LAST CLASS

最後クラス

ONE LAST CLASS PICTURE

GRADUATION DAY 卒業式

one last song 最後歌

GOODBYE

さよなら

COLLAGE

A farewell collage I made for Kobu Jr High School. Worked their for the past 6 months in Nishinomiya. Went to all their events ranging from sports day, super sports day, karuta, speech contest, teacher softball game, music concert, etc. Printed out about 200 photos, cut and used about 100, took about 2 days, and slapped them in a frame until 4am in the morning. But it was fun! Gave it to the school president Nishiuchi as a graduation present, I would say she was pretty happy.

IN THE HOT SEAT

Yeah thats my chair and my ass burning up everyday. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes its a bit toasty. Was so glad it was natural gas this year, much cleaner than the ghetto oil gas that stinks. Well everything was peachie until this morning. When in the morning meeting the VP was talking something about the heater, then held up a brochure, then pointed at the one I was sitting by. Found out that there is some sort of problem with them, not sure what, but they gotta be fixed. Great, dumb heater ...

CRAZY?

Crazy is probably what all my teachers and thought of me today at school. Why? Because I was wearing a short sleeve t-shirt (mind you, 3 layers). I was fine, and the sun was shinning, it was a nice 54 degrees as a high, kinda felt like a Seattle spring. But teachers and kids were still in winter mode. Whispers went around, "hansode? 半そで? short sleeves?", "are you hot? atsui desuka? 暑いですか?", "oh, it must be because he is young, wakai kara, 若いから". Mmm .. this is the land where all elementary kids go to school in shorts, even when its snowing, and girls wear skirts year round. It was fun, maybe I will wear short sleeves again this week. 　

THE ARTISTS

The other day, Megumi "aka Yankee Judo" and Madoka intercepted me and said by the orders of Kubo sensei that they had to draw me. Of course I agreed, Kubo sensei said it was for class but she wouldn't elaborate more. Anyways it was fun to hang out with M and M, funny girls. Madoka likes to draw and body slam people in judo, how cool is that.

ME?

This is the finished product. Does it look like me? I think this is the first time to be drawn, kinda shy about it, so I made sure to make the kids more nervous than me by peppering them with tons of English questions during the session, haha.

I CAN

This week the 1st grade students were learning "I can". They made some sentences, some are regular and some are interesting.

"I can play tennis"
"I can speak Japanese"
"I can cook"

But my favorites were ..

"I can conquer the world."
"I can moonwalk." ... but damn the kid didn't do it in class, I wanted to see ..

WHAT'S YOUR DREAM?

This was the question for my 2nd grade kids. So they put together their speeches and read them aloud in class from memory (which I can't even do and I speak English, so mad props to the kids) each speech was about 5 to 10 sentences. Many good ones, and some dreams included, being a pilot, teacher, robot engineer, doctor, baker, flight attendant, translator, sushi master, chef, salary man (business man), professional soccer or baseball player, news reporter, vet, etc. After their speech I got to ask 3 questions. But one of the most interesting answers was ...

markane: So you want to be a preschool teacher?
student: Yes
markane: Do you like children?
student: No, I don't.
class: eeeehhhhh ?????
markane: Oh, wow! One more time, do you like children?
student: No, I don't.
teacher: (in Japanese) Do you like children? 子供が好きですか?
student: No, I don't.
teacher: (in Japanese) Really? ホンマ?
student: Yes

HANSHIN EARTHQUAKE

January 17th, 1995 marks the date of the Hanshin Earthquake. The earthquake centered around the Hanshin area of Kobe and Nishinomiya (the place I live in now). About 6,300 people died in the quake. The other day in the school gym we had a assembly remembering the earthquake, as well as a moment of silence for those who died. Most of the homes in the area I live in are pretty new, as I am pretty sure all the old homes were taken down after the earthquake. Sometimes hearing about the earthquake puts things into perspective how dangerous earthquakes can be, anywhere you live in the world. Here is a picture of Kobe's "illuminare" event taken around Xmas time remembering the earthquake.

GRAB A BROOM

And then you can earn some respect in Japan. How? Well at school there is cleaning time, and I was kinda free for a long time with no task, so I decided to clean the teachers' room since no one was cleaning it, and it was kinda getting nasty. Then instantly I had a couple teachers saying thank you, and even another helping me out. Just thought it was kinda fun to do some cleaning. Anyways got tip from one of our ALT teacher meetings from our trainer. And yeah it worked pretty well. In addition got another cool tip to pass around a cool phrase to teach the teacher some English once a week or so, so, some funny phrase like, "It's a piece of cake". Will try it out next week and see what the teachers say.