This morning the swelling on my knee was down quite a bit, and a spider web pattern of bruises are beginning to form. It’s too bad the weather is cooling off, because it would be fun to wear shorts now. I’m still limping everywhere, especially on stairs.
One of our teachers, Mr. Yamamoto, was absent for the second day in a row. At our school we don’t hire substitute teachers for one or two day absences, everyone else just covers the best they can. Mr. Kimura pitched in to help me with my classes since Mr. Yamamoto was gone.
The classes went just fine – teaching with Mr. Kimura can be an interesting experience. He tries very hard at English, and he does his best to speak only English in the classroom. Unfortunately, the English that comes out of his mouth is impossible for me to understand, so I’m sure the students are just as confused. He’s trying though, and I guess that’s what counts.
Also, one of my classes is way ahead of all the other ones due to all the holidays and typhoons this term. This week that class gets to skip a lesson and relax. We decided to have them come in and watch Harry Potter. That particular class is a really well behaved one. They pay attention to me when I do the class and they work hard. We watched the first part of Harry Potter with English audio and English subtitles, and nobody went to sleep – they paid close attention. I was impressed. The students in Mr. Hayashi’s class sleep right through the lesson – sometimes as many of twenty of them are sleeping at any given time.
After school wrapped up I walked home, and sat across from some of my students on the train ride back. We chatted in Japanese since they were afraid to speak English. The bad side to that is that anybody can listen in on our conversation.
On the way home I stopped in at Ito Yokado and bought some basics to make some soup. I made a really nice miso soup with seaweed, chikuwa (steamed fish cake), and crab meat, and had a side of rice and an orange with it. It turned out great – a simple semi-traditional meal. I’ve got some extra crab meat so I’m thinking about making a crab, cheese and egg omelet tomorrow for breakfast.
Now I’m getting ready to go to bed early. Tomorrow I’m teaching Azusa, so I won’t get home ’till late. It’ll be a good test for my leg – she lives pretty far away.
