It's been over two months now which is a substantial proportion of the one year contract, I am still very much a fish out of water, it will clearly take more than a year to achieve any kind of assimilation into the community. Here's a very fragmented collection of thoughts.
I have to be aware that my natural instinct is to withdraw into a private little bubble. It's too easy to do that here as communication is so much harder. It was always a big effort for me to avoid that at home, this is of course far worse.
Two days ago I cut my hair, that is I used my utility scissors to give myself a trim, no one has laughed or said anything so I think I got away with it.
Both schools are impressed with the photos I took for sports day, they've been used on the front pages of both school newsletters. That's nice.
Tomorrow is an ALT day at Higashi Junior High School, so I will spend the morning there with several other ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers). I just have to find out where the school is so i can get there on time.
Saturday was my first Japanese language class. We mostly did numbers and prices, it was very helpful and a few things make a lot more sense to me now. I'm looking forward to next Saturdays class.
It's Halloween soon, so I'm working on some Halloween related activities for the elementary kids. I spent yesterday creating a template for a Halloween basket to make out of construction paper, hopefully the elementary school supervisor will go for it.
It's a bit frustrating that at the elemenary school I'm referred to as a sensei, but at Junior High I'm not, I guess it reflects the lack of responsibility. Although I have been doing the reading and conversation tests and grading the students myself. I need to find a way to get more actively involved.
I booked a flight home for a holiday in January. It's weel in advance but seats are limited and tickets are expensive. I got a pretty fair deal with Qantas, it's cheap for the time of year, but still not rock bottom prices by any means. I leave Japan on December 31 and return on Jan 12. I'll miss the first few days of school here but I don't think it will be a problem (see previous comment about lack of responsibility).
The Tokyo International Film Festival is on later in October, I'm looking forward to getting down to Tokyo for a few days to see some films. It runs over a couple of weeks so I can get 2 weekends in.
Can't think of anything else just at the moment, maybe something will come to me later...
