May 30, 2005

Today was very, very long. From now on, every Monday is going to be very, very long. I have Japanese lessons at 10 am in Tsudanuma on Monday mornings. I work at Tsudanuma at 4 pm on Mondays. The lessons are like 12 feet from my classroom! So I am in the same building from like just before 10 am until 9 pm every Monday. Oh, hey, I just found my train pass. I thought I had lost it. I was leaving the school tonight and missed one train because I couldn't find my pass. I searched everywhere that I could, considering that I was in public and I store it under my bra strap when I'm getting on and off the train. I don’t have pockets. Like I have said before...I keep all sorts of things in there, not just the usual bra contents. And so here it is. Never mind. I found it. And back to the original train of thought, my teacher is this cute little old man. He used to work for some big company, it sounded like as a designer or engineer or something. I like him a lot. His parents moved the family to Korea just before the war and after the war they were in a, he called it a, "camp" in North Korea. And then he said, "But then we leave" and made a motion of running and flung his arms out. I said "escaped?", he said "So, so, escape". Oh my!! He's just a volunteer with the International Association. He kept saying that he's not a real teacher, but he loves to teach people the Japanese language, "so let's enjoy together". I love him. He had three pages of stuff for us to cover in the hour and a half. It was pretty easy, considering I have taken Japanese before, but there was still a few things that I learned and the rest was a really good review. We will take it slow. He gave me a first little topic of introducing myself. He kept saying that I could say this or that to my students to make them feel more at ease. I wish I could. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we're discouraged from using any Japanese with the students. I still do sometimes, but do so discretely. I don't think I could manage to do a full introduction with a student in the "lobby"/"waiting area" without it coming back to haunt me. But I loved the lesson anyway and I will take a lot of it to bed with me tonight to read over again. It was a great lesson in learning for me as I found that I wanted time to practice it verbally with him, but didn't get the chance. It was perfect timing as I have some tough classes on this day (we won't even talk about CFH "Class From Hell" today except to say that we went over the meaning of "Go to Hell"...I would like to clarify that I was not the one who brought it up first.) It meant that I was able to go back to my school room and plan my classes with a whole lot more to them than what I've been doing. I've been anxious to get at my Japanese lessons in the hope that it would help me to understand what to do in the classroom. It has. It will only continue to have an impact on my teaching, I'm sure.