it's been a while
Mostly with my base school's English Day, which was last Friday (17th) - about 130 people came to watch the 5th and 6th grade English classes, so I had a ton of work to do, both leading up to the day and on the day itself. Of course no one else at school stops to think about how doing these big come-and-watch-English-class days put so much more stress on the one foreign and non-licensed member of the staff! Unlike everyone else, who only has to deal with one class, I had to deal with both classes, *plus* decorating the entire school with English signs, pictures, labels, etc, plus coaching the teachers in their English pronunciation, plus sitting in on endless meetings in Japanese! There were days when I didn't get home until 7PM (I'm supposed to be off at 4:40), and still didn't feel like I'd done much of anything productive because I was just sitting in meetings that had nothing to do with me for hours on end! Thank god it's over, and my students were all great - especially my 6th graders, who are just fabulous! Their class was on directions, so we decided to have the kids show around the various teachers who came to school. They had to approach one of these strangers, ask them where they'd like to go, and then direct them there, all in English, and stop and point out other classrooms along the way. During this I wandered the 2nd floor (their homeroom teacher was on the 1st), and I heard kids going above and beyond the call of duty, showing people the fish in tanks and asking questions of their person, etc. It was awesome! So proud of them.
Coming up is also busy - I've joined a Yosakoi (pseudo-traditional Japanese dancing) troupe, and we have 3 performances in the next month (next Sunday, the following Sunday, and 11/7). I've also got my base school's Sports Day the 16th, another school's Presentation Day the following week, and my base school Presentation Day 11/14. All in all I have *one* free weekend between now and the end of November! Crazy. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, since most of that is fun, but still, it'd be nice to have a breather!! I was so glad to have last Monday and Thursday off to just recoup from everything (thank you Japan and your crazy national holidays! Respect for the Elderly Day and Autumnal Equinox Day for the win!).
Completely unrelated and random, but probably brought on by the people at my barn saying I should buy this new horse they have, Ocean Color (and if it weren't so expensive to ship a horse to the US, I *would*! He's an amazing horse, and wicked cheap too - $5K for a 5-year old who can jump a meter and has both lower level dressage and jumping training!), I had a dream last night in which I'd bought said new horse. The best part (besides it being a dream and therefore an amazing horse ^.~)? I'd named the horse, a gelding, Hikaru Genji! God even in my dreams I'm a major nerd! But honestly, would that not be perfect?? Ok, maybe it'd need to be a stallion, but still!
One other random thing that happened today: I was driving home from riding today, with the windows down, the music up, and singing at the top of my lungs (as per usual). Now, there's this one stretch of road where there are 2 lights really close together so you often get cars stopped going both ways. Whenever I stop there (or anywhere next to another car), I glance over to see if their windows are down, and if they are I roll mine up so I don't bother them. Well the car's windows were down so I continued jamming to 'Don't Stop Believing' :-D Just before the light turned green, I heard clapping. Looking over at the other car, I saw that the two little kimono-clad ladies had rolled down their windows and were applauding me! So embarrassing, but amusing!
Coming up is also busy - I've joined a Yosakoi (pseudo-traditional Japanese dancing) troupe, and we have 3 performances in the next month (next Sunday, the following Sunday, and 11/7). I've also got my base school's Sports Day the 16th, another school's Presentation Day the following week, and my base school Presentation Day 11/14. All in all I have *one* free weekend between now and the end of November! Crazy. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, since most of that is fun, but still, it'd be nice to have a breather!! I was so glad to have last Monday and Thursday off to just recoup from everything (thank you Japan and your crazy national holidays! Respect for the Elderly Day and Autumnal Equinox Day for the win!).
Completely unrelated and random, but probably brought on by the people at my barn saying I should buy this new horse they have, Ocean Color (and if it weren't so expensive to ship a horse to the US, I *would*! He's an amazing horse, and wicked cheap too - $5K for a 5-year old who can jump a meter and has both lower level dressage and jumping training!), I had a dream last night in which I'd bought said new horse. The best part (besides it being a dream and therefore an amazing horse ^.~)? I'd named the horse, a gelding, Hikaru Genji! God even in my dreams I'm a major nerd! But honestly, would that not be perfect?? Ok, maybe it'd need to be a stallion, but still!
One other random thing that happened today: I was driving home from riding today, with the windows down, the music up, and singing at the top of my lungs (as per usual). Now, there's this one stretch of road where there are 2 lights really close together so you often get cars stopped going both ways. Whenever I stop there (or anywhere next to another car), I glance over to see if their windows are down, and if they are I roll mine up so I don't bother them. Well the car's windows were down so I continued jamming to 'Don't Stop Believing' :-D Just before the light turned green, I heard clapping. Looking over at the other car, I saw that the two little kimono-clad ladies had rolled down their windows and were applauding me! So embarrassing, but amusing!