Today I had a relatively easy group of classes, and I put together a schedule so that I can finally track which classes I’ve taught and which lessons are next. It has been a bit like a house of cards after I got burned that one time. Now I’m relatively confident I know what is going on. The teachers seem determined to throw me off, but as time goes by, I am catching on.
One of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Tsutsumi, had to leave early because her youngest daughter was in the hospital with pnuemonia. I’m hoping everything is OK with her family tonight.
One of the things that I’m helping Mrs. Tsutsumi with is translating and editing two speeches by 2nd year high school students for a speech contest next month. The speeches are in English, and so I’m there to help with the pronunciation and editing. Today I was supposed to help two students after school with their speeches, but only one was able to make it. It was a lot of fun to help out the girl – you could tell that she was extremely intelligent. After going through her speech, we had an extra half hour, and she offered to show me some new kanji characters. We spent the time learning characters and having a good conversation. The students seem a lot less shy when they are one-on-one.
Her English was pretty good, and my Japanese was really only just adequate to have a conversation. After I left school I realized that in the end we both were able to understand almost all of the ideas and concepts were exchanging, and I felt like I am really starting to get comfortable language-wise here in Japan.
