Thursday

Pay day today! Thank goodness. Got some things that need paying (gas, luggage bill, October’s canyoning event) so I’ll do that all today after school, since today is also ろうきん’s late hours day. Woke up at 7:00am, pasta for breakfast, then headed to school. I should mention that I get to school just before 8:00am everyday, but 1st period doesn't start till 8:50, so usually in that spare 50 minutes I prep for lessons etc. Today was more relaxed with 4 classes in total.

First up was 5th grade. They were very well behaved today! Yesterday they were a little noisy during the game, so next door’s 6th grade teacher had to come over and close our door. So today the JTE reminded them about this, and they listened extremely well and kept pretty quiet during the game – really well done! I think the kids here have a really great sense of conscientiousness, they know when they did wrong and will want to do right. Today’s lesson was focusing on writing the alphabet letters. A lot of them can already write very neatly, so I had a hard time choosing who to reward stickers to since they were all so good! They also loved the flashlight quiz game, and were also very good at this, so we had to use the small sized flashlight instead. This only made it a little harder though, as they still guessed the letter correct very fast. My 2nd period was free so I went back to the teachers’ room to prep. The librarian gave out some snacks so I ate those since I was super hungry. Even though I had a big bowl of pasta this morning, working at school just seems to burn through everything really fast! During the 20 minute morning break two 2nd graders very adorably came to the teachers’ office to find me to hand in their emoji worksheets! Feels so good to hear “Is Jaime here?” at the teachers’ office haha.

Next period was the other 5th grade class who is one lesson behind the other class, because they had an English on the very first day of school (which was a Friday). It gets a bit confusing sometimes keeping track of who’s on which lesson, but my JTE is super organized with this and gives me a “final” updated timetable each week! Their homeroom teacher told us to growl them a bit at the beginning of the lesson because they were apparently real loud during maths, but she must have told them off enough already because in English class they were pretty alright. Things got real competitive in the Chain Game, since they knew the rules well enough, we didn't have to spend as long explaining, and got to play more! We were stricter today with absolutely NO talking (no whispering the letters to each other, etc.) so quite a few teams got some words wrong (TOFU became TFU, PIG became PIV) but it was a lot of fun overall and great learning.

Next was the other 6th grade class. I think at the moment my favourite classes (or maybe lessons to run?) are actually 5th and 6th grade. The younger grades are fun and all but it feels like they’re not really learning English, but just playing games (maybe except for a few students in grade 2 who actually remember the English?). But in 5th and 6th grade they’re really maintaining the English (even if it’s just little bits, but it’s still consistent) and still having fun, and even though they might not be as cute as the younger grades, they’re still pretty funny and innocent. As their homeroom teachers say – very very 元気! This class did very good in the listening activity – I saw a lot of them write down everything, and not just key words (e.g. they would write “I like pandas” instead of just “panda”). The “recommending a country” prep was fun too, because they were all asking how to say this and that (got some interesting ones – pacman for America, and cheese fondue for Switzerland). I was also really happy with today’s class because the kid who usually messes around did his work properly today. I hope it means he’s starting to enjoy English lesson, and not just a one off thing.

For lunch today it was Mapo Tofu!!! And a silky egg soup? There was also mushroom in today’s soup and one of the kids commented on that to the teacher – how there was mushroom in every lunch this week. The teacher replied that it was probably because it’s autumn! There was some leftover rice again today so the tea-lady wrapped it up for me to take home yay. I swear this 1st grade class I’m eating lunch with is the quietest of the three 1st grade classes. They hardly talked at all during lunch and just focused on eating. There was one really adorable kid at the front who kept singing, and he was actually a real good singer! Such a sweet voice. It was even cuter because he wasn't singing proper words but just mumble jumble in a random melody. During the lunch break I walked around the school with a first grader who was having a bit of trouble with finding all the emojis. The English Board is nearing completion with almost all the puzzles complete. The ones that aren’t are just missing 1 piece each! No one has attempted to spell the words yet, but during cleaning time I talked to some 6th graders who were cleaning that area, and managed to pique their interest.

Last class of the day was the second 4th grade class. This went much better than the first one, as I made their reasons suuuuuuper simple (“I can play” “I can swim” “I like books”, etc.) so this made the lesson flow a lot smoother, a lot of them were able to actually say their reasons, and we could play the originally planned game. I quite like the 4th graders too, because they’re just as enthusiastic as the younger grades (they are really loud and passionate as!) but also able to retain the English like 5th and 6th grades. In 6th period and until I got off work, I updated my budgeting spreadsheet, and also wrote up what I was going to say for the English Broadcast tomorrow – my JTE won’t be here tomorrow so I’ll be doing the broadcast on my own! I made sure I could say all the Japanese parts correctly, and she liked the Maori culture I was introducing too so that was good.

Got off work at 16:45 and headed straight to the bank to sort out all my bills. While I was walking towards the school car park under the gym, two 1st graders SPRINTED their way towards me yelling JAAAAIME SENSEEEEI! Too cute. One girl told the other girl that I was living in NZ. I had to correct her by letting her know that no, actually, I live in Japan right now. What cuties. Another 1st grader with his mum and younger brother said to me “STOP!” too and his little brother (I'd say 2 or 3 years old?) copied him and said “STOP!” too – it was so cute!!!! At the bank I paid my rent, car purchase (installment one), luggage fee (the one I actually didn't need to do from the airport to Takasaki…), and the October canyoning event fee. What I was super surprised at was that each transaction had a handling fee. That really sucked. It wasn't even a cheap fee like ¥100 or ¥200, but it was ¥324 for transactions under ¥50,000, but for my ¥50,000 yen transaction the fee was ¥540…so sad. I was originally going to check out this cute as cake store nearby (it’s really cute! It design is kind of like a treehouse mixed with a palace?) but after finding out that 振込 comes with fees, sucking all my money away…I’ll postpone the cake shop visit till next pay day…

Back at home I did some laundry, and ate the school lunch’s leftover rice with my bulk made cream sauce for dinner – Japanese rice is seriously the best. It’s so chewy and tasty! Also had a Line call with a NZ friend whom I haven’t talked to in a while.