Today I had the day to myself, but mostly I spent it organizing things and getting ready for the trip. I had to spend about an hour printing out stuff to take with me to study while I’m in Hawaii. It won’t be all fun and games and tropical drinks – I’ve got a lot of reading to do while I’m there. The week after I return I have two papers due, so I wrote today to the instructors requesting an extension because of my travel situation. I hope they approve.
My classes today went really well. My first class had just two students out of five. The two students were fun – Riko and Kako – and we just relaxed and played games. I really like Riko because she’s fearless and tries hard to speak English, even if she doesn’t know exactly what is going on. Kako is a little more tentative. Before class started Riko and I talked (in Japanese) about the bridge disaster in the United States. She had seen it on the news (she’s only 9 years old and watching the news!) and wanted to get my reaction. It was fun talking current events with the youngsters.
The rest of the classes went smoothly with no big incidents to report. I played a game of Zelda on the DS with some students after our last class – they are Nintendo addicts. The mothers were waiting for us to finish our game so I had to wrap it up quickly. The mothers don’t seem to mind too much, I guess as long as I’m speaking lots of English with their kids.
On my way home I had to go buy a new electric razor because mine broke this morning. The little attachment that does sideburns stopped working suddenly, and then the piece fell right off. So I had to buy a new one right before the trip. At least I’ll be clean-shaven on the islands.
Tomorrow I have my tough class – the young kids. After that the rest of the day should be pretty easy, and it is my last day of work before vacation so that will keep me going. Just a little bit more to go before Hawaii…
