I did my job!

For the first time! Sure I’ve been going to work for the past like two weeks, but since there are no students I haven’t done my *job*. But today besides the clubs, there were also kids here who had to come do make up work or something, and there was a group of kids who had English worksheets, so I got to go around and help them.

I was a *real* teacher. A _sensei_ if you will.

Albeit an odd one, but still!

And it was a lot of fun too. Most of the work was just them having to say English words and figure out what the Japanese equivalent, or visa versa. Easy enough Japanese that I could help them figure out the English or the other way around. The most fun was when I had to help them pronounce words. I really like “F” “L” “R” and “V”. As some of you may no, there’s no such thing as “F” and “V” sounds in the Japanese language, and ‘L” and “R” are the same sound to them. Whats fun is trying to teach them how to pronounce those sounds. I get to be a bit silly, OVER pronunciating it so they get the idea.

So like for example “F”. I make a show of putting my front teeth on my lower lip and blowing for several long seconds. This normally makes all the students around me collapse in a fit of giggles before trying themselves (albeit with a lot less of the over acting, seeing as how Japanese kids are pretty shy), but we get to have fun *and* learn at the same time. What an odd concept.

After that one of the English teachers I work with took me to see the girl’s ping pong club. She’s the teacher advisor for said club. While the club isn’t as crazy intense as say, the girls volleyball club, these kids are still way better than me, though I am proud to say I could hold my own for a whole 2 minutes before they pummel me to the ground! The English teacher (one of two) is very nice too, and both speak very good English. I’m excited to work with her.

Though it probably won’t be until like September 3. While school starts on the 1st, its just a lot of ceremonies, and then school wide cleaning. The 2nd all the students have to takes tests ALL DAY LONG (which just seems so torturous!) so I won’t have much to do.

But the third! The third I’ll do my job again! Whoo hoo!

I have to leave school early today though, because my supervisor is taking all us middle school JETs out to meet the mayor (*gulp*), and then we have some sort of meet and greet party with the Board of Education. A barbeque or some such. Should be fun, though probably will also be a bit tiring. But free food, so who can complain?

Tonight I’ll upload my pictures from the weekend and write about the goings on there. So don’t touch that dial-er-web..browser? We’ll be right back!