I just finished watching Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers here at home, courtesy of my folks. They sent a bunch of DVDs and some other goodies, and I got to curl up under a blanket on the sofa, turn off all the lights, and watch the movie. I had forgotten how spectacular the battle scenes were in that movie.

Today I did some grocery shopping, and this week’s menu is shaping up. Tonight I had udon soup with stir fried sprouts and rice. Tuesday will be baked fish with garlic, with some potstickers on the side, Wednesday is tacos with corn tortillas and salad with ranch dressing. Did you know that it’s impossible to find ranch or blue cheese dressing in Japan? My folks sent me some mix, so I’m going to make it up myself.

Anyway, to wrap up the menu, Thursday is shrimp tenpura with homemade onigiri (rice balls). This weekend is shaping up to be very interesting. Friday night some of the teachers are taking me out to dinner, Saturday might be a movie, Sunday might be poker night, and Monday is a holiday. I’m planning on going hiking with a girl that I met at the Tokyo orientation, and later again at the Yashiro orientation. Should be a busy weekend!

One of the guys that I have been hanging out with at the yakitori place had invited me to a BBQ, and today we all met in a park just south of the yakitori place. I’ve been to a few BBQs so far, and the Japanese style is pretty fun. Everyone just kind of pulls the meat off the grill when it looks ready with your chopsticks, and one guy just kind of keeps the food coming.

We sat around and talked for a couple of hours. Both of the yakitori part time employees were there, and the master even showed up, despite having to work in just a few hours. One of the part-timers, a very quiet girl from Okinawa made her appearance on a motorcycle – and that caught me by surprise. She brought along her sister, and between the two of them it was GiggleFest 2003.

The guy that had organized it decided to try to get me drunk, and so he kept pushing drinks towards me. Unfortunately for him he was drinking along with me, and he was having a really good time. He decided to move the party over to the yakitori after it started getting dark, so we went over there and the people that had just been BBQing with us were serving us. It was a lot of fun, and I even got home early and sober. My poor host was a wreck, and he ended up falling asleep on the bench in his girlfriend’s arms. Poor guy!

The most interesting part was that the whole day, I spoke only a few words in English. Almost everything was in Japanese. Some of the folks could speak English well, but I made a concentrated effort to stick with Japanese. It worked out just fine, and I had a great time.

Yesterday I went to Kyoto to the first time. Mr. Komuri wanted to show me around, since Kyoto is one of his favorite places to visit. Mr. Hayashi and Miss Kageyama came along for the ride. We met up in the train station in Akashi, and then took an hour train ride into Kyoto.

The Kyoto train station was the biggest train station I had ever been in – it was huge! There were so many different train lines going through, and so many people running from train to train. If I didn’t have a guide right there I would have gotten lost for sure.

We rented a car, and it had a navigation system. The system was very cool, and it also played DVDs, CDs, and got TV reception. Unfortunately, all the menus were in Japanese, so I couldn’t do too much with it. We just used it to get from place to place. One interesting feature is that all you had to do was type in the phone number of a place, and it would get you there. That was pretty handy.

The first temple we went to was north of Kyoto, up in the mountains. The drive was about 20 minutes, up winding roads. At the base of the temple is a long staircase made of rocks, and Miss Kageyama and I jumped out of the car and hiked up. Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Komuri drove around and met us at the top. There was a restaurant along the way, but we didn’t stop until we got to the top of the steps and met the guys there.

The temple itself was almost deserted, and we were able to walk all over the grounds. Some of the most interesting things are the religious artifacts that are inside the main temple, but there are no pictures allowed there so I can’t really show you what they looked like. They had large golden statues of four gods, and then one almost black statue that was supposed to be from the 1200’s. It was amazing to see.

The big attraction is a trail that leads to a cliff on the side of the mountain, and from there you can buy small plates made of clay and throw them off the side of the cliff, while making a wish. Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Komuri’s plates went a long way – I could tell they have been making wishes up here for a while. Mine was like a lame duck, wobbling as it fell. Not too impressive, but as it turned out my wish came true!

We went back to Kyoto and found a restaurant that Mr. Komuri recommended, and for the first time in Japan I ate in the traditional Japanese style. We sat on the floor on tatami mats, and there was a doorway that opened out on to a small garden. It was a great atmosphere, and the menu was built around buckwheat. Yes, buckwheat. We had buckwheat tea, noodles, appetizers, everything. The only thing that didn’t have buckwheat was the beer. You were able to grind up your own fresh wasabi by rubbing the wasabi root against a small piece of wood with shark skin attached to it. You collected the paste that resulted and put it on your food – it was delicious.

After lunch we went to Kinkaku, or the Rokuon-ji Temple in central Kyoto. On the temple grounds is a building that had it’s second and third floors entirely covered with gold leaf. It was a pretty dramatic sight – and there were tourists everywhere. As I walked along I heard English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean – this is a must-see for Kyoto tourists. Even though my stay in Japan is temporary, I felt a little sense of pride when I saw all these tourists – they will be here for a week or two and never get to see and do many of the experiences that I’ve related in this journal. It makes me wonder how much I have missed when I toured new places in my travels in the United States.

After Kinkaku, we went out of town again to visit another temple, the Sanzen-in Temple. This area had a temple, but it also had extensive grounds where you could walk around and see gardens, ponds, and streams. Inside the buildings we were able to practice Japanese calligraphy, which was very difficult. The pens they had were very nice, though – I’m going to have to buy one for home practice!

We spent a few minutes at a cafe after walking through the temple, recharging our batteries and enjoying the view. The cafe was perched on the side of the mountain, and although the view right outside our window was a gravel parking lot, the view beyond that was spectacular. The sun was just starting to go down and it lit up the valley filled with cedar trees just right. That combined with an open air cafe, sitting on pillows with good friends drinking homemade Calpis soda – oh yeah.

We drove back to Kyoto, and returned the car. We ended up getting there late, but they didn’t charge us anything – they were very friendly. We took the train back to Kobe, and Mr. Hayashi had set up a dinner at another Indian restaurant (I’ve eaten a lot of Indian food lately). He had arranged some special deal, and we ate like kings and had our drinks for free. The food was much spicier than the other Indian food I’ve had in Japan, and I decided that this place was my favorite.

We got back on the train, but it was still only around seven o’clock. I told everyone that I was going to get off the train at the next stop, and I think they were all curious. I said my goodbyes, and then dropped in on Like, Like for a beer. Like, Like was empty of customers, so they were rocking out to the Beatles very loudly in there. They were surprised to see me there alone – usually I have Antoine and Nel with me. I sat and talked with Yoshi, the bartender, and then I got to meet the owner’s daughter, who speaks a little English. I ended up talking with her for almost an hour. She was very cool – she promised to study English hard so that the next time we speak we can carry on a better conversation.

I jumped on the train and finally headed home. As I walked by the yakitori place, one of the guys that had invited me to watch softball leaned out the door and called me in there. The place was full of the softball players and their families, so I ended up having a couple of beers there and talking with the master and his customers. Some of the customers were pretty drunk, and wanted to try out their English with me. Two little boys were running around playing with their Game Boys, and I talked with one and we practiced writing Japanese characters on chopstick wrappers.

They organized a big barbecue for me today, so I’m going to meet someone at the yakitori place around 2 o’clock. It should be a lot of fun. I think most of these guys will be pretty hung over, but it was really nice of them to do it. It started out being eight people attending, but then they got on their cell phones and by the time I left, it was around fourteen people.

Finally, I got home, and had a couple of messages on my machine. One was from my parents, who had called while I was in Kyoto. The other was from Miss Kageyama. She had heard from the job interview, and she had gotten the job in Osaka! She was so excited that she was speaking half in Japanese and half English, but I got the message. The weird thing was that I wished for her to get the job as I threw my wobbly plate off the cliff, so there you go. Maybe I should become a monk or something. Do they get to drink beer?

A much more relaxed day today. I had only one class, and it was the first one, so at 9:30 a.m. I was done for the day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave.

I spent much of the day correcting papers and preparing for my teacher’s lesson in the afternoon. I had time to take lunch in the cafeteria with the students, which was interesting. Nobody was brave enough to sit with me, so all the other tables were packed, and I sat at a table for eight alone. It was pretty funny.

My teacher’s class went really well, and we drank peppermint tea and apple/mint tea while we studied. Mr. Hayashi recorded my voice reading the speeches of the students that are going to participate in the local speech contest, so they can listen to my pronunciation over and over again.

After school, Miss Kageyama dropped by to work on her transcriptions with me, since Mr. Hayashi was in a meeting. Afterwards we gossiped for a little while and I told her stories in an attempt to get her prepped for the interviews that she’s been doing. Tomorrow she is joining us in Kyoto, so we’ll practice some more.

Tonight is a quiet night. I’m going over to the yakitori to say hello to my gang over there, and this time I might bring Melanie. She has been asking me to take her there, but since she speaks almost no Japanese, I think it might be tough time translating.

What a big day! This morning I hauled all the tacos ingredients in a couple of bags to the train station, and then put them in the home-economics refrigerator for safekeeping. I stashed them in back to be out of the way.

After the morning meeting, the Vice-Principal called Mr. Hayashi into an office, and when they came back, Mr. Hayashi was grinning from ear to ear. It turns out that the school trip to Australia in December was approved, and so it looks like we’re going. Mr. Hayashi will be handling my travel arrangements, but it sounds like it should be no problem. I can probably do a week and a half in Australia by only taking five days of vacation! Nice! It looks like we’ll be in Sydney, and it will be about 15 students and 5 teachers. I’m not sure on the details, but it should be a good Christmas!

After classes, the ESS club met in the kitchen, and we got started making tacos. I noticed that someone had looked through all the bags – I think someone was curious about tacos ingredients. As for the taco brigade, all the members did great, and everyone pitched in to eat and to help with the cooking and cleanup. We had lots of extra tacos, so the girls made some for their favorite teachers and went around making deliveries. I got a few tacos delivered to some people that had asked about them, but they went fast. Two teachers that I had wanted to give them to were left out. I’m planning on making some proper tacos next week with the corn tortillas that my mom sent over, so I’ll hook them up then.

Just after we finished cooking, two girls from the broadcasting club came by to film us in action, but since we had finished, there wasn’t much to see. They had the look of a reporter that showed up late for a big story. I tried to tell them that the next time we do something cool, I would let them know, but I’m not sure the message was received.

Mr. Hayashi had told me earlier that two girls had expressed an interest in joining the ESS club, and today they showed up to see what was going on. They had good timing – they got a couple of tacos without having to do the work. The girls in my club were giving them looks, and the new girls were all over me, trying to flirt in Japanese, which doesn’t work very well if you don’t understand Japanese. I’m not sure how it’s going to work out. One of the new girls was almost out of control… she kept making biting gestures with her mouth and trying to get close to my face. Weird. I made them do dishes and help with cleanup, and that seemed to calm them down a little.

After making all the tacos, I cleaned up the place and went over to the teacher’s office. One of the students had asked me for a worksheet that they had forgotten, and I saw her just outside the teacher’s room door. I grabbed the worksheet from my desk and stood behind her waiting for her to finish her conversation with her friend. Her friend saw me standing there and stopped talking, and the girl turned around. I gave her the handout and told her when it was due, and suddenly her friend started making this low groaning noise as she looked at me – I’m not sure how to describe it. It sounded like a combination of the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West melting, and an adult film actress that is, well, making noise. I hurried to leave, but heard them telling each other that I was “very cute” in Japanese. I quickly made my exit stage left before anybody started biting.

I was on the same train as Mr. Komuri for part of the ride home. We sat and talked about the hot sauce that I had brought (Tapatio), and I noticed that a crazy guy was sitting on the other side of me. I’ve only seen only one other crazy guy so far in Japan, which I think is pretty impressive. Maybe they are just better at hiding them away. Anyway, the guy was having a conversation, but only later did I see that nobody else was talking with him. At my stop, as I got up, he got up with me, asked me a question in Japanese, and then broke into song. Loudly. Everybody was staring at him, which is a nice change of pace for me, and I jumped out of the train before anybody started biting.

Dinner last night was great – the lasagne turned out to be excellent. We split a couple of bottles of wine and watched a movie afterwards, to celebrate the purchase of Melanie’s new DVD/VCR player.

A bunch of random little notes today:

The weekend is coming up, and it’s looking like a good one. There are a couple of things going on, but the one “for sure” thing is that I’m going to Kyoto with Mr. Komuri, Mr. Hayashi, and Miss Kageyama. Mr. Komuri knows an out-of-the-way temple north of Kyoto, and we’re going to go there and see what it’s like. I’m really looking forward to seeing Kyoto – it has been high on my list of places to visit in Japan.

My folks sent a big package of stuff for my birthday, and it arrived last night. There were about 50 corn tortillas, pinto beans, some DVDs of movies I’ve been dying to see, and some taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix. Lots of cool stuff – it feels like home around here with so much mexican stuff.

Speaking of Mexican food, tomorrow we’re going to cook tacos during our ESS club meeting. All of the girls are excited. I heard that there are two more girls that are interested in joining, so that would be really cool!

The sky in Japan seems to be so much more dramatic to what I’m used to in California. The sunsets in particular are very dramatic, and the strong winds seem to toss around the clouds in very unusual patterns.

Today I am getting dinner cooked for me from Melanie – I cooked her dinner a couple of weeks ago, and she wanted to return the favor. She has had the ingredients for lasagne shipped to her bit by bit from her parents in Ireland. I’m looking forward to it!

Today Mr. Komuri brought in some hot peppers that a friend of his had sent. They were the closest things I’m going to get to fresh jalapenos around here. They were excellent. He chopped them up and I got to taste a little bit. Delicious!

I’m trying to organize a trip to see The White Stripes at a club here. They are playing all over Japan, but nowhere really close. The Osaka show is closest, but it’s on a school night, and the trains wouldn’t be running when I get out. I’ve got some people looking into tickets, but if I do go, I’ll most likely have to travel quite a ways to see them. I’m hoping that I can get a day off to do it right. Or maybe I’m starting to feel a little sick. I’m not sure how it will work out. They were sold out in California when I left, so it would be cool if I could catch them here in Japan.

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.

I got to Kobe a bit early to browse around the shops, and look for interesting things laying around cheap. There was a row of shops in Motomachi, a small suburb of Kobe, that had some amazing things that I’m sure some geeks in the US would give their right arm for. I’m not an expert on anime or electronics, so I’m not sure, but I think there is probably some valuable stuff there. Maybe I should get into the import/export business.

Nel, Kiyomi, and Antoine all converged on the same spot near Sannomiya station, and we went out to Gaylord, one of the Indian restuarants that Mr. Hayashi had turned me on to. The food was excellent again, and very spicy. We all had a good time getting to know each other, and then afterwards, we went two train stations west to Like, Like – our favorite bar in that area.

Our favorite bartender Kazumi wasn’t there, and Antoine was pretty bummed out – he likes her a lot. It was nice having Kiyomi around, because she could translate our questions. From that conversation, we found out that Kazumi was leaving for a full time job in Kakogawa. Her last day is Tuesday, so Antoine wouldn’t get to say goodbye. Yoshi, the bartender who was working, ended up calling Kazumi at home to let Antoine say goodbye, but she insisted on driving all the way out to meet us.

Kazumi made a big entrance, and Antoine was very happy. Kazumi and Kiyomi hit it off right away, and we ended exchanging phone numbers and e-mails all around, so we might see some more of Kazumi down the road. Finally, we called it a night and went our separate ways. It was a fun way to end the weekend, and I’m all geared up for a full week of classes.

This morning I walked out to South Futami, along the inland sea to meet the owner of the yakitori place I frequent. He had invited me out to watch him and his friends play in the local softball championship. Everybody was decked out and looking good – except for the team I was rooting for. These guys showed up in pretty scruffy clothes, but they actually did well. They ended up coming in second in the tournament, and so there was much moaning and groaning among the guys later on.

I took some pictures of the area, and I got one picture of the “master” of the yakitori place at bat.

I told the guys that I would drop by for a late dinner at the yakitori place at around 8:30. When I got there, one of the guys was sitting there having trouble staying on his chair. He had thought I had said 6:30, so he had been there two hours already, and was pretty drunk. The rest of the guys came in gradually, and the master cooked up some great stuff. I had fried tofu for the first time, and like most things that are fried, it was quite good.

Tomorrow I’m meeting Nel and Antoine in Kobe for Indian food. I also get to meet Nel’s fiancee for the first time. Should be fun!

There was an earthquake north of here (way north of here) in Hokkaido last night. I guess it was a big one, but since it was offshore, the main thing they were worried about was the tidal waves. It was way too far away for me to feel, and I only heard about it from someone at work. Everything here is A-OK, so no worries.

Today I had an easy day – just two classes. They were pretty fun, and the students behaved very well. I tought the teacher’s class in the afternoon, and they treated me to cookies and tea during the lesson. It was very nice.

Miss Kageyama brought in some tacos that she bought at a restaurant near her house. They were actually not too bad – flour tortillas, strips of pork and grilled onions, tomato, lettuce. No cheese, but considering the cheese they would have used, that’s probably a good thing. It was a very nice treat.

I’m off to Befu tonight to do a little bit of shopping. I’ll be back early to catch up on my sleep. Tomorrow I’m hoping to do some hiking, since the weather has turned beautiful.

After school today I met with my afterschool club, the English Speaking Society, and I had four students show up. That was actually quite a few, and I was happy to see them. Today I brought in a bunch of American candy for them to try. I didn’t realize it, but inside there were some Atomic Fireballs, which are pretty intense. One of the poor girls popped one in her mouth and started wigging out. The Japanese are generally not into spicy things – this must have been a sensory overload for her. She started giggling in pain, and that set me off giggling, and pretty soon we were both unable to talk in either Japanese or English. It was quite a scene.

I’m hoping to cook tacos with my ESS club next week. I have the tortillas – I just need to pick up some ground beef and some toppings at the store. I’m going to ask the home economics teacher if we can commandeer the kitchen for a while. I’m hoping we get to do it.

On the train ride home I sat next to one of my students, and we were talking in Japanese for most of the train trip. At his stop, he got off and said “Goodbye” in English, and I said “Goodbye” in Japanese. I turned to my left and someone that just got on the train was looking at me like the world had just turned upside down. I suppose it was a strange thing to see. I just smiled at him and said “Hello!”.

Once I got to the playground, some of the kids playing there pulled me aside and started asking me a ton of questions in Japanese. I spent a minute or two talking to them, and then one of their mothers came over and talked with us, too. One thing led to another, and the kids invited me to play in the playground with them. I went upstairs, changed into some play clothes, and came downstairs, while all the kids jumped up and down and cheered. As I walked towards the park, they circled me chanting “Gaijin, gaijin” (foreigner, foreigner). The neighbor kids came out and pretty soon I was surrounded by ten or fifiteen kids between five and nine years old. I found that I was able to communicate pretty well with the five year old kids, which tells me something about my level of Japanese 🙂

Anyway, we played in the playground for about twenty minutes, then it got dark, and I headed in. The mother that I had talked to said that she is a big hiker, so I may be invited to their next family hike.

Today was an interesting day – I taught with one of the English teachers for the first time, was tempted by tacos, and tried the Japanese version of moonshine all in one day!

While going to teach one of my classes, an English teacher that I haven’t really talked to much came up to me and told me that I was going to teach a class with him. According to my schedule, I was not teaching with him, but it turned out that he had flipped around the schedule to suit him. He gave me about an hour’s notice, so I ran back and put together some worksheets for the class. The class turned out great, I was very happy with it, despite the short notice.

Miss Kageyama is interviewing on Sunday for a job in Osaka, and so after classes were finished, we did a mock interview, with me asking the questions, and she responded in English. She did a great job, but I think that she had memorized the responses. If they ask questions that are not on her memorization sheet, she’ll be in trouble. She could answer them well, she just doesn’t believe that she could without memorizing. I sprung a few random questions on her, and that got her thinking a little bit. I hope that it goes well. I’ll get to see her one last time before the interview on Friday. She is coming in a little more to get extra lessons from me and Mr. Hayashi.

After school, Mr. Hayashi was driving me to the train station, and then he announced that he knew a place that had tacos! We decided to go check it out, and my stomach started to growl. I was seriously craving tacos. Mr. Hayashi drove up and down a street in Kakogawa, insisting that he knew where it was. Unfortunately, after a half hour of driving, he gave up, so he dropped me off at the train station with my stomach making loud noises. He promised to do some research and find out about the tacos, so maybe tomorrow I’ll get to try some.

On my way home, my stomach was freaking out, so I couldn’t walk by the yakitori place and cook my own dinner. I went inside, and had a great meal of beef, chicken, and pork on skewers. The part-time employee came in and brought his English-Japanese dictionary, so that worked out great. I was finally able to communicate with the staff and talk about some more abstract things. The master invited me to watch their softball game on Saturday, so I’m looking forward to doing that in the morning. We were having such a good time that the master broke out some plum sake that his mother makes at home, and it was excellent. It was a little sweet, but it tasted great after the big dinner that I had.

Today was a holiday for me – the Autumnal Equinox. I got a phone call this morning from Sara, and we got a chance to catch up and see how everything was going. It was good to talk to her, but I admit I was still a little groggy – she caught me sleeping in.

After getting up I cooked a big breakfast of hash browns and eggs, and then got my hiking gear together and hit the trail. I had heard from Mr. Hayashi about hiking Mt. Rokko, which is one of the large mountains above Kobe. The weather was cool, but it wasn’t raining – perfect weather for hiking.

I had some trouble finding the trailhead, and although I could have asked someone, I wouldn’t have been able to understand the response. After some exploring, I found it, and started climbing up the mountain. There were lots of people coming down, but nobody (but me) going up. I think I was at the right mountain, but who knows? It was about a 45 minute hike to the top, and it was fairly steep climb. It felt great to work my legs hard again.

At the top, I ran into a giant wasp, and I tried to take a movie of it, with marginal success. Check out the movie here (2.5 MB), and you can see what I mean.

Afterwards, I was climbing along the ridge of the mountain away from Kobe, and stumbled upon an old amusement park, and explored that area for a while. All of the equipment was showing it’s age, and wasn’t really protected from the elements.

I’m not sure when it was popular, but it had this sad, nostalgic feeling combined with a weird creepiness. When I first got there it was empty, but people started showing up while I was taking pictures, and that made it seem a little less spooky.

It turns out that there was a more direct way to get to the amusement park from Kobe, so I followed that way back towards the train station. I was able to stop at a small restaurant and have lunch on top of one of the hills, near an observation building. They also had a coffee shop up there, and plenty of beer. This makes two out of three mountains that I’ve climbed in Japan that have had beer at the top. That’s a very pleasant trend, I think.

Stinky, sweaty, and exhausted I jumped back on the train and headed back home. The hike turned out great, and I’m hoping to do it again on a nicer day. Tomorrow it’s back to work for me.

So today was going pretty well, until my worst nightmare came true.

My teaching schedule at Takasago Minami is pretty complex. Every week I teach the first year students, but each class of 40 is split into two classes of 20. That means that we alternate weeks. The second years I teach in classes of 40, but they only come every other week. There are many times that they cancel classes, and so I need to keep track of the class that was cancelled, and then be ready to move my lesson to the next time we meet. With so many things going on, and with several holidays and school events going on, it gets a bit tricky.

Mr. Hayashi had to go this afternoon to help with a judo event, so he asked me to teach his class alone. Again, this is supposed to be against the rules, but things seem a bit lax around my school. According to my notes, these students had already sat through my first introductory lesson, so I printed out worksheets and notes for lesson two, and then went up to teach the lesson.

The first indication of trouble was when I tried to collect the homework from the last lesson. I got a totally blank stare from the students. I’m used to blank stares, I actually get them a lot here in Japan. As you’ve no doubt guessed by now, it turns out that this was the first time that I was teaching this class. Now I was standing in front of some expectant students with the wrong lesson plan, no handouts for my introduction, no Japanese teacher of English, and 45 minutes to kill. Ouch.

I ended up going through my introduction very quickly, and then jumping into my second lesson. It actually worked out pretty well. The students were a rowdy bunch, especially since there was no teacher to talk them down in Japanese. One of the students was intent on arm wrestling with me, and it was a pretty hectic scene for a while. The only good news was that there were none of my teachers there to see the train wreck.

Tomorrow I’m going to put together a spreadsheet to organize my classes and lessons. I don’t want to get burned again.