world-famous Kobe beef. It was the first time I've seen a teppenyaki style restaurant in Japan and it was better than I ever imagined! We had grilled vegetables with the steak and there was garlic, salt, pepper, and wasabi for seasonings. Everything was just so good!

After lunch we walked to the Port of Kobe where we saw an Indian festival and the Kobe Port Tower. We were going to catch a loop bus from there to go sightseeing, but realized we already walked the entire loop that morning! So instead we walked to Kobe station and caught a train a bit farther out to the Hakutsuru sake brewery and museum. It showed how sake has been made since the Edo period. It was a small museum, but was really interesting and the (very small) free samples at the end were great! We got a few different bottles to take home and even tried sake ice cream! It was a bit strange, but very delicious!

By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost dinner time. We took a little down time in our hotel before walking back to Sannomiya station. There were many restaurants and stores in that area and we walked around until we found something that caught our eye. It wasn't fancy, but we had a nice little table and a lot of little dishes of our favorite Japanese foods. We had sashimi, maguro (tuna) and avocado, butter and garlic grilled mushrooms, and more! A typhoon was coming up and although it wouldn't hit until the next day, rain was supposed to start in the evening, so we headed back to our hotel right after dinner. The rain held off for our walk back and we decided to grab a drink at a little bar near our hotel. We sat and talked for an hour or two before going back to our hotel. It was the perfect end to our trip.

The next day our shinkansen ticket back to Kokura wasn't until 2:26 PM, but with the typhoon coming we were worried the shinkansen would get shut down. We caught a train earlier in the morning and found seats in the unreserved section. There were delays between some stations, but we got back to Kokura and got home before the wind or rain got too bad. I stayed inside most of the day, but was invited to Marc and Tanya's for dinner. The weather had calmed down by then, so I went over. Tanya made some delicious food and we talked and played board games until I had to return home. It was the perfect, relaxing end to a very busy (but incredibly fun) week!

I had an AMAZING week! I don't have too many plans from now until Christmas, so I'm excited to see what the next few weeks bring!

Speech Contest

School this week was a bit slow because of mid-terms, but I still had a great week! I had my second 女子会 (jyoshikai) outing with my female co-workers from Shinozaki. We went to a great restaurant close to Kokura station. I'm very close with one of the English teachers, but it was nice to talk to my other co-workers. There are many new teachers in Shinozaki this year that are really nice and it's been great getting to know them a bit better! One teacher is even trying to learn English in her free time by listening to English lessons on her iPod. I invited her and some of the other teacher to my place for dinner sometime when we are all free. Obviously we will speak mostly in Japanese, but we can speak some English for her and other teachers who are interested in practicing English! The teachers taught me some Japanese tongue twisters and we all had fun trying to say them. I taught them one easy one in English, but it was hard to say quickly. We also played with our phones. The teacher I was sitting next to was demonstrating Siri on her new iPhone 6. We would both ask Siri a question, her in Japanese and me in Enlgish, and compare the answers we got. It was a lot of fun! After the 女子会 I went to visit Kikumi before going home. I've been really busy at school and I hadn't gotten a chance to talk with her in while, so it was nice to see her! We sang a bit of karaoke before I had to head home.

For the last month I've been staying after school every day to help my students prepare for the English speech contest. I had seven students participating between my two school. The students worked incredibly hard and the contest was Saturday. All the JET ALTs were judges, but we were split up in a way that makes sure we are not judging our own students. The contest is divided into three categorizes: skit, original speech, and recitation. There are three speeches the students can choose for the recitation section. This year I was judging the original speech section, which was much better than the recitation section I judged last year. It can get very boring listening to the same speech over and over! All the speeches I heard were really interesting and although none of my students were in them, I still had two students in my group who I was close with during English camp this summer. Neither of them won, unfortunately, but both of their speeches were great!

During the closing ceremony of speech contest the winners were announced. None of my students won a prize, but when I saw them after the announcements they were all proud of themselves for participating. I couldn't watch them compete because I was judging in a separate room, but the teachers took videos that I watched later and I think they all did really well. I had cute notebooks and pens that I gave to all my students as a thank you for working so hard with me over the last month.

Since the JETs were all together at speech contest, we decided to meet up again after going home and changing out of our suits. I went out with Patrick, Chris, Leah, Rebecca, and Juha to do the monothon. The monothon is a tradition among the Kitakyushu JETs where you walk the length of the monorail, about five and a half miles. We meet at 企救丘 (Kikugaoka), the station farthest out, and walked under the monorail back to Kokura station. We made a lot of stops at various places, which made the walk take almost three hours. It was a ton of fun even if my legs were sore the next day!

This week I am crazy busy! Tomorrow (10/7) is Patrick's birthday and I will be making dinner. Wednesday is both a rehearsal for my singing gig on Friday and a welcome party for the new JETs with the members of the Kitakyushu Board of Education. Thursday I'm going to karaoke with my friend Caol and Friday is my performance at Swing21! Saturday I leave in the morning with Leah to spend my long weekend in Kobe. Because of the long weekend I will most likely be a day or two late in updating this blog, but it should be a pretty action packed post so stay tuned!

Game Day

I know I said these would get longer, but I'm sorry to say this will be one more short post. However, next week I will be at speech contest and the week after will be my performance and Kobe trip, so these should liven up soon! This week I spent late at school every day helping the student practice for the speech contest on that will happen this Saturday (10/4/14). This week I will be doing the same and I'm so excited for the contest to be over so I don't have to stay late anymore! I will also be judging half of the original speeches, so I'm excited to here what the students from around Kitakyushu came up with!

This week like I said was fairly uneventful. On Friday I went to Swing21, the jazz bar I'll be performing in next week, to run through our set. It was a lot of fun and I got a chance to talk more with everyone. After rehearsal I met up with Patrick, Leah, and the two new JETs Chris and Becca at a Turkish restaurant. Even though I've been here over a year now it was my first time going. The food was delicious! The owner is from Istanbul, but can speak English and Japanese. We talked with him a lot about the different cultures and asked him questions about Turkey. We ended up staying at the restaurant for hours just hanging out after a long week of stay late at school to help the students with their speech contest practice. It was really nice to relax and learn a bit about a new place!

Saturday I mostly stayed in and cleaned. I could have gone out with some friends but I'm trying to save a little extra money for my Kobe trip coming up. Sunday I went into Fukuoka for a board game day! It was also my friend Jake's birthday, so we had a little cake for him and a few of us went out to dinner afterwards to celebrate. I played a whole bunch of new games including one called Rampage where you are a monster and you get to destroy buildings and eat people by dropping you monster token on little buildings and people. It was so much fun! We also played a deception game called Blood Bound where we all knew our own character, but no one else's. We had to figure out the ranks everyone else was, who was on our team, and who was the one neutral person and then try to capture the other teams leader. I ended up being a special character that acts like one team, but is secretly on the other one. I ended up not only interfering with an attack and saving my real teams leader, but I also captured the other teams leader winning the game for my team! It was a complicated game, but a lot of fun! I also tried a new Japanese game that was similar to Uno, but with more effect cards. All the cards ere worth point values and can be discarded or played for effects on the table in front of you. The only catch was that any card played had to match the color or number of the top of the discard pile, like in Uno. At the end of the game you count the number values of all the cards in your hand and on the table in front of you. If you are the first to lose all your cards, you get no points even if there are cards in front of you. The person with the least points after three rounds is the winner. I was in second place both the first two rounds, but ended up winning at the end of the game! It was a lot of fun! I also played some games I've played before like my favorite Betrayal at the House on the Hill and got to introduce some new people to a game called Takenoko. All in all it was a great time!

Sorry again for this being a short one. Next will hopefully be more exciting and even if it's not the week after I'll be able to talk about performing at Swing21 and spending the long weekend in Kobe!

Planning Ahead

Thankfully my tough week is behind me and this last week I've had a great time at Shinozaki! I even went out with one of my teachers to a pub quiz on Saturday. The quiz is in English and the pub is owned by a British husband and wife. Although almost everyone who plays is foreign, there are some Japanese people who come to improve their English. We came in 3rd place with 38 points, the winning team only had 42 points, so we were close! I hope to go back next month and maybe next time we can win!

As this week came and went it's really started to dawn on me that this will be my last year. Patrick and I are both talking about how we will eventually pack up our apartments and what we'll do once we get home. We're also talking about all the places we want to visit before we return home. With that in mind I've made a bunch of plans for the coming year and I couldn't be more excited!

My first trip will be small, over a long weekend in October. I got a shinkansen and hotel deal through a local travel agency and will be heading two hours up to 神戸 (Kobe) with Leah! I'm really excited to explore and try some real Kobe beef! There's also some gardens I want to check out as well as a museum and a sake brewery. I'm excited to spend some time on the boardwalk and generally hang out with Leah in a new setting. That's only three weeks away so look forward to some pictures from Kobe soon!

December and January will also be a busy time. Mike will be visiting me during Christmas and New Years. We don't have any plans for those days yet, but in between we will be visiting 名古屋 (Nagoya). Nagoya is between Osaka and Tokyo, but I don't know too much about it. There are supposed to be great museums, gardens, and shopping there as well as a beautiful castle. We'll catch a shinkansen up on the morning of December 26th and come back to Kokura on the 30th. I'm really excited to explore this new city with Mike! We're also going to catch a train to Nagashima Spa Land and ride the longest roller coaster in the world!

The first full week of January I have plans with Patrick to visit 札幌 (Sapporo). Both Patrick and I are really excited to see the snow again and hopefully go skiing or snowboarding. Sapporo is the largest city in the northern island of Hokkaido. We'll stay in Sapporo, but take the train around Hokkaido to make sure we see a ton of things! This trip we'll make by plane, but with the Japanese travel agencies we could get a deal on the plane and hotel together. My Japanese exchange teacher, Mr. Kanatsu, grew up in Sapporo and his family still lives there. Mr. Kanatsu father worked for many years as an English teacher and might be able to give us a tour of Sapporo, which would be so cool!

Those trips are all booked already, but Patrick, Caol, and I also want to head down to 沖縄 (Okinawa) in February. We are looking into it now, but figure we have a lot of time to book something! I will also be taking a trip at the beginning of April with Mike and my family! We'll meet in Tokyo and travel around. We don't have a set plan yet, but we might go to 高山 (Takayama) and from there visit 白川郷 (Shirakawago).

Next week I promise I'll go back to more exciting entries with pictures, but last week was pretty uneventful. I have the day off tomorrow for a national holiday and I'm not sure what I'll do yet. Tonight my friends are coming over to play board games and I'm really excited! I'm so excited for all these trips, I'm definitely going to make the most of my last year here!

A Tough Week

I know I'm updating a little late, I'm sorry. Between Sports Day on Sunday and my whole week I needed a little time before I could write anything. I had a great time at Sports Day and I loved seeing all the students so happy and it was nice to hang out with the teachers outside of class. I went out with the new JETs to see a movie and we went to the beer garden for it's last night of the season. I had a night off (my Sports Day enkai was canceled), so I spent some time reading at the top of Riverwalk, playing arcade games, and even getting a lucky 50% off coupon while shopping. It should have been a great week, but unfortunately this has been my worst week in Japan so far. I know I usually only post positive things on here as my experience has been overwhelming positive, but I want to take a bit of time today to talk about the not so great sides of living and working in Japan.

My new school is very small, which can be good and bad. Since I teach all the grades in the school, I am able to have a relationship with all of the students because I can see all of them almost every day and it's just easier to keep track of 200 students instead of the 550 at my other school. I know all the students first and last names, their clubs, and their English level. The downside can be that with such a tight-knit school community already in place, it can be hard to find where you fit into that. I've worked really hard to find my place with the JTEs and thought I had found my place in the school. I help with class, make the ALT boards, and really feel like a teacher there. I go to five out of six classes a day, which means only one break period for preparing materials and marking papers, but it's good to always be doing something! I got to chorus club after school and absolutely love working with those students and the teacher is always incredibly friendly. He's been traveling and even knows a little English. It was an uphill struggle when I first got to the school, but I thought I'd finally figured it all out.

I'd found my place among the students, teachers, and even office staff, but apparently I had not found my place with the upper administration. Leading up to Sports Day there were many meetings, all of which I was asked to leave for. The staff meetings are held in the staff room where my desk is. I'd never before been asked to leave any staff meetings at any school I've ever been to. They moved me to a break room in the back. It has a fridge and table and only connects to the staff room, so to get out I would have to cross back into the staff room to get to the hallway. They even left the door open between the two rooms so I could hear everything. I was pretty mad, but figured it was a one-off thing. I asked my teachers about it and they said at that school all the ALTs always left the room before staff meetings. I told them I would like to be included and they said that was fine.

A few days later there was another meetings that I was asked to leave for. My teachers were not in the room at the time, so when I was asked to leave, I said I wanted to stay for the meeting. I was told my Japanese was hard to understand and to move to the back room. I moved, but I was starting to get pretty mad.

Two days later I came to school at my normal time and walked into the staff room to sit at my desk only to find a morning meeting taking place. I went to my desk to put down my bag and the meeting was stopped and I was told to leave the room. I felt insulted and humiliated in front of the other teachers, so I left. I went to the room with all the copiers and colored paper and just didn't know what to do. I was torn between crying and screaming and just leaving and never looking back. Instead I thought about my first period class and how I was now unprepared. I had made an easy version of the game apples to apples to print out and play with the students because they'd been working so hard on sports day practice the teachers wanted to play a game with them that still reviewed their new vocabulary words. Unable to print (the computers and printers are in the staff room), I started cutting up red construction paper and writing the words on them. I kept my mind on the task at hand, making sure I was prepared for first class. I went to five classes that day and although it was so much fun playing games with the students and seeing them laugh at the different combinations of words, I never calmed down. By lunch I thought I would have felt better, but I didn't.

I had talked to both my JTEs (Japanese teachers of English) and both said it was uncomfortable for them, but they were unable to do anything because they were outranked. As frustrating as that answer is to me, I understand it's an important part of Japanese culture and I didn't want to ask them for more help than was appropriate. With that idea in mind I contacted the Kitakyushu Board of Education. I talked to my supervisor and told her what happened and she assured me she'd to everything she could to help, which was very reassuring.

I was pretty dejected and all I wanted to do was go home, but it was my last academic day at that school before English Speech Contest and I'd promised the three students participating I would work with them as I had been doing all week. It was nice to see the students and I think their speeches really progressed over my two weeks with them. Their English teacher also came in to watch them that day and thought they sounded good, as well. After working with the students I had already missed my first bus home and the next one wouldn't come until 6:17, so I went to catch the last hour of chorus club. It cheered me up a little to work with them and they were glad I had come. At the end of club the students and gather with the club teacher downstairs for quick feedback and to say goodbye for the day. The teacher is usually unable to actually go to the club, so normally I only see him at these goodbye meetings. This day was no different, I didn't see him until after the meeting. We usually talk for a few minutes after the meeting about what we'll do over the weekend or how the day was, but I was still so upset about the morning I just wanted to leave. Thankfully he stopped me before I could go and pulled out some note cards. He'd written down what he wanted to say in English and read it back to me. He didn't bring up the morning at all, but told me since the third year students have finished with clubs and now only focused on their high school entrance exams he was glad I was at club every day. He doesn't have to worry about the students because he knows I'm there helping them. He said thank you. I said it was no problem and headed out to my bus. At the bus stop I cried for all the nice things he'd said and for all the anger, hurt, and embarrassment I'd felt from that day.

This was a pretty extreme case, but being excluded is one of the most common complaints I've heard from ALTs around the country. Whether it's from JTEs not bringing you to class or the general atmosphere of 'you don't belong here' in a staff room. Every ALT at some point has felt excluded. As a foreigner living in Japan this will extend out into your daily life as well. My parents remember being in Kyoto at a restaurant and being put on a different floor from everyone else. When I went to a restaurant in Kokura with my friend Caol and his parents we were also sat away from everyone else behind a sliding door. At the time we always laugh about it, but after a year has gone by it gets harder and harder to laugh. Little thing begin to add up and to feel discriminated against by my own school community was very hurtful.

Thankfully I do have a great community here. The chorus teacher and other teachers stood by my side in small ways. My friends let me complain to them and Patrick let me play his video games at his apartment until well past either of our bed times. The Board of Education also came through for me. A phone call was made to the school and although I'm not sure exactly what was said, it helped. The vice principal apologized to me and I attended the next school meeting and made sure to pay very close attention. Despite these discouraging instances, I will continue to do everything I can to make the most of my experience here. I know this is a fairly negative post, but this is just one part of my experience here. Overall I still love Japan and am excited to continue teaching here. This was a tough week, but I did the best I could and I'm excited to move forward.

Dinner Party, Songs, and Sports Day

What a great first week back at school! I've seen all my classes in Ishimine despite the ongoing sports day practices and so many of the students were excited to see me back in school! I only have a few classes a day because sports day is coming up this weekend, so most of the day is devoted to practicing. I've been very busy while the students practiced making two new English boards, summer vacation activities for class, marking papers, and even making stickers! I haven't been able to go back to chorus club yet because after school I've been helping students prepare for the English speech contest in the beginning of October. Today I will be able to help with speech contest and go to chorus; I'm really excited to go back! As much work as I'm doing, I'm very happy to be back at school with the students.

You may remember me talking about English speech contest and sports day before, they were the first things I did at Shinozaki last year. I've now been in Japan over a year and it's very weird doing things for a second time, especially when the two new JETs talk about how confusing everything is. I don't feel like I've changed, but suddenly I'm the one helping the newbies with the same questions I was asking a year ago. I know what will happen at sports day, what I'm expected to do, and how to help the school prepare for it. I also know the speeches for the English speech contest and good ways to get the students to pronounce the words correctly and put the correct intonation into a sentence. I'm giving the advice instead of receiving it. Although I certainly don't know everything, it's nice to be able to help the new JETs, especially since I had great support my first year.

To celebrate the new JETs first week in the schools, I had an お疲れ dinner party. (お疲れ, pronounced otsukare, is a word we don't have in English, but is used very often in Japanese. Literally it means someone who is tired, but is used to complement or thank someone for working hard.) The two new JETs came as well as eight or nine others. Other JETs, friends, and even some of my coworkers came to celebrate. It was a lot of work for me, but was well worth it and incredibly fun. Also, people leaving and coming to a new place and job can be stressful, but I was so happy the new JETs and old JETs were all hanging out together and getting along. I'm also really glad Kikumi could drive me to Costco to get enough food for everyone and Patrick and Gigi (a cat who is taken care of by my neighbors, but often visits my apartment) who both came over early to help me cook and clean. It was great fun and I can't wait to do it again!

I'm also getting very excited for October! Not only will it be Patrick's birthday, Fukuoka Halloween Night Walker, and a visit from Kanatsu, but I will also be singing at a jazz club! My friends band, Orange Key, will be singing at Swing21, a local jazz club. A band, りぶさん (Livsan), is coming down from Tokyo to play and Orange Key will play as well. My friend Kikumi is the singer for Orange Key and is going to sing all English songs, but wanted some help, so I'll be singing with her! I hope my friends can come see it, but because りぶさん is a professional band there will be a cover charge. Hopefully it won't be too much and everyone can still come see us! I'm so excited to sing and see the other bands, especially since as a performer I won't need to pay the cover charge! I met the band yesterday and although it was my first time rehearsing with them, I had a lot of fun!

That's about it for this week. Next week I'll let you know how sports day went! I also have a lot more trips in the works, one of which is already booked, so once everything is finalized I'll be posting about those as well!