At school today I had another set of four classes in a row throughout the morning, and an afternoon free. My students had to endure a pretty brutal class with Harada sensei. She was especially strict, and I was surprised how often she yelled at them. They were doing presentations, and I think she ended up making them more nervous than when they started.
Later she came by my desk and said that some of the students had complained about her, and she acknowledged that she was pretty tough on them. I’m still new here, so I’m not going to get too involved – just stay back and see what the lay of the land is.
In the afternoon I sat around the staffroom and chatted with some of my teachers. One teacher, Kawai sensei, is really curious about America, so I talked with him in Japanese about America. Another teacher, Matsunaga sensei, is an English teacher and knows quite a bit about American culture – she was really interested in the conversation as well. She insisted on speaking only English, so I had to have a conversation with each of them at the same time and switch languages back and forth between them. It was a good experience, but I noticed that my Japanese was really rusty, especially talking about heavy subjects.
I tried to play a few games of ping pong at the end of the day with the table tennis club, but just a few minutes into playing they adjourned to do strength training – so I took my cue and left. I had a nice easy trip home and made up some Mexican chicken and beans for dinner.
Tomorrow I’m going to the Nishinomiya matsuri. I’m meeting up with Kuniko and Antoine and we’ll check it out together. Not sure what the matsuri will be like, but I’m looking forward to checking it out.
