Sorry about the delay in getting anything new put up lately. I've been out of my mind busy lately, and finally have some time to post some info! So, this last week I've been trying to get ready for Halloween and make sure I could put on a great day for the kids! It actually turned out great!
Early on in the week, I asked Kasuga to help me out by seeing if I could get some help ordering bus tickets to Osaka/Kyoto for this 3 day weekend that is just finishing up. It ended up being a bit of a scare as due to the leaves all changing color, and it being a 3 day weekend, tons of people were heading to Kyoto/Osaka for the weekend, and the original bus I wanted to take to get to Osaka was already full. After some tense hours (it was so busy we couldn't even originally get ahold of the bust center in Nagoya) we finally were able to work out a change in Nagoya and getting me into Kyoto.
I also asked if I could do a Halloween lesson on Friday, and got approved. A big shoutout to Bethany who helped me with the lesson plans for it too. :-P
The week continued to slip on by fairly uneventfully, with classes really becoming a set thing and me just being a teacher. I hate to say it, but it's kinda to the point now where the daily grind doesn't really warrant it's own blog post anymore, so that's kinda part of the reason these are becoming more and more spaced out.
I did forget to mention that last weekend I went to Kasuga's again and spend the night after a nice full evening of drinking with him, his wife, their friend, and their son's ALT from Auz. That was also a great time and I shared some halloween candy with them. Just going to randomly throw that in here. :-P
So, Thursday afternoon I made sure to get the decorations up for the halloween stuff we did on Friday. I also bought a ton of apples and brought my 8 bags of candy with me to school (thanks mom!)
Friday ended up being a fantastic day all around. For the lessons, I had the students play halloween hangman (which they loved, even though the words were difficult), watch thriller and monster mash while they drew pictures of what they wanted to be for halloween, go through a halloween presentation with new vocabulary words (for halloween!), and watch a video on trick-or-treating. Then I had them bob for apples as well. The bobbing for apples was probably the best part, just because it was terribly cold outside adn we had them do it on the balcony to avoid getting the LL all wet.
We also got a pumpkin carved as well and the students loved that incredibly too. A few of the students (even some girls!) were willing to take a shot at scooping out the insides, or carving with the knife. I ended up having some extra classes even, as several smaller classes combined so that even more could get an opportunity to see the haloween stuff. I didnt' wear a costume per se, but my sweatshirt had skulls on it, i figured that kinda counted.
The best part though, was the constant battering I got of 'trick or treat!' by students so they could get candy. The dots were a HUGE hit, and I had saved a bag of smarties and students liked those as well. The candy corn wasn't quite a huge hit, but mainly becuase it wasn't individually wrapped I think (i bribed students by offering them two instead of one since they were smaller).
I would have a line 20 people long of kids who wanted candy. some would be shy and would have trouble coming up, but i made sure to visit as many kids as i could so everyone would get some (again, thanks mom!).
I even ended up putting the jack-o-lantern out in the front part of the school w/ a candle so the students could see/admire it.
That afternoon I went over to nanakubo elementary and showed them pictures of washington (to the 3rd and 4th graders) and I had a great time. I really like the 4th and 3rd grade teachers. Really nice, and the 3rd grade teacher gave me a ride back to school afterwards. The kids LOVED the pictures, and I got lots of "that looks so fun!" about the 'new dawn' park.
I came back to the jr. high and took down my decorations (kawai sensei had already done lots of it for me, which was nice!) and then since I had a ladder to take some down, they convinced me to help them change some halogen's in the room.
this led to a funny conversation with me asking if jon ever had to change light bulbs, and kubota sensei saying 'of course not!' and me responding 'oh, so this was a plan then? convince the new guy that it's part of an ALT's job to change light bulbs? I'll never know the difference!" which they got a kick out of.
I came home and had dinner, and packed up for my trip to Kyoto/Osaka for the weekend, which I just got back from. that's next!
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