Young mamas and a hungover Japanese Teacher of English (JTE)

April 3rd Saturday

So I woke up bright and early this morning to get everything ready to go say goodbye to Yuki, since she`s leaving for Mashike this morning at 8:30. Or so I thought. Turns out she left alot earlier, like at 8am because of the bad weather and it takes her 3 hours to drive to her new town. She sent me a text message, but I didn`t read it until late. So it was already too late to see her off. But I did call her later to tell her goodbye. And we`ll definitely still keep in contact.

Afterwards, I headed for the train station to take a 4 hour train ride down to Muroran to hang with Steph for her Easter brunch on Sunday. I got there at about 1:30 and was amazed at the largeness of the station! It was huge and beautiful and the building was pretty neat too. You walked out of the ticket eating machine and are in a large hall that had benches facing the wall made of windows. You could see part of the city from there. It was pretty awesome.

Steph came to meet me and we headed off to go eat. We ended up going to this quaint little cafe tucked away in an alleyway called Coala. Not koala, but coala. Heh. It was cute and decked out with koalas and Australian parapernelia. I ordered a milk sekki which was apparantly like a milk shake, except not...And Steph had this interesting looking concoction of lemonade with red wine floating on top. It was pretty good though. We also ordered sausage and shrimp pizza! That was yummy. We sat there talking for awhile longer before we headed back out to do some shopping for tomorrow`s feast.

At the supermarket we loaded up on booze and ingredients to make my peanut butter balls and Steph`s clafoutie. Originally, we were going to go to my friend`s to have dinner since she said she`d prepare a Chinese meal for us. It sounded amazing, but unfortunately, Steph and I had alot to do that night in preparation for the next day so we decided to just eat at a local restaurant around Muroran. Two other girls came as well! And we decided on curry ramen because I had really wanted to try it. And it was absolutely amazing! One of the best kinds of ramen, ever! So damn good! But, it just sprayed everywhere as we ate, which is why Steph was smart and wore a t-shirt on top of her nicer shirt to keep it from getting dirty. lol The owner chatted us up a bit as we payed our bill. Interesting man.

We then went to a place called "Thriller" which was some mix of a dungeon and cemetary themed karaoke box. We got a nice room, drank lotsa alcohol, and sang our hearts out. Then we all parted ways and Steph and I decided to go try Muroran`s famous yakitori at a little izakaya we`ve never been to. The food was good, although the design of the place could`ve been a little better. Anyways, we went home, drank more alcohol and got to working on dying eggs and making my peanut butter balls. And she had real Skippy peanut butter! Like wow! I haven`t seen that in forever! Oh man, and the taste was the real thing. Ah, American peanut butter, how I have missed thee. Japanese peanut butter just tastes like peanuts. But I guess it`s somewhat healthier for you because there`s no added sugars...lol

April 4th Easter Sunday

Easter brunch time! Many foreigners in one small Japanese apt makes for crowded. And there were also so many people that were brought by other people whom neither Steph or I knew. It was kind of way too many people to have at the brunch. Someone also invited another family to come along, and they had 2 lil girls. They weren`t bad, actually. The kids were wonderful and the family was interesting to talk to. But there were just so many people there I wasn`t sure what to do with myself. Steph seemed pretty stressed out, so I decided to go help and chill with her. We had a couple shots of sake (well, steph more than myself) and a nice walk outside to calm us down. I like parties, but once they get too big to be able to have a good conversation with individual guests I kinda shrink away. I like to have parties where everyone`s involved in every conversation or at least together. But parties that form groups and cliques I don`t do too well with.

Steph, however, even under all that stress and wiggin out, did a good job of hosting the party. Everything went well, and the food turned out well. All in all, a good party. At 6pm I headed for the train station to catch my train back to my town. I arrived at 11:30pm and soon passed out on my bed. lol

April 5th Monday

Entrance ceremony for my nursery babies. They`re so cute and fidgety! Oh babies. I stayed the whole day at the nursery today because classes/school haven`t started. The teachers at the school all ordered some sort of bento and I ordered one as well. OMG it was amazing looking! I ordered a set that consisted of shrimp tempura soba, 6 pieces of sushi, tsukemono, and chawanmushi. SOOO good! And they delivered it all for us. Check it out in my photo album on facebook. Other than that, nothing else really happened this day.

April 6th Tuesday

Double entrance ceremonies. One at the elementary and one at the middle school. The first one was the elementary for the new 1st graders. It was sooo cute! All the 1st graders wore lil suits and dresses. Their parents were all crazy nicely dressed. Like, the dads were in suits and the moms were in kimonos and suits/dresses. I wanna wear a kimono...with a hakama. Those are cool. So, yet another formal ceremony where all my babies were pretty nervous looking. But upon seeing my face, many of the 1st years that I taught at the nursery got all excited and lit up. I`m elated to know that I am the cause of that. haha.

Oh dude, the moms. They are sooo young looking! No, they are young! And there are 36 kids this year! That`s alot of kids in one class, especially for a small town. I mean, a town of 3,000 or so people and 36 couples in one year all decided to have a child! For a large city that`s nothing and normal. But for a town as small as mine? The more I think about it and look at the trend that`s been going on lately, I feel like, for many of these mom`s, having a child is the thing to do. Like it`s a trend and they`re following it. I mean all the moms are the same age or relatively the same and many of them are friends. And there are other factors with it too. It`s just that many of these moms are having children just to keep up with the family image...I don`t know...I`m not saying it`s bad to go and pop out a child so early. But, maybe it`s because we`re in the countryside, that there`s nothing much else to do. I`m just making an observation. =P

So after the kids had their ceremony, they had a short orientation with their new homeroom teacher and went on home. All the other grades did the same. After, I left to go to the middle school`s entrance ceremony.

Man, all my lil 6th graders are so grown up now, wearing their uniforms and all. I can`t call them 6th graders anymore either since they`re now middleschool 1st years. This has to be my favorite class of all time. Amazing kids, they are. Anyways, they were sooo nervous looking! When I went up there with all the teachers to introduce ourselves they had pained nervous wreck looks on their faces. lol It was kind of funny actually, to which I made fun of them for it later. hehe.

So by this time, I was already pretty tired of all the ceremonies and all the long-ass speeches that are always made at every ceremony. I was already starting to fall asleep on them. Seriously, these speeches are given by 3 people with boring monotonous voices, each lasting about 10 minutes. Ridiculous! Way too long to keep any child`s attention span, hence, me falling asleep. After the ceremony, however, everyone went home and I went back to finish up at the elementary.

April 7th Wednesday

Today, the new middle school 1st years get to learn about the clubs they can join. Each club got up to showcase their activities and practices which was really cute. lol They also got the 1st years involved in some demos. I got to talk to my 1st years alot today, so i`m happy.

After school I headed to the gym that`s only open for late hours on wednesday night. Weekdays it opens from 10am to 5pm, but I sometimes don`t get out of work until 5pm or 4:30 making it difficult for me to get in workout times. But on Wednesday nights they open from 5pm-8pm. Yes! So it`s my first time going in there and I wasn`t sure where it was in the health center and I wasn`t expecting it to have much. When I got there, my friends who work there were surprised to see me. I told them I was here to use the training room and asked where it was. Mizutani-san showed me around and then took me to the training room. I stepped in there and was amazed!! It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. I imagined the little gyms they equip you with at apartment complexes in the states with only 4 or 5 machines available. But, omg, this place was huge compared to that. I mean, it`s no ARC at UCI, but still. It had 3 treadmills, 6 bikes (half of which are different types of bikes), 3 weird looking stepping machines, 6 different weight lifting machines, a section for old people to work out, an assortment of dumbells, and mats.

But the two most amazing and surprising things were 1)the massaging stones course and 2)the relaxation capsules. You know those smooth stones embedded in the floor and you walk on them to massage your feet? Well, they have a full indoor course of it! There are different sections in the course with different sized stones and placed sporadically. So, some areas feel good to walk on, whereas others just hurt. But it`s supposed to be good pain. And you ahve to continue this course for 5 minutes to get the full effect. It hurts, but I know it`s good for me. lol I`m kind of masochistic like that. The other thing is the capsules. These things are made for the purpose of relaxation and sweating. You lie in these capsules and it becomes a sort of sauna where you can adjust the heat. It has vibrations, a timer to wake you up if you fall asleep, a music head set, and even aroma therapy. And best thing of all is that it`s all free!!! FREE!!! Woo! I was like, i can`t believe this place is so high tech and yet everything is free! I spent a good 2 hours in there lifting weights and using the one mirror they had in the room to practice dancing.

April 9th Friday

OMG, this morning was ridiculous!!!! >.< I knew this morning that my JTE was not looking too good. I just wasn`t sure what was wrong. Before the morning teacher`s meeting he told me, "Theresa, I need to talk to you about class plans for today after the meeting." Usually, he won`t say that to me and just gives me the plan before class and I go along with it. So I knew something was up. After the meeting he just looked at me and said "Theresa, I have a really bad hangover today. I`m really hungover from the PTA welcome party last night." Oh great. Great! Hangover! And...? "Well, I won`t really be able to teach today, so can you please take over and do games and activites and use the textbook with the students instead?" And this was 15 minutes before my first English class...of the new school year. Outside I just looked calm and laughed and gave a kind of uncertain look before saying "Yeah, alright. No problem." But in my head I was really thinking, `You have got to be kidding me.` 15 minutes before class and I`m supposed to come up with a lesson plan to teach for the whole hour? For the other classes we have today too!?? 15 minutes!!! I was seriously not prepared for this. At all.

So I was scrambling to find a lesson plan and to think of something. And I managed to come up with something. Although while in class, I was actually making alot of shit up as I went. Some kind of idea would just pop into my head as I was teaching and I`d carry it out. The class was okay. I taught the 2nd years first. They were a little confused as to why I was teaching and I didn`t want to tell them because that would be inappropriate I thought. But then my JTE just went ahead and told them, "Oh, I`m not feeling too good today because I have a hangover from the PTA party last night." And I just stared at him for a minute because I just couldn`t believe that he said that! Never had any teachers I knew ever say that to their students. Like, did you really just say that to the kids? Well, whatever, I tried to make the class fun and enjoyable for the kids. I mean it wasn`t as good as the classes I have planned out before because I only had 15 minutes, but it still went well. My JTE just stood to the side....trying to get a hold of himself.

After class he told me he was feeling a little dizzy because everything seems to still be moving around, like the floor...Oh good. Anyways, the second class was my 1st years who were my 6th grade class last year. My fav. They are so good at English that it surprised my JTE. He just asked me to lead the class in what they know so that he can guage what he needs to teach them later (and so he can recuperate). I was totally fine with that as I know this class very well. And my students trust me in teaching and remembered that English was fun for them. So they let go of their serious hard-at-studying selves and followed me into weird English land. =P Good kids. Even my mentally disabled kid was able to read ABCs and spell and say actions in English. So proud of them! I told the JTE afterwards to just use mostly English with them because they can handle it. He was quite surprised at their high level. Well then, shows you that these kids can handle anything!

Afterwards I had the high school`s entrance ceremony. Yet another one. I endured through that too, but I started drifting off alittle. Anyways, after the ceremony I came back to the middle school and lounged around, tired.