Friday - Staff 飲み会!

Woke up at 7:00am today to a cloudy morning, had rice and corn soup for breakfast, and drove to school since there’s a chance of rain today. One good thing about driving is that I walk past the 1st graders classrooms (since parking is at the back of the school under the gym) so they all run to the entrance to greet me – it’s too cute and a lovely way to start the morning. A very free day today with only 2 classes in period 2 and 5. Spent the rest of the free periods preparing the new English board which is about Halloween since it’s October, and it’s almost like a tradition to do Halloween lessons in October here for English.

Period 2 was with 6-1, and the lesson went along smoothly. This class was a bit quieter than 6-2 for the reading part, but they were faster in understanding the grammar part, as one kid who is pretty smart and good at understanding English was able to explain the grammar to everyone straight away. We finished the sports grammar game pretty quickly, so we were able to do the writing activity that 6-2 didn't get to. A lot of them still had trouble remembering “watch” though, and a lot of them just copied what was on the board instead of writing the sentences themselves. It was pretty funny to watch though – I had written “10 people” on the board as part of the game before (they had to ask 10 people) and some kids were just copying “10 people” onto their paper even though they were supposed to write “I play soccer” “I watch soccer on TV” so that was pretty hilarious to see. Blind copying will always be a thing when learning a foreign language I reckon.

Lunch today was super yummy! Ketchup fried chicken rice, French salad (basically cucumber and some lettuce in a nice dressing – tasted like pickles?) and clam chowder!!! The clam chowder even had mussels in it, like it wasn’t just the instant soup chowders but a legit one. The servings today was also extra big and generous so that was great. For the English lunchtime broadcast today I introduced some NZ snacks/lollies (Afghan cookies, chocolate fish, pineapple lumps, Hokey Pokey ice cream) and the broadcast kids clapped for me at the end haha, cuties. Spent the lunchtime in the office today trying to finish making all the new stuff for the Halloween English board, so that I can hopefully get it all up on Tuesday next week. Cleaning time was very smooth today, the kids were very well behaved and orderly. They lost a bit of focus at the very end but still a great job overall. Gave them the little kiwi stickers in reward. I’m glad the principal didn't say anything about me giving them stickers for cleaning, and also glad that he seems to be pleased with the group I’m in charge of in general. Phew!

Last class of the day was with 5-1 for 5th period. Started out with some technical difficulties because the classroom laptops are slow as a snail, so we skipped the jingle and just went straight into the activities. They again did very well with the warm up game – one funny thing is that they all associate “V” with “victory” and no other words haha. Writing practice was great too as they all wrote fairly neatly. It’s the same as writing essays back home – the letters at the end tend to be messier because you get tired and lose focus. Gave out lots of stickers this lesson because they were all finishing up the sheets so fast, and also partly because I just want to give out a big prize already! There’s one girl who’s only 1 sticker away from a big prize though, so that’s good. Got off work today at 16:15 and drove home. There was a little earthquake around 17:00 that I felt really clearly since I was sitting on the floor at the time!

I headed out again at 18:15 because my school was having a 飲み会 (drinking party) to celebrate a successful 運動会 and also to officially welcome the new teachers – me and my JTE! The place was a little hard to get to because traffic was very packed downtown (rush hour times), so I decided to park on the East Side of Takasaki station (the side I’m more familiar with) and just walk to the place. The music teacher was kindly waiting for me at the entrance downstairs, because the place is really hidden away! There was SO MUCH FOOD – I’m still currently extremely full typing this up at 23:17. It was also all you can drink, so I had a lot of cassis soda (I think it’s my favourite non-alcoholic drink!), mocktails (Shirley Temple and Cinderella) and more cassis soda. The food was really delicious but there was one dish (we called it the mushroom gratin since we all weren’t sure what it really was) that was super rich and filling, so after that I just couldn't eat any more. It was a lovely night – great to see all the teachers in a social environment! A lot of them still talked about the students though, but it’s great to have everyone in one room doing so – at school everyone is never in the staffroom all at once, so this was nice. It was also pretty funny seeing the principal just drink and drink and drink, but to be really honest this principal is the coolest principal ever – he’s very relaxed at school as well, and he must be a strong drinker because even though he drank a lot, he wasn’t drunk and didn't lose control of his behaviour/words. I didn't get to talk to all the teachers because not all of them came (we only had 15 ish attendees?) and also because you couldn't really move tables. It was still great though! Headed home at 22:30 whilst some of the teachers went for a 2nd round!