Friday – oh yeah. Nice. Today I had four classes, and I even had a free lunch. The vice-principal paid for me and Mr. Urakami (the history teacher) to take the two junior high school students out to lunch at the cafeteria. Prompted in Japanese by Urakami sensei, they asked me a couple of questions. I could tell they’d rather be eating their lunch in peace.
Mr. Hayashi and I taught a class together, and this one went much better. He caught the interest of about half the class early on, and then used me to bounce ideas off of – it worked well. He really changed his style. Is he reading this?
I had a real challenge in my first period class. Ms. Tsutsumi (who usually splits the class and teaches in another room) was gone in the morning, so not only was I teaching one classroom in a foreign language, I had to teach two classrooms in Japanese. That was quite an adventure. I would set one group on a project, and then go check on the other group and make sure they were being quiet and busy. I was tired afterwards, but I think it went OK.
After school Mr. Urakami had arranged for me to catch a ride with someone over to Amuse to have a small party. Everyone bailed out on him, though. He talked another teacher into joining us – a really nice teacher that is coming out of his shell. I don’t know his name, since I don’t really run in his circle, but after tonight I’ll be speaking more with him. He’s got some great English skills, and he’s not afraid of using them. Once we got him talking we couldn’t get him to be quiet. We indoctrinated him in the English phrase “Sausage Party”. Mr. Urakami’s female target cancelled (smart girl), so it was just the three of us.
Dinner was excellent. Once again the history teacher had phoned ahead and we had plenty of food. Fresh sushi, a spanish omelet, pizza, pork ribs, spaghetti, spicy grilled shrimp, and a beef and mushroom stew. Wow. The shrimp were really good – it turns out that one of the regulars of the restaurant owns a shrimp company, and he had supplied them.
We had a couple of beers, and I finished the evening with a vodka tonic. Urakami sensei was really drinking a lot, and the more he drank, the more he complained. I let him vent and I think he felt much better. I urged him to talk to a lady that was sitting at the bar alone, but he was too shy. Finally as we were leaving he said hello, and they had a little mini-conversation. Good for him.
As we left the owner gave us a big box of cake and a big chunk of BBQ pork. We flipped a coin for it, and I won the pork. It’s going to be a giant pork sandwich for lunch tomorrow!
