my first day of school. . .

8:15 arrive at the board of education

8:35 leave for the elementary school opening ceremony (tatekun “relax, relax, relax”)

(i should mention the night before. . . 19:00 finally leave work, 20:00 eat dinner while memorizing self-introduction in japanese, 21:00 head down the hall to deliver a practice speech to the teacher whose name i still cannot remember. . .21:20 receive a gift of orange juice with a note from the same teacher “do your best”. . .the most popular phrase in japan, especially among educators. . . okay back to my first day of school)

8:45 blindly follow the elementary school principal down the hallway and into a gymnasium filled with children ages six to twelve, stand up front with four little boys (who i finally figured out were new students), give speech when prompted, stare blankly at the principal as she turns two of the new students towards me and speaks rapidly in japanese, finally realize that she wants me to speak to them in german, mumble a few words. . . enough to satisfy the two poor boys and the principal. . . haha, my amazing german skills. . . i tell one person that i speak a little and suddenly i’m the new counselor for german exchange students??? hmmm. . .apparently there are a decent number of them that come through kahoku. . .anyway. . .

8:55 ushered out of the gymnasium and into a car to attend the junior high school opening ceremony. . .

9:00 stand through ten bows (no exaggeration), listen to the school song and principal’s speech, glance at tatekun every two seconds in confusion (hoping for a clue as to what is happening), stand through six more bows, eventually make my way to the front of the gymnasium to give my speech in english (with many blank stares in return) and then japanese resulting in a huge applause, stand through at least seventy more bows (maybe an exaggeration this time) and a presentation of awards, finally make my way back to the office after forty-five minutes of confusion, receive many congratulations. . . “perfect” being the most common. . . many feelings of relief. . .

10:00 leave for the elementary school (no escort this time), chat with the principal and secretary in a bit of English but mostly Japanese. . . i think my Japanese is finally beginning to improve! . . . finally go to my first class at 10:30. . .

whew. . . that was enough to do in a day. . . i still have not recovered from the random prompt to speak german in front of the entire school. . . prompting done in japanese (which I barely understand). . . my mind does not switch between languages that quickly. . . i don’t even know who told her i had studied german! haha. . . it was fun. . . it would be nice to improve my german and japanese a the same time. . .

oh, so my first class was insanely cute! they were tiny little first graders. . . their teacher had tons of energy and prepped them a bit for my arrival. . . to begin class, their leaders said “let’s learn english! attention! bow!” . . .so cute! . . .they loved all of my visuals and managed to introduce themselves and tell me foods that they liked . . . we then sang two songs (“head, shoulders, knees, and toes” and “seven steps”). . . i taught them how to say english goodbyes. . . off to my next class. . .

the fifth graders were okay in class, but it was difficult to jump levels like that without knowing anything about how their past instruction. . . before class started, i tried asking one student a question. . . he was quickly surrounded my six other students who were keen to help. . . everything in japan seems to be done in groups. . . fun at times, annoying at others. . . today, i realized just how long it has been since i have entered an elementary school!! i’m used to junior high and high school students because of camp. . . i have somewhat of an idea when it comes to preschoolers . . .but elementary?!?!? that was a difficult one to judge. . . so. . . the fifth grade class went well. . .just not as well as the first grade class. . . the good news was that we had a chance to bond over lunch, where i had to make little rolls with seaweed sheets, rice, and random foods (some with tofu, others with tuna. . . i tried with this fried tofu stuff, but i guess i was wrong because the students all laughed at me and then teased this other boy because i was following his bad example). . . after lunch, two of the girls took me to the library to read me a book in japanese . . .

finally, i had the third grade class. . . i thought this would be easy after having the older ones and the younger ones. . . just something in between, right? . . .hmmm. . .their class was huge (almost 40) and their teacher was not nearly as helpful. . . i think she was just afraid to use english. . . anyway, we all made it through. . . i taught them a song. . . they all rushed up front to help me with my materials and ask me questions afterwards, so i guess it went better than i thought. . . oh, does anyone know where ミラン　is in america? it sounds like milan to me, but that doesn’t help. . .it was in some book this girl had read. . . i felt really bad that i couldn’t answer her question because she was trying so hard!

how do teachers do this? i am exhausted! this heat doesn’t help. . .and no air conditioning in the schools? ugh. . .oh!. . . any tips as to how to keep myself interesting? i cannot handle giving this self-introduction ten more times (probably more). . . i am tired of me already. . . didn’t know that was possible. ;)

okay, that is more detail than you need. the following is my intro speech. . . enjoy!

はじめまして。
エリンジーンアレクサンドラグローツです。
エリンとよんでください。
私はアメリカのカンサスしゅうのハイランドからきました。
私のまちは千人くらいのまちです。
ことしのごがつにミネソタしゅうの大学をそつぎよしました。
大学でげんごがくとダンスをべんきょうしました。
日本にきたのははじめてです。
みなさんよろしくおねがいします。

Random articles. . .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/business/4201154.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/wales/south_east/4197306.stm