Ventilation?
Have I become accustomed to the new year starting? Yeah RIGHT! I couldn’t hate school more at the moment. Well to start off I’ve been having a pretty shitty week. I don’t remember if I told this story before but there’s one elementary school that scheduled me for 6 lessons in one day, and it just so happened that day I got sick and had to go to the doctor. So when I came back the next day I was asked over and over again, “when can you make up the lessons that you missed?”
a) Hello, I was SICK!
b) Since when do teachers have to make up any lessons, especially when they have taken sick leave?
c) They never have to make up any lessons.
d) I’m the ASSISSTANT language teacher, if they feel that English is important that not even one day can be missed than maybe their homeroom teachers should do something about that.
So anyway to get the teacher off my back I tell her that I’ll be at junior high next term and that usually they don’t schedule me classes in the afternoon. So maybe I could come by and do a lesson in the afternoon. Which worked until the plan backfired on me and as soon as I came back from summer vacation she kept asking, on which days I could come. Well just for this occasion I had another excuse ready for her. So when she came and asked me I told her that I haven’t received a schedule for the school yet so I have no idea when I could come. So the way I wanted to play it off was to go to the school and tell my teacher to keep me at junior high. But one thing I didn’t think of was the all-ALT meeting we had that Friday before the “make up week.” I assumed that it would just be the ALTs but it just so happens that a teacher from each school had to be represented at the meeting also. Which means that my junior high teacher and the crazy school would also be present at the meeting. Anyway they got together and decided my fate for the next week, which is junior high classes in the morning than ONE elementary class, and then back to the junior high school to help with some speech competition. And so half of my days this past week have been me on the bus going from school to school and back again. To make matters worse, the task might have not been too bad if I could ride my bike but there was a Typhoon that was threatening to come since Monday, which made the days rainy and humid. Anyway its Thursday now and there’s just one more day of this hectic schedule. Everyone around me has been telling me that I’m crazy for going to two different school in a day and maybe I am but the kids at the crazy school are really good and I would do almost anything for the kids. The teachers on the other hand…well not teachers but the manipulative politician of a principal and non-informative English supervisor can go (Add Vulgar Verb) my ASS!
Ok so what has happened this week… this past Saturday we went to look for tickets to go back home during the winter. We thought it would be pretty easy but we were totally wrong. Lots of the tickets have already been booked and it seems that we might have to use more vacation days than we originally planned. So anyway we reserved a pair of tickets and went to another place to check out prices. It seemed like the first place we went was our best option but the only thing was that we needed to buy the tickets within three days. So we waited it out until the last moment and bought the tickets. So yesterday I went to pick up the tickets and everything was good until I opened my email. The second place we went to said that they had good news and they were able to get us cheaper tickets and better dates. ARRRGGGHHHH! What do we do? We bought the first pair of tickets with a credit card so it should be easier to get a refund right? Another thing is that the first place we went to is the person we always go to see if we want a ticket of any kind. She helped us a lot by extending the dates for deposits and getting us the best possible seats and etc. So it feels kind of un-loyal to go with someone else. Anyway we still don’t know if we can return our tickets so let’s not fret…yet.
On Tuesday we had our first Japanese lesson. We’re getting lessons from the Kyoto-Shi Prefectural Advisor’s wife, Michiyo a.ka. “The Miich”. She’s really cool and because we hang out with the P.A. so often that Miich has become a good friend too. Anyway Krystal and I decided to take Japanese Language Proficiency tests. Why? I guess to get the internationally recognized certificate that says that you have a certain proficiency level in Japanese. Anyway the tests range from Test 1-4. 4 being the easiest and 1 being the hardest. I’m taking 3 and Krystal is taking 2. Everyone said the fourth test is really easy and for people that didn’t know any Japanese before coming here. But I have taken a lot of Japanese in my academic career so I didn’t want to cop out with taking the easiest test. Yet you need to be mildly converse-able like Krystal to take level 2 or 1. So anyway Miich was giving us an idea of what the test might be like so that’s what the first lesson was like. She’s really good in explaining the material in easy English so I think the test is going to be fine. Krystal on the other hand has to work her ass off to know 1000 kanji to be at level 2 caliber. I only have to know about 300 and supposedly I leaned them somewhere in high school and/or college. Supposedly the gap between level 3 and 2 is the biggest compared to the other test levels.
So other than that nothing much going on here in Kyoto. We’re trying to organize a trip to Hiroshima during on of our three-day weekends in September. We might even be able to meet up with Lisa and Jesse and her boyfriend. It was kind of weird hearing that Jesse got a boyfriend. It’s not like a care or anything but because we hang out with Lisa so much that I kind of thought of Jesse like a younger sister too. Ehh what can I say, I’m getting old.
Break it down
a) Hello, I was SICK!
b) Since when do teachers have to make up any lessons, especially when they have taken sick leave?
c) They never have to make up any lessons.
d) I’m the ASSISSTANT language teacher, if they feel that English is important that not even one day can be missed than maybe their homeroom teachers should do something about that.
So anyway to get the teacher off my back I tell her that I’ll be at junior high next term and that usually they don’t schedule me classes in the afternoon. So maybe I could come by and do a lesson in the afternoon. Which worked until the plan backfired on me and as soon as I came back from summer vacation she kept asking, on which days I could come. Well just for this occasion I had another excuse ready for her. So when she came and asked me I told her that I haven’t received a schedule for the school yet so I have no idea when I could come. So the way I wanted to play it off was to go to the school and tell my teacher to keep me at junior high. But one thing I didn’t think of was the all-ALT meeting we had that Friday before the “make up week.” I assumed that it would just be the ALTs but it just so happens that a teacher from each school had to be represented at the meeting also. Which means that my junior high teacher and the crazy school would also be present at the meeting. Anyway they got together and decided my fate for the next week, which is junior high classes in the morning than ONE elementary class, and then back to the junior high school to help with some speech competition. And so half of my days this past week have been me on the bus going from school to school and back again. To make matters worse, the task might have not been too bad if I could ride my bike but there was a Typhoon that was threatening to come since Monday, which made the days rainy and humid. Anyway its Thursday now and there’s just one more day of this hectic schedule. Everyone around me has been telling me that I’m crazy for going to two different school in a day and maybe I am but the kids at the crazy school are really good and I would do almost anything for the kids. The teachers on the other hand…well not teachers but the manipulative politician of a principal and non-informative English supervisor can go (Add Vulgar Verb) my ASS!
Ok so what has happened this week… this past Saturday we went to look for tickets to go back home during the winter. We thought it would be pretty easy but we were totally wrong. Lots of the tickets have already been booked and it seems that we might have to use more vacation days than we originally planned. So anyway we reserved a pair of tickets and went to another place to check out prices. It seemed like the first place we went was our best option but the only thing was that we needed to buy the tickets within three days. So we waited it out until the last moment and bought the tickets. So yesterday I went to pick up the tickets and everything was good until I opened my email. The second place we went to said that they had good news and they were able to get us cheaper tickets and better dates. ARRRGGGHHHH! What do we do? We bought the first pair of tickets with a credit card so it should be easier to get a refund right? Another thing is that the first place we went to is the person we always go to see if we want a ticket of any kind. She helped us a lot by extending the dates for deposits and getting us the best possible seats and etc. So it feels kind of un-loyal to go with someone else. Anyway we still don’t know if we can return our tickets so let’s not fret…yet.
On Tuesday we had our first Japanese lesson. We’re getting lessons from the Kyoto-Shi Prefectural Advisor’s wife, Michiyo a.ka. “The Miich”. She’s really cool and because we hang out with the P.A. so often that Miich has become a good friend too. Anyway Krystal and I decided to take Japanese Language Proficiency tests. Why? I guess to get the internationally recognized certificate that says that you have a certain proficiency level in Japanese. Anyway the tests range from Test 1-4. 4 being the easiest and 1 being the hardest. I’m taking 3 and Krystal is taking 2. Everyone said the fourth test is really easy and for people that didn’t know any Japanese before coming here. But I have taken a lot of Japanese in my academic career so I didn’t want to cop out with taking the easiest test. Yet you need to be mildly converse-able like Krystal to take level 2 or 1. So anyway Miich was giving us an idea of what the test might be like so that’s what the first lesson was like. She’s really good in explaining the material in easy English so I think the test is going to be fine. Krystal on the other hand has to work her ass off to know 1000 kanji to be at level 2 caliber. I only have to know about 300 and supposedly I leaned them somewhere in high school and/or college. Supposedly the gap between level 3 and 2 is the biggest compared to the other test levels.
So other than that nothing much going on here in Kyoto. We’re trying to organize a trip to Hiroshima during on of our three-day weekends in September. We might even be able to meet up with Lisa and Jesse and her boyfriend. It was kind of weird hearing that Jesse got a boyfriend. It’s not like a care or anything but because we hang out with Lisa so much that I kind of thought of Jesse like a younger sister too. Ehh what can I say, I’m getting old.
Break it down
posted by Chris at 2:21 AM
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