I’m not dead yet!
Ok so I made it. I survived the kids.
The kindergarten went surprisingly well with Oku (the town area foreign affairs overseer person) translating and insisting on me doing a bit on Ireland… I am from Ireland in Japan because to say United Kingdom gets complicated and I figured I’d tell them Northern Ireland, but they just assume it’s part of ireland and I’m not of a proficient enough level of Japanese to discuss international politics, unless it can be covered by “Hello, I am John, I’m fine thanks, oh look it’s raining, best go home, see you tomorrow!”
So yes…
I did my bit on Ireland which took up half the time! Then we did animals and numbers and other such gunk.
The afternoon was a little harder. To begin with I thought it started at 4:30 (working backwards from a 6:20pm ending with 3×30 minute classes and 2×10 minute breaks between them) turns out it started at 4pm (the classes are 40 mins long…) but it was ok I think as I left early to go to the postoffice and arrived at about 4:10pm, so I just went on through the first break (the kids only have one class each, so it was really only me not getting a break).
But this lead to panic on my part and a total abandonment of any preplanning I had made… Which made for a very haphazard first class… Which was the only one parents sat in for…
The second class was much better, we learned animals and played bingo with first letters…
The third was the best (and the oldest) I got them into two teams (3 girls vs 3 boys, the oldest rivalry known to mankind) and we played “spell the thing on the card in your notebook to get your team 3 points” game. It went down rather well and was hastily invented cos I couldn’t figure out how to play bingo with spelling. But they left with a hankering for some bingo as I think they had been told by John (Elliot) that they would get to play it this week…
So it all went rather well, althought not smoothly at many points.
Today we went to the Aomori Christian Center which is an awesome place with great grounds and Bruce, the caretaker, is kinda like the electrical version of Tim the Toolman Taylor with a garage/workshop full of junk, including his own high voltage Jacob’s Ladder, an in development three-phase power generator and other such goodies.
There we had a short service, a barbecue and a concert. I think it was like a camp reunion for a summer camp that was at the center over the summer (duh).
On the way there and back I had a lift with Masa-san. Masa-san is a member of Ajigasawa church (beside me in the back row of the congregation picture) who drives a Subaru Legacy. Not that impressive til you sit in it as he puts his right foot to the floor and the 3 litre flat 6 engine pushes you into the back of your seat. It’s almost (thought not quite) a rival to Mark boy’s VR6… The biggest problem was his putting his Abba MD on. Acceleration isn’t the same with Dancing Queen playing…
All in all a good day!
I added a few photos to the gallery, one of JET Sarah in a tumble dryer (A JET is a native english speaker who comes to “assist” teaching english in schools on the JET programme…), one of the Aji church congregation (minus Elliots, plus Takases who have just left) and one of some singers at the camp thingy today.
