Monday morning brought three fresh faces to the morning meeting at our school. We’ve got three student teachers this year, and they all look particulary young and impressionable. Their bows are low, the look around them wildly for fear of getting in someone’s way, and they’ve got a long way to go before they become like the grizzled veterans of the Takasago Minami High School.
Mr. Hayashi told me not to come to his Monday classes, and told me that maybe we’ll wait until after the exam. We just wrapped up our mid-terms, so I’m not sure what exam he might be talking about. I didn’t sweat it much, though – no problem. I’ll just study instead.
Mori sensei came by and asked to talk to me in private about something “very personal”. With great anticipation I walked with her to the quiet side of the teacher’s office. She told me that she had applied and was accepted to a research group that will be going to New York and Washington DC this summer to study some part of the American educational system. There are teachers from all subjects going, and four of the teachers will be responsible for translating everything, and smoothing everything over for the research group. She will be one of the teachers, and there is a big grant of cash in it for her, as well as a free trip to America. She said that the position was highly sought-after, so she was really happy to get it.
I was also pretty surprised. If I was doing educational research and needed somebody to translate for me, I don’t think Mori sensei would be the first name that jumped into my head. She hasn’t really spoken to me much at all in the year that she’s been here, and she is too shy to speak English in front of the other teachers. She has waged a war against Mr. Hayashi over curriculum issues, teaching strategies, and general work ethics.
Anyway, she wanted to know if I could spare some time to chat with her once a week to try to get her English conversation up to speed. I told her that it would be my pleasure, and so we’ll be working on Friday afternoons trying to get her ready for translation duties this summer. It’ll be tough, but we’ll try it out.
Let’s see… what else? Tomorrow I get a free lunch, prepared by some of the students in the cooking class. They are cooking up a big meal and then they get to choose a victim/recipient to taste the food and evaluate it. I guess some of the wiseguys in the third year figured I would be a good guinea pig. They came by and invited me to eat tomorrow. I don’t know yet what it’ll be, but I’m looking forward to it.
Tomorrow is also the medical check, and they want to take some pictures of me teaching my afternoon class. They are using the pictures for a brochure or something. Luckily I have some warning and I can wear some decent clothes.
I cooked up some chige (Korean soup) for dinner tonight, using some of the leftover gyoza from the night before and it came out pretty well. Not so spicy, I’ll have to heat up more next time.
