This morning it was below 20 degrees for the first time this season, and it was that much harder to get out of bed. I can see a trend here – the difference in temperature between the inside of my bed and the outside is getting bigger and bigger. Almost time for the electric blanket. Several weeks ago I was wiping the sweat off my face during class.
Speaking of class, I did a couple of new lessons today on movies. Movies are one of my favorite things to talk about. I love them so much, and the difference between watching movies in America and Japan are many, so it makes for an interesting topic. In my class we watch a couple of scenes from the first Harry Potter movie, and also we do a bit of drawing.
I’m on this thing where I have students draw, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a popular activity among the English teachers. They may think it’s a waste of time, but when I walk around and point at things that would take an hour to describe, the students are eager to find the English word. It’s fun, and it gets everyone involved, even if they’re not so great at English. Today’s lessons were a success in that regard – we had some great pictures.
The latest on the music teacher with the heart surgery is that he is going to be OK. He’ll be in the hospital for a couple of months, and so we had a new teacher come in to take over his music classes. Mr. Hayashi is still stuck with taking over his homeroom class, and the big joke around the staffroom seems to be that Mr. Hayashi is finally going to have to earn his keep. He’s been busy running around and we’ve exchanged only a few words all day.
I met with some of the students from ESS and we worked a little bit on the English bulletin board. I came up with a word of the week “junk”, and we put up some comics. I had cut out an English comic to post, but the students want to redraw the comic in a bigger size. Pretty ambitious, but it’s their project so I’ll let them do what they want.
After school I went straight to Ito Yokado and had a quick dinner of donburi and a “twister” from KFC, which is just a couple of pieces of chicken wrapped in a tortilla with lettuce and some sauce. Then I was off to Azusa’s for an English lesson. She did much better this time around, and I gave her some limericks to work on her L’s and R’s. Even after the practice that we did for an hour I could notice some improvement. She said she’ll practice them every morning on the train – which should make for some interesting situations.
I came home and stopped by the yakitori to arrange for dinner on Friday for the poker game. The master quoted me a great price on some food – now I won’t have to spend my time cooking – I can play poker more. I also dropped by to visit with Jane, who is doing well. She’s been super busy and is wondering whether there is an end in sight. I told her that it’s bound to slow down soon, but she has two schools and all the staff from both of them to invite her out – she’ll be busy for a while. We’re going to have a late night beer at the yakitori tomorrow night and catch up a little more.
Well, off to bed. My schedule tomorrow should be really easy – I need to clean up the place tomorrow and get ready for cards.
