This morning myself and a bunch of other Assistant Language Teachers went to a Halloween party hosted by the International Adventure Club in town for Elementary School kids. I was a little worried, but the kids all had a great time. We did an apple bobbing game that went great, but my Japanese explaination was crappy in my opinion. I need to work hard to seriously study. This afternoon, Signe, her parents and I enbarked on our last vacation with them here.
Today I went to the always fun Kijima Elementary School. The days are always busy at Kijima Elementary. I taught 5 classes today. Ms. Fujikawa's 4th graders are really good! Everyone works really hard at English. The teachers at this school always have interesting plans. In the 6th grade class I studied and memorized all the children's name kanji. After school I went to the Board of Education to prepare for tomorrow. :)
Today was a very quiet day. In the 9th grade second class we continued to study "how to ~" I showed them how to draw the 1-10 number face. In the 8th grade class we had a Summer Work test. Everyone did their best. In the afternoon I studied a lot of Japanese. After that I worked on my weblog software. Today I actually sent one message successfully! This evening we created an interesting English-teaching TV show for next month!
I had a lot of classes today. At 1st period we taught the 7th graders. The 7th graders are always energetic, but they don't study seriously. We didn't do anything special in our 9th grader class. The 7th graders' master class was fun. The master class is for the bad students, but most of the kids in the class know English well. Of course, there are low level students as well... In the 8th grade class we continued reading "The Emerald Lizard."
Today was a quiet day. I only taught one real class. In 1st period we had an 8th grade reading class. We started reading "The Emerald Lizard," which all good ALTs know all too well. Ms. Suyama and I think that the most important thing is to understand the meaning of the story in English. It isn't needed to translate the entire thing.Understanding the English only is the best, I think. In the afternoon I had a class with Kenta. Most of the time was spent playing games.
Today we went to the always fun Tani Elementary School. Before that though, I worked at the Board of Education (BoE). At the BoE I prepared for the Halloween Party on 10/30. I ate lunch with Signe's parents at the roadside dinner. In the afternoon we taught at Tani Elementary School together. Paula brought her harp with her. For most of the students, it was the first time they ever heard or saw a harp, so everyone was very happy. After school we finished preparing the pickleball court. Then, we played some fun pickleball!
First Day Today was the first day of the Chalenge Cycling event. At 7:20 AM we all gathered together at the roadside dinner near our house. Then all of us, some people from the board of education, myself, and about 30 3rd to 6th graders from town, went to Hiroshima by bus. Once we got there, we chose our bikes. Tomorrow we will go to Shikoku. Tonight we stayed at an old elementary school on Omishima Island. These days the school is a youth hostel called the "Shimanami Kouryuukan." Today we rode about 50 km. I was tired, but we had yaki niku for dinner, so I was very happy.
Second Day The second day of the Challenge Cycling event went very well. We only went about 34 km, but it was harder. I had some salt ice cream on Hakata Island. It was weird, but tasty. The most difficult place was Oshima Island. On the other islands we we rode on the coast, but on Oshima we had to go through the middle of the island. When we got to Imabari in Ehime we bought some gifts. We went back to Akagi by bus. I two days we went 80 km by bike! I am tired, but it was fun.
Today I had fun at Akana elementary school. The children wer very lively. Akana elementary has the most kids of all the elementary schools in Akagi. There is 77 kids. There was one more special person that came today. He is called Mr. Dandy, and he is a music pro! He brought and played many different musical instruments. After school I went to the board of education and prepared for this weekend's big event, "Challenge Cycling."
Today was the County Jr. High School Marathon. The students and teachers that were not in the race cheered the runners on in second period. In third period the 9th graders cleaned up after the typhoon of yesterday. I helped out in the gym. In the fourth period we had an English class in the first 9th grade class. We did the same thing as we did yeserday in class. The rest of the time I studied Japanese. I will do my best to study!
What a magnificant typhoon! This typhoon is getting as fast as 55 mph! The entire school was sent home after lunch. Before we went home, I taught the 9th graders 2nd class with Mr. Mochida and Ms. Kawashima. We taught how to teach "henohenomoheji." the target grammer was "how to ~." I think everyone had a good time. In the afternoon, I thought about the plan for tomorrow with Ms. Kawashima.
Today is a rainy day. I love rainy days because when I was a kid rain was pretty rare in LA. Even though it was first period, the 8th graders were energetic today. It was because we started the class off with a game. After the game, everyone's eyes were open. In the 7th graders class we has a speaking test. I was pleasantly surprised because most of the students could do it. My neighbor, Miss Takahashi, was the greatest!
Today was good, but I had a headache all day. In the morning I did some preparation at the Kaizen Center for tomorrow with the Borad of Education staff. Tomorrow, there will be two meetings at the Kaizen Center. In the afternoon I went to the Tani Festival with Signe and her parents. I played the drum, and the parents played the symbols. Signe wore her kimono.
I spent the day relaxing at home with Signe's parents. I slept some in the afternoon because of a really bad headache I got. Most of the day I spent working on the computer. I'm still writing my blog script. I want to make it easy, but it is still a little hard to understand, I think. Well, I'll work hard on it!
Today was really fun. I taught English at Oda Elementary School. My favorite days are those when I go to the elementary schools. The children always have a lot of energy. They make me energetic. That being so, after lunch I got a headache from the cold I am still fighting. After classes, I went home early and got some rest. This evening Signe's parents are coming here from America. Hooray!
Today was cold! I was working all day long at the Board of Education because it was a day-off at the Jr. High School. The Jr. High School teachers went to see some exhibition classes at Tonbara Jr. High School. Alicia, the ALT in Tonbara, had an exhibition English class. I wonder how she did... I still have a cold today. I feel really bad. Most of the day I spent writing a blog script.
Today, I only ony taught two classes. I had a cold all day. My throat really hurt. My voice was strange too. That being so, during class most of the students understood my strange voice. In the 8th grade class we played a jigsaw sentence structure game. Everyone had a good time. In the 7th grade class we spent the time studying for the mid-term test that is the day after tomorrow. The 7th graders are good kids, but they still act like children...
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AniKi, The Free Online Anime Encyclopedia - Read, Enjoy, Contribute
Ah, today was busy. The 8th graders were sleepy because it was 1st period. I don't like 1st period all that much. Actually, I didn't like 1st period when I was a student either. But, the 9th graders were very energetic today. During class, I did a dialog with Saki Okumura. Saki is always quiet, but I was surprised to find out that her English pronounciation was very good.
As well as my LJ blog (at http://www.livejournal.com/users/trevmex/) I now have a blogger account at http://jumex.blogspot.com/, so check them both out. I am using w.bloggar (http://www.wbloggar.com/) to post to both of them.
Don't forget to check out the contest at AniKi (http://trevreport.org/aniki/wiki.pl?AniKi) for anime fun and prizes!
Signe (http://www.signerose.org/ ) is working hard these days. She is an Assistant English Teacher (not with JET) working one day a week at the main High School in Miyoshi City (http://www.city.miyoshi.hiroshima.jp/ , the closest city to us here). She also recently got another job in Miyoshi City, teaching a weekly conversation class at the TRW (http://www.trw.com/ ) plant. Signe's little brother had a good visit with us, and I am glad that he could make it. Her parents will be arriving this month, and we are looking forward to their visit. Signe will be trying for the JET Programme (http://www.jetprogramme.org/ ) next year, so with any luck we will be able to have a double income in 2005 for one year, which will help with our student loans a lot, but it might entail living apart for a year, which is a prospect I am less in love with, but we will see how it all unfolded as time goes on.
Work is going great. Our English Conversation CATV Show (aired on Iishi Dream Net http://www.i-yume.ne.jp/yume/index.html ) is getting more and more fun these days. Kawashima-sensei, my co-host, and I have been doing skits to demonstrate new English, and they are really fun to do. I get to be kooky on camera. It's great fun. September was the Sports day month. I went to four Sports Day activities and had a great time. Next is Culture month, which is coming up in November. We will have Culture Days for all the schools in town. A culture day is basically a day where the kids show off the stuff they made, to performances, and have a good time. I am looking forward to it. In other news, the mid-year Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) Conference is coming up next month, and I volunteered top be a presenter at it. I will be doing a talk entitled, �Teaching the Best, Teaching the Worst.� It is about methods if teaching very high level and very low level students in the same classroom that I have found effective. I am still looking to apply to the ALT Prefectural Advisor (PA) position in January, but something has come up. My town (http://www.town.akagi.shimane.jp/ ) and the town next to us (http://tonbara-shimane.wikiverse.org/ ) are combining to make a new town called Iinan. Because of this, my supervisor wants me to decide if I want to stay in this town for another year in November, instead of February, like most JET participants, because they only want one ALT in the new town (there are currently two, one in my town, and one in the town next to me). If I don't get the PA position I want to stay here, but if I do get it, I want to take it. I am a little stressed about it, but I am sure that it will all work out in the end. I'll keep you all posted.
The Nihongo Journal (http://www.alc.co.jp/jpn/learner/index.html ) has turned out to be a great help in learning Japanese for me. I am also working on my kanji (Chinese characters in Japanese) at work as well. There are around 1945 general purpose kanji I have to memorize, so I have a long road ahead of me. I have been doing some translation though. I have started translating my web pages into Japanese (http://trevreport.org/indexj.shtml ) slowly but surely. My Japanese isn't the best, but I can only get better if I put my neck out there. I have also been translating strings in FSF (http://www.gnu.org/ ) software into Japanese. I have finished translating gmult ( http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/translation/registry.cgi?domain=gmult ) and am now working on the strings in the nano text editor (http://www.nano-editor.org/ ). If any of you are interested in translating programs, I found a great program that assists in translating .po files (which are standard translation files), called poEdit (http://poedit.sourceforge.net/ ), it's free (as in beer) and it works great in Windows XP. Which brings me to...
I did finish writing a simple version (http://trevreport.org/soft.shtml ) of robotfindskitten (http://www.robotfindskitten.org/ ), but besides that I haven't been doing anything but web programming. As I said, I am translating my web pages into Japanese. I also made a bunch of CGI scripts in ksh to aid in the process. I have an index.cgi script that detects if you are coming from Japan, and if you are, you are redirected to the Japanese site; otherwise you are redirected to the English site. I also made a button at the bottom of the screen that with take you to the Japanese page or English page using a script that automatically changes the name of the file to load. While I was at it I added a real back button at the bottom of each page as well. Man, I love shell scripts and CGI. As for my home computer, XP SP 2 has been treating me well since I made all those tweaks to it (http://trevreport.org/ttr/tTR040908.html ) last month. Signe and I have basically been using the computer here solely to download movies from BitTorrents (http://bittornado.com/ ). We are currently downloading all of Stargate SG-1 (http://www.stargatesg1.com/home.html ). I was having a moral dilemma about downloading movies and watching them, but we always delete them after we watch them and we aren't selling them so I guess I shouldn't freak out about it. And finally, if any of you like text adventures and math, I highly recommend "Beyond the Tesseract." You can find it at http://www.wurb.com/if/game/211 or telnet to sdf.lonestar.org/ and play it there. It is good times.
I haven't watched much lately. But I do still have the contest at AniKi (http://trevreport.org/aniki/wiki.pl?AniKi ) to see who can add the most content to the site by the 21st. So check that out. Greyface has been doing his part, thanks! I haven't been watching too much stuff lately, the lack of anime-watching friends in the area has made me less inclined to seek it out, it seems, but there is an anime fan in me, sleeping and waiting to return to the surface one day.
