Erina

At the morning meeting today at Bunko, the vice principal went on and on for a quite a while about something that had happened recently. From his tone, it sounded important but I couldnt what he was saying. Something about what was on the news (tv and newspaper).

Later, I found out what had happened:

Yesterday, an ex-student at my school was found killed in a hotel in Yagami. She was a second year student last year, and quit half way through the year. She was a very talkative girl, always got in trouble, always made class interesting! I couldnt believe it when i heard she was killed.

The police are still trying to find the killer. It happened in a hotel right behind the Joyfull restaurant that I've been to oh so many times.

Her name was mentioned in the news this morning, so most of the students here know about it, or had already heard of it through friends..it's really strange to know that she's dead. And the fact that it happened here, in quiet Yagami!!

I think I'll be closing my windows from now before going to sleep.

Lunch with Uchida sensei

Uchida sensei and I snuck out for lunch during school today. Tagawa sensei, Uchida sensei and I had been to this one particular restaurant several times last year.

It's a very classy/posh kinda of restaurant. Lots of effort goes into making the food look very artsy..!


We especially liked the all-you-can-eat dessert they had... BUT, when we got there…we found they no longer had all-you-can-eat!! How disappointing..

So we had to content ourselves with just the one dessert each. Maybe it's all for the best. I've been eating wayyy too many sweets recently..!

It was a fun outing during school; it was a nice break from school work.

Change deco in OC room

For Halloween, I attempted to give the Oral Communication room a more 'Halloween' feel to it..so spent some time decorating the room.

Since Christmas is coming up soon, it was time to give the room a more Christmasy look. I had some time this afternoon, so I picked up a bunch of stuff, mostlyfrom the hyaku en store (dollar store). When I got back, I got started on the decorations. Later on, Shimasaki sensei, then Kitano sensei came up to help.

There's a decent-enough stereo system in the OC room which we had playing while getting workd done...We ended up having a lot of fun spraying the windows, near accidents falling off chairs trying to swings things over the lights...!Time went by so fast...it was suddenly almost 6:30pm!!

The end results:

I finished making the display to congratulate the winners in each class for the "Best Japanese Cultural Presentation".

Here are pics of some of the groups:

Cleaning Time

Everyone at school is responsible for keeping the school clean. There are no janitors…instead, there is a 15 minute ‘cleaning period’ during which teachers and students will clean the school building and grounds.

Everyone is always very careful about how they dispose of their garbage. In the staff room, there are over 6 different kinds of bins. When I first got here, I had to check with teachers before I could throw things away. (ie ink pens, scotch tape, etc.)

Teachers oversee groups of students who are assigned to different areas of the school, and cleaning supplies such as brooms, vacuum cleaners, garbage bags, wipers, toilet paper, rakes etc..can be found in closets spread around the school.

All the garbage must be separated into burnables, non-burnables, plastic, and other. Once garbage bags are brought from all areas of the school to the garbage area behind the school, one of the groups of students’ job is to sort through the bags and make sure garbage is correctly separated.

The idea of having ‘cleaning time’ is so engrained in how Japanese work here…it starts when they’re in pre-school. It makes the kids become more responsible for their actions in regards to littering.

I’m responsible for the cleaning in the Oral Communication room. Some of the cleaning that’s done in the OC room: chairs are pulled to one side of the room in order to vacuum the carpet, while some students clean the windows, dust the TV and VCR, erase the whiteboard, make sure the markers for the whiteboard work, change the garbage, clean the shoe shelf, etc. There's usually very upbeat music playing over the loud speakers during cleaning time…I guess that’s one way to motivate everyone to move faster!

Here's a couple of pictures from today's cleaning time with the 1st year students who are assigned to the OC room:

I had my camera in the classroom because the period before cleaning time was when the last class was doing their Cultural Presentations. I took pictures of each group that presented, with the intention of blowing up the picture of the best group in each class to stick up in the OC room.
Anyways, since I had my camera, we took some pictures :)

Thanksgiving Dinner

Amber had a little Thanksgiving get-together at her place this evening. Turkey is not easily found in Nagasaki (if at all..), but she wanted to make this as authentic a thanksgiving as possible..so decided to order a turkey from Fukuoka.

It was pot luck, lots of delicious food! Some stuff I'd never tried before that I learned is traditional Thanksgiving food... for dessert, lots of cheesecake and pumpkin pie. Yum!

I don’t usually do anything special for Thanksgiving, so this was a nice change. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Amber displaying the pumpkin pie before piling on the whipped cream, Jeff doing the dishes and Amanda helping things go faster by threatning people with a carving knife..!

Most of the gang that showed up for dinner

'Someone' had a little too much drink... and became a little sleepy..

Amanda took advantage of poor Tomohiro and whipped cream all over his nose!

Ready to call it a night...

Trying to prepare for the JLPT

I intended to spend most of this weekend studying for the Japanese test coming up in a couple of weeks. I tend to get distracted when I try to study at home, so went to study at the Tarami library. My school is near the library, so on the way, I stopped by with Amanda to watch a kendo match that was going on.

Despite having taken kendo lessons for almost 4 months, I'm still not sure of all the rules. But then again the teacher didn't speak a word of English, nor did any of the other students. So I mostly learned by copying what the teacher would do. I ended up quitting because it was difficult to get to practice on time from school...That was before heading back to Canada...so..almost a year and a half ago. Man, has it really been that long since I was taking lessons??

I met up with Kawano sensei at the library. She corrected the many exercices I had done in exchange for me correcting some of the english essays that she was having trouble with.

While at the libary, I got a call from Iwakura san (NSA member) about the caretaker from Osaka coming to Nagasaki to fix the lock on the Baha'i center. It'll be nice to meet him.

Later in the evening, Sasaki sensei came over for some informal japanese conversation. He's a nice guy, but tries so hard to be cool....!

All in all, it was a fun and productive day. I think I'll be all right for the listening, and kanji recogniztion part of the Japanese test. Even the reading comprehension should be ok. However, i'm worried about the grammar section...........

International Day at Isahaya Commercial H.S.

I spent the day at Isahaya Commercial High school where Amber and Alex work as ALTs. Amanda is also at this school as an exchange student.

Today, Amber had organized an English day and invited several ALTs from the surrounding areas to come participates in the activities. The main activity was a play that each group presented.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Amber and I

Some of the students

This is the group I worked with, we came in second!!

Ended the day by going out to dinner to good ol' Pietro (an Italian restaurant)

The days are growing shorter, the weather is getting cooler...but not cold enough to have to start using my kerosene heater yet. I'm still stubbornly sleeping with all windows and doors open in the evening. I love being warm in bed when it's cold outside..!

I read about the earthquake that hit the north of Japan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6150538.stm), but we didn't feel anything down here in Nagasaki.

I will be heading to an all-Kyushyu high school debate contest to serve as a judge in a couple of hours. I have never been, so I'm not sure what to expect. I received a 12 page information package about the debate, almost all of which is written in Japanese...I wonder if there's anything in it I'm required to know?......

Speaking of Japanese, my Japanese test is coming up soon on Dec 3rd. I plan on spending the next couple of weekends at the library studying for it...as it stands now, I wil not pass the test..!!

I've always been proud of the fact that Canada resisted participating in any of the US-led wars. However, maybe Canada played a more pivotal role than we were lead to believe....?

An eye-opening presentation about Canada's involvement in the war in Iraq /Afghanistan..

http://coat.ncf.ca/Slides/3in1/001.htm

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so."

-Mark Twain

Bunko's Cultural Festival

I was surprised to see Kawano sensei! I haven't seen her since last April...she was doing well, although her grandson who was in the car was feeling a little under the weather. She was heading to the hospital with him.

The program began with a group from Tarami performing the Yosakoi dance. Before begining their second dance, they got the students to stand up and join in. Kocho sensei (the principal), and Kyoto sensei (vice principal) as well as some of the teachers were dancing as well…..I was loving watching it and taking pictures until one of the dancers ran up, grabbed my wrist and pulled me up as well I was so embarrassed!


I had invited Shimasaki sensei to come, and was happy that she showed up! I was asked to serve as a judge for the dances put on by each section, and the decorations in each of their rooms. This year's decorations were soooooo much better than the last 2 years! It showed that a lot of effort had been put into them!

One of the sections had turned their classroom into a planetarium.

Another had created an entire city all done with papercraft.

The third class went with a Halloween theme and decorated their room with pumpkins and skulls etc.

Students love to pose!

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to!...I had a great time :)

Today was the last day for students to prepare for their cultural presentations. The first presentations will begin on Monday! They've put so much work into them, I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

At the morning meeting, we're going to invite any teacher who is free and interested to come see the presentation too. Many of the homeroom teachers have already said that they will be coming. We'll also be filming the presentations!

Iwata san came over this evening. I haven't seen her in the last couple of weeks cos first I was away in Kochi, then she was in Korea for a week. It was good to see her again and catch up! She brought over some homemade korean kimchi that she learned to make on her trip. Good stuff...(hot!)

Babies visit school

This is the first time I've heard of babies being brought to a high school to give the students a chance to interact with them....

For 3 periods in a row today, one of the 1st year classes spent time with a group of mothers and lots of babies (5 months - 3 years old). The 40 students played and read to the kiddies. They chatted with the mothers about what it's like to have children.

Each section of 1st year students willl take turns this week spending time with the babies. I thought this was a neat idea for the kids to have a chance to interact with babies..

Rockstar Roxy

Wow, you sound amazing Roxy!!

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=139470

Kochi Trip (Nov 2-6)