A day off, kinda.

Today I got in and found out that I didn't have any classes today:
1st years were painting a picture all day
2nd years were on a hiking trip / visiting a castle
3rd years were taking their high school placement exams.

So I read through the last 2/3 of my Planet Eigo book and picked plans that I thought would be fun to do with students and classes in the future. That took most of my day, but I did have lunch with the 3rd years (I'll be switching to a new classroom each month to help me get to know the students.) and wished them good luck since the english portion was right after lunch.

Then, after cleaning period (which, lemme digress: Imagine how much you could get done if just over 300 students spent 20-30 minutes each day cleaning the school. Man oh man, they hit everything while cleaning and leave the place spotless. I even saw students picking up little bits of stuff from under teacher's desks during the cleaning period. And don't get me started on how they clean the gymnasium. I saw a phalanx of them running back and forth pushing little hand towels with their hands in a gym. And of course, absolutely no talking during cleaning period. I'll get pictures eventually, maybe tomorrow.)

The last two hours of school I spent checking student's tests for english, which wasn't too hard, and tallying up their scores. (the teacher's got a kick out of seeing how fast I could add up their totals.)

On the way home, it was raining, but of course today was the day I had forgotten my umbrella. So I was making good progress home, when not more than 100 yards from school, some car just goes barrelling past me, hits the puddle, and totally splashes me, like a bad 1930's movie. I couldn't believe it. Oh well, it was just water.

The view on the way home was so pretty, since a new storm was moving in from the east, but to the west was a relatively clear sky with low clouds moving along the mountain. The sunlight on all the green rice made it sparkle as well, which was just beautiful.