Teacher’s Test Is Over!

On Wednesday I spent the morning working hard on my studies at school, and starting to put some work into our first lesson for the first years. The other first year teachers have agreed on where to start for this term, so I’m cleared to make up some new lessons. I’ll work on it gradually over the next few days, but we are still two weeks away from classes.

This was the first day back for the vice principal – he’s been out sick this week. The last time I saw him he had talked to me about checking in with him before he left, so I was determined to put in a long day today so that he would see that I’m not some slacker. When two o’clock came and I still hadn’t come to his desk to ask if I could go, he came by my desk and said I could leave anytime. I think he was feeling a little guilty or something, or maybe he thought that I was. I put in another half hour or so and then took off.

I went home and soon Kuniko came back from her teacher’s exam. She said right off the bat that she failed. She seemed pretty sure of it – I guess the native English speaker interview was tough and she was matched with some great speakers. Also during her Japanese language interview one old teacher was actually kind of yelling/arguing/repeating and throwing her off. Maybe that’s part of the interview, but Kuniko was confident that she didn’t make the cut. The official results aren’t until the end of September, but we’re not holding our breath.

We met up in Akashi with Yuri, Tamura sensei and her boyfriend in the evening. Tamura sensei also took the teacher’s exam, and so there was some steam to blow off. We went to a restaurant that Yuri and Tamura sensei had been to before, and ordered various things from the menu including garlic and lettuce pizza, “Mexican” tacos, spaghetti carbonara, garlic bread, camembert cheese, and a tomato salad that was excellent. We drank lots of beers – Kuniko, Tamura sensei’s boyfriend and I kept the pace. It was good to relax and joke around, and it was great practice for listening in Japanese. I’m still too slow to speak at parties, but I guess that will come eventually.

On the way back home we were drunkenly walking through Ito Yokado and they had their “50% off frozen food” sale. They have it fairly often, actually, so we never pay full price to keep the freezer stocked. We picked out a whole load of stuff for our lunches and emergency dinners, and then came on back home. With a glass of pineapple juice, two aspirin and a vitamin, we assured ourselves of a hangover-free morning tomorrow.


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