Friday

It’s Friday again yay! Woke up at 7:00am to much cooler temperatures – 14 to 16 degrees today! Had rice and soup for breakfast, threw out my rubbish, and drove to school since it was raining. It was a very gray day today – when I woke up it was still dark! Super free day today with only 2 classes, and its 5th and 6th grade. Spent the spare periods making more stickers and sticking stickers to the completed Halloween worksheets. The kids are seriously so fast!!! I only put it up on Wednesday, but when I checked the box yesterday there were already so many sheets handed in. I had stocked up on some cute Halloween stickers and masking tape from Daiso yesterday, so I used those.

Had class with 6-1 in 2nd period. They did really well today and were so good, I’m very proud of them. The worksheet was definitely hard (I purposely put a few harder questions in there for them to do, since they’re pretty good) but they all tried really hard and a few kids got perfect scores! The few cheeky kids were also serious as today and worked hard on the worksheet, so that was really heartwarming to see. It was also really nice just having a quiet class. The kids at this school really have a good conscience. For example in today’s class, one kid was playing around with his pencil case and not doing work, and I didn't even have to tell him off because the kids around him were telling him to stop messing around and to do his work. They’re very responsible for each other here. One other thing that I really wished I could do though is teach the kids how to read English from a younger age. Like in 6-2, there was a kid today who kept asking how to read certain words/what the words were, because they can’t read them, but they really want to be able to read them. Sadly I don't have enough time in the English lessons to teach them individually how to read though since we have other activities. That’s why I wish they wouldn't be so strict about not teaching younger grades how to read and write (“They only need to practice speaking and listening!”).

Spent the 20 minute morning break returning the Halloween sheets with their stickers attached. Cue everyone running around yelling to each other “WHAT STICKER DID YOU GET?” and “LET’S TRAAAADE” and “LET’S DO ANOTHER ONE”. Elementary school is wild but just so adorable and funny. You can never get tired of the kids, even when they’re being a handful. They just have so much personality. Had lunch in the staffroom because of the English broadcast today. For the broadcast I talked about Halloween, how other countries celebrate it, and also told them to have a look at the Halloween game on the English board and to do the worksheets. My JTE also told me to announce that the worksheets should be done in class, because apparently the kids are all gathering in front of the English board and colouring them in front there, blocking the corridor. Lunch today was spaghetti with meat sauce, ABC soup (had ABC pasta in it, so cute), bread, and grapefruit. There were several teachers away today so they gave me another serving of pasta and another slice of grapefruit! Spent the lunchtime returning more Halloween sheets and having equally as much handed to me as kids were chasing me saying “JAIME-SENSEI I FINISHED” and “JAIME-SENSEI HERE YOU GO” (I type in capitals because that’s literally how excited and loud they all are haha). Cleaning time was a bit less quiet today because another kid was having a mini fight with one of the kids on my cleaning team, but he eventually went back to class and stopped the “fight”. Two of the kids were so cute today – it was their last time rostered on this corridor I’m in charge of, and said they were sad they wouldn't be cleaning this corridor next week, and sad that they had to say “goodbye” to me (お別れ) even though I’ll still see them in class. Way too adorable.

5th period with 5-1, and it was a pretty smooth class. We continued the alphabet board game, and 3 groups managed to reach the goal and finish! Rewarded them with stickers. The 2nd half of the class was spent on name-writing practice, and it was interesting how many kids mixed up W and M, and wrote Z the wrong way around. One kid also mixed up H and I. A total of 3 kids had collected enough stickers by now so I gave them their prizes! Two chose the Lake Tekapo post card, and one kid chose the sheep pencil. Glad that they liked the prize! The kid who chose the sheep pencil was yelling proudly to the class “HEY GUYS LOOK, THIS IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU WIN”.

Got off work on time again at 16:00 and drove home. It was an ALT friend’s birthday today so we celebrated by going out for 焼肉食べ放題 and karaoke! The 焼肉 place that she found was so cheap! At ¥2037 for 90 minutes buffet, it’s the cheapest 焼肉食べ放題 I’ve ever been to so far. They not only had meat, but a soft drink bar that’s included in the ¥2037, and sushi, gyoza, a salad bar, a whole dessert bar (cakes, fruit, cream puffs), ice cream, and we didn't discover it till the end but they even had a little corner where you can cook your own ramen and udon!!! It’s a great place and I’m definitely going to go there again! After dinner we went to karaoke, and sang for 3 hours till midnight. One of the girls bought a birthday cake too so we had that in the karaoke room! It was such a nice cake – the strawberries and blueberries on top were super sweet. Karaoke was way more expensive than I expected, and it’s apparently because Friday nights are more expensive.