Eventful Yet Relaxing Week

It's been a pretty easy week this week. Mid-terms were going on so there were no classes. Monday was a public holiday so on that day we slept in and then went and had sushi for lunch. The rest of the day was spent lazing around the house sleeping and doing whatever. Then on Tuesday Kelly had the day off because she worked on Saturday, so I took a day of paid leave since there was only testing going on at school which doesn't require my assistance. So we went to Shizuoka to get our multiple re-entry permits so if we want to leave the country we will be allowed back in. We heard about a good Mexican restaurant in Shizuoka and we were going to go check it out. It was raining so we bought some umbrellas at the train station and headed into the city. The map we had turned out to be very inaccurate but we eventually found the place after about 30 minutes of looking all around the area and of course it was randomly closed at 1pm on a Tuesday. Very disappointing. The sign out front said closed Sunday but said nothing about Tuesday. And it even said Tex Mex on the door which is exactly what I needed but alas, it was not to be. So we went and had ramen and gyoza. Always a good substitute. After that we went and got our permits done and headed back to Fuji. We would've gone to see some stuff in Shizuoka if not for the rain.

Tuesday night I finished reading a book that I started on Monday. A very quick read for me who usually takes at least a few weeks to read any book whose title doesn't start with "Harry Potter and the..." The book was called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I strongly recommend it. It is a great story that gives a little boost to your outlook on life. Certainly a fictional view of Heaven (for all we know) but very well written with a great view on the meaning of life. So anyway, check it out if you haven't already. It's by Mitch Albom, the same author as Tuesdays With Morrie.

So back to the week, Wednesday I went back to work, planned lessons for next week and played in a teachers badminton tournament. I haven't played badminton since elementary school but I had a blast. It's amazing how you can play a game with a bunch of people who speak a different language than you but once you get started, you just play. Ahh sports, the universal language. My partner, Ito-sensei and I lost both of our games but it was still fun. I'd like to do it again sometime. Then I spent Thursday planning more lessons and grading Oral Communications I mid-terms. It was a listening test about everything we have taught so far this term. We recorded the listening part ahead of time and they played it over the speakers in their classrooms. There were questions from my self-introduction on there. In the recording I mentioned Kelly's name several times and then asked the question on the test, "What is Kory's wife's name?" In my lesson I had talked a lot about Kelly and also mentioned and showed pictures of Kerry and Amanda. So the options were A. Kerry, B. Amanda, C. Kelly, and D. Lucy. Now remember that Japanese students have problems with the L sound because there is no L sound in the Japanese language. So they usually use the R sound for words that require an L. Hence the constant confusion between Rs and Ls. So anyway, Andrea and I graded a total of about 240 tests and we discovered that somewhere around 85-90% of them marked A. Kerry as my wife's name. So there you go Kerry, you're now a girl and my wife apparently. I have to admit that I kind of expected that to happen, but the rest of the test was so easy that that was really the hardest question on there. So I don't feel too bad.

And finally today we had school excursion day as an end of testing week reward for everyone. I went with the first year students. We went hiking to some waterfalls on the Izu peninsula. It was pretty fun and an easy hike. I got to talk with some students a lot so that was very enjoyable. They love practicing their English with me especially in a non-formal setting so it was good that they could break out of their shells a bit. I made hiking buddies with a couple of girls and may have accidentally promised them I would eat lunch with them at school next week. It was neat though because at first they would ask me a question and then I would answer and then they would discuss their next question with each other and decide how to say it in English and then ask me. But eventually as we found out more about each other, we started actually having a conversation, which was nice because that's pretty much what my role is here. Conversational English. So it was good to see it come to fruition a bit.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

The 16HR students on the bus before we left school:













The "haunted" tunnel we walked through:



My new best friends:














Some waterfall pictures:





































My Wasabi ice cream I tried for the first and last time:













Some of the 16HR guys:













Back to regular classes next week. But then Halloween is coming up and the kids love that. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to share of that too. That's all for now.