Monday

I always get this weird feeling going back to work after a weekend of snowboarding. It’s like coming back from a holiday, even though we’re not in a holiday period? Anyway, woke up at 7:00am, rice for breakfast, then drove to school. Nice relaxed day of only 3 classes today. But still, 3-2 was a noisy handful today. It was quite sad too because they started off the lesson great, doing the vocab revision and keyword game properly and with enthusiasm, but as soon as we started the card matching game, they just lost it and it went completely downhill. Only went through one round of concentration before time was up because they were just too noisy. At the very least they said “It’s a/an (object)” properly. Next up was 3-3 in period 3 and they were similar to 3-2 in the way that they started off great with the keyword game, but then just got noisier from there as the lesson went on. 3-1 was super great in period 4 though, they were the only class to actually finish a whole round of the card matching game! But there were 5 kids away sick with the flu, so the class is going to be quarantined from tomorrow onwards till Monday. Basically the kids just get to stay at home. I find it really interesting how they deal with the flu here in Japan though. The homeroom teacher told me that if 20% of the class is absent because of the flu, that’s when the class will get quarantined. We never had something like this back in NZ. They also categorise the flu into type A or B here, so if a kid is sick with the flu, the parents call the school and tell them what type of flu their kid has.

Lunch with 2-3 today and it was just another fun lunchtime. All the kids in 2-3 are very affectionate and talkative. Two girls were telling me about Twice and their favourite members of the group haha. As I was walking back to the staffroom after lunch had finished, one of the 6-1 girls greeted me (she was on broadcast duty) and I just find it so interesting how she’s so interactive with me outside of class, but in class she doesn't talk much. There are quite a few kids like that in 6th grade. Cleaning time was smooth, hyper girl is still there this week but the other kids are all the good ones so no problems at all. Spent the spare 5th and 6th period doing lesson prep and just organising the materials (lots of flash cards are in a mess). Got off work at 16:00 and went to the drugstore to get some laundry detergent and vitamin C.