Journal for 2004-12-21 Tue. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS/Tani Ele.
Tani Elementary School's last Christmas party was today. We sang songs with the kids, played games, and gave out presents. Everyone had a really good time. We also finished the last 9th grade Master B English Class of this semester. The theme this time was "Music." We listened to Christmas songs, and talked about music. I am really glad that I am able to teach those four students!
Journal for 2004-12-20 Mon. Weather: Rainy Plan: Akagi JHS/BoE
Today seemed busy, but it wasn't. In the morning, I taught the last classes for the 8th and 9th graders in the second semester. We learned how to give directions from a train with the 9th graders. The 8th graders listened to a Christmas song and wrote New Year's cards. In the afternoon I went to Tani Elementary School with Signe to plan tomorrow's English activities. After that, I cleaned out my desk at the BoE because it is my last day at the Akagi Town Board of Education. Next year, the Iinan Town Board of Education will move to Tonbara. Starting next term, I will go to the JHS, not the BoE, on my days I don't have plans for.
Journal for 2004-12-17 Fri. Weather: Sunny Plan: Kijima Ele.
I went to Kijima Elementary School with Signe today. Signe only goes to Kijima Ele. about 1 or 2 times a year, so all the kids were very happy. We sung Christmas songs and played games with the 1st and 2nd graders. We studied parts of the body with the 3rd graders. We taught the 4th graders their birth-months. The 4th graders really like English, so their pronunciation is really great. We reviewed fruits and vegetables and played "fruit basket" with the 5th graders. With the 6th graders, we drew some greetings cards. After school, Ms. Kawashima and I recorded our next English CATV show. This weekend Signe bought a new camera. It's called the CANNON PowerShot S70!
Journal for 2004-12-16 Thu. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was interesting. The elections for Student council president and vice-presidents were held today. Only 1 person ran for the Boys vice-president and Girls vice-president, the same as last year, but 2 people were running for president! Naoki Kono and Shun Myoken of the 1st 8th grade class (there is only one...) were the canidates. The canidates and their supporters gave speeches in front of the entire school, then all the students voted. I wonder who will win... In the afternoon, the 9th graders had their year-end caligraphy class.
Journal for 2004-12-15 Wed. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was good. In the 2 9th grade English classes we studied how to take a message. I was embarressed because we showed the roleplay from our CATV show from two months ago. We did it because the theme of it was taking a message. The 7th grade class was short. Before the English class, there was a special year end caligraphy class. All the kids in the school are writing special messages in beautiful caligraphy. In the afternoon, I updated my autoblogger. From now on I don't have to type in the date, weather, and plan everytime!
Today was interesting. I only had one English class today. After that class, I worked on a secret project with the Japanese teacher, Ms. Moriyama. That secret project should be done in a day or two. :) The 8th graders had a sex ed. class in 5th period. I also watched the class. The theme was "the life of a baby." It was taught by a delivery nurse (2 years ago, Japan changed the title of midwives to delivery nurses) from Tonbara Hospital. There were some pregnant women there too. It was very interesting. The delivery nurse listened to my heartbeat. The heartbeat of a child in a woman's belly is much faster than mine. I was surprised! Afterwards, the 8th grader homeroom teacher, Ms. Suyama, showed us a slideshow of pictures of her 2 year old boy. It was way cute!
I worked on the Internet all day today. First, I made my live journal look like my webpage. Then I wrote an HTML editor using Perl and CGI to make translating pages into Japanese easy (comment if you want the source). From now on, I can change pages from anywhere using the web. After that, I continued with my translations of the AniKi page and my personal page, etc. I forgot how fun translating was!
I went to Oda Elementary School today. Everyone's really nice, since there aren't too many people there. The 5th and 6th graders were taught the names of musical instruments. We also sung "London Bridge is falling down" in English. We played the "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" game with the 3rd and 4th graders. In this game, you hide a paper star somewhere in the classroom and one kid tries to find it. The rest of the kids sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in English. When the kid looking for the star gets close to it, the other kids sing louder. When they are far from it, the kids sing softer. The 1st and 2nd graders were taught "What are you doing?" and "I'm doing ~." The 1st and 2nd graders at Oda Ele. are great! They really got it!
I taught my favorite 9th grade master course today. The theme of our conversation was "hobbies." They translated my short essay and afterwards answered a few questions. All 4 students answered very well. We has a skit contest in the 8th grade class! Groups of 4 or 5 performed 3 or 4 minute skits in English! We recorded it with a camcorder. The most interesting skit was with Shun Myoken and Azumi Miyazaki going on a date! It is rare to see girls and boys openly share their feelings together, since this is junior high and all, but the super energetic 8th graders aren't shy!
It was really busy today! I had four classes. We did the same test as we did yesterday with the 9th graders. Recently, the 8th graders haven't been saying anything during the starting greeting, so today I greeted individual students (by name). They were totally surprised, but the students I picked did great. We had a speaking and reading test in the 7th grade class. Most of the kids had good pronunciation. After school I had a planning meeting about the next TV show. Next month's theme is "going to the hospital." We are teaching the adult english class tonight.
Hello all and welcome once again to your monthly dose of Trev. Wherein
lies what's up with me and all stuff like that. And now on with the
report!
Trev's Lovelife
---------------
The big news with Signe (http://signerose.org/ ) and I is that we will
be going to Palau (http://visit-palau.com/ ) for winter break! Signe has
always wanted to go there, and I am really excited about going as well.
It will be our first tropical Christmas. I am really looking forward to
visiting some South Pacific islands. I have been fascinated with small
islands since I was a kid, and I can't wait to finally experience one
for real!
Trev's Work
-----------
I couldn't be happier at work. The students I teach are wonderful, the
teachers I work with are polite and understanding. I really lucked out
with this placement in the JET Programme (http://www.jetprogramme.org/
). Our town is merging with the town next to us starting 2005-1-1 and
that will mean a few changes for me. The BoE is being moved to the next
town over, so I probably won't be visiting it as often. In my idle days,
I will be at the JHS instead. I also have to stop writing my monthly
bilingual article for the town communique. I really like writing it, so
I might ask to have it added again, but all the people in the town
office are being shuffled around, so there is a new person in charge of
the communique. Speaking of shuffling, my supervisor, Mr. Osaka, will be
getting a new job as well. I will have a new supervisor. I really like
Mr. Osaka, so I am bummed about that, but I know that the new guy will
be great too. The TV Show is going well, Ms. Kawashima and I are getting
zanier and zanier as the months pass by. She will leave in April, so I
am bummed about that too.
Trev's Japanese
---------------
Well, the CLAIR (http://www.clair.or.jp/ ) Advanced Daily Japanese
Self-Study course is going well for me. The book teaches Japanese IN
Japanese, so it is a challenge, but it is easy to learn from, so I am
enjoying it. I still get the Nihongo Journal
(http://www.alc.co.jp/jpn/learner/index.html ) as well, and it is quite
a blessing. Again, I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interested in
studying Japanese.
The big thing with my Japanese is that I have started putting up the
diary I write everyday on-line (http://jumex.blogspot.com/ and
http://trevmex.livejournal.com/ for you LJ-lovers) in Japanese and
English. I also put up a daily kanji. Check it out! Actually, I have
been writing in my diary in Japanese for over a year, but have just
recently started putting it on-line.
Trev's Computers
----------------
Again, the biggest news is that I have started blogging in Japanese and
English (http://jumex.blogspot.com/ and http://trevmex.livejournal.com/
for you LJ-lovers). I got annoyed with messing with the formatting
every time to get the posts pretty like I like them, so I spend a day or
so making the HTML+CSS just right, and then I wrote a Perl script to
auto-format my posts from a web form
(http://www.trevreport.org/blogForm.shtml ). I am about half-way done
with writing an auto-poster in Perl (http://www.cpan.org/ ) as well. The
auto-poster I have written works in Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/ ),
but not in LJ (http://www.livejournal.com/ )yet because they don't
support WSSE auth. (http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/12/17/dive.html ), so
I have to use HTTP-Digest auth. (http://rfc3310.x42.com/ ). That is the
only code I haven't written yet. I am using ATOM
(http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/10/15/dive.html ) and XML
(http://www.xml.com/ ) to post, and it works great.
Trev's Anime
------------
AniKi (http://trevreport.org/aniki/wiki.pl?AniKi ) keeps on truckin',
thanks to a couple people that are adding context to it. Thank you to
you guys. I have started reading Afternoon (http://www.afternoon.co.jp/
) again. Mainly for Oh! My Goddess!, but there are lots of other good
comics in it as well. I also still subscribe to Newtype, so although I
haven't been watching too much lately, I at least know what is going on.
Although I DID watch "Howl's Moving Castle"
(http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/howl/ ) in it's opening week. The
theater was PACKED on a workday afternoon if that tells you anything. I
loved it, and will be buying it as soon as it comes out on DVD.
Trev's Games
------------
Zol (Bernie Gonzales of Masuda) has been wanting me to jump back on
Achaea (http://www.achaea.com/ ) as of late, which is a great game, but
I just haven't had the time lately. As for other games, I am am still
really interested in getting a copy of Once Upon A Time
(http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG1001.html ) because it
looks really fun. I've really been in the board game mood these days.
Although I have been logging some Nethack (http://www.nethack.org/ )
time lately as well. The coolest thing I did was finish playing
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
(http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gbadvance/game/35534.html ) which is a
GREAT GBA game! I'm looking for another GBA game as cool as it...
Trev's TV/Movies
----------------
I watched "The Incredibles" and really liked it, as well as a couple
other movies though the power of BitTorrent (http://www.suprnova.org/ ),
but most of our time lately has been consumed with watching Stargate
SG-1 (http://www.gateworld.net/ ). Signe and I are on season 4 right now
and moving fast. REALLY good stuff. I am really enjoying this show, and
if you like SF at all, I highly recommend.
Trev's One-Point Japanese Lesson
--------------------------------
So you want to learn Japanese, huh? Cool! How about numbers!
1 - ichi
2 - ni
3 - san
4 - yon
5 - go
6 - roku
7 - nana
8 - hachi
9 - kyuu
10 - juu
Good luck with your studies!
Well, that is about it for this month's fun filled Trev Report. Until
next month keep having fun, and drop us a line sometime or comment on
the blog (http://jumex.blogspot.com/ or http://trevmex.livejournal.com/
).
Today got a little busy. We had a recitation test in the 9th grade class. After that I prepared for the first 9th grade master B English class ("san-ma-b"). There are only 4 students in that class since it is the highest level English class at the school. We do things like have real English conversations, write in English, and read and translate things I write during that time. That is my favorite class. In the afternoon I held an English activity with the 5th graders at Akana Elementary School at Tani Elementary School. Everyone had fun! :)
2004-12-6 Mon. Weather: Sunny Plan: Human Rights Activist for a day
Today my job has been changed (for the day)! I am a Human Rights Activist for a day! I handed out pamplets and treats to promote Human Rights Week (12/4-12/10) with the two Human Rights Activist employees in Akagi, these two old men. I had to wear a funny sash all day, but I had a good time. We visited the Junior High, Elementary Schools, and the Old Folks Home. After my job was over, I turned in my article for the Akagi town communique. This month will be my last article. They said after the town merger that they wil not need my artcle anymore. I am sad about this, I really liked writing every month...well, what can you do?
I went to Akana Elementary School today. I'm usually in good spirits when I go to elementary schools, but today I didn't have any energy since I have a cold, but that wasn't really a problem. I still had fun with the kids. We practiced 1-5 in English with the 1st and 2nd graders. Since the 1st graders are way too hyper, it is hard to teach them. The shopping game we played with the 3rd and 4th graders went really well. All the kids did simple conversations in English. We practiced writing with the 5th and 6th graders. Everyone wrote their names and addresses in English letters.
This morning was cold! Winter has come! I started writing the article for this month's Akagi town communique. The theme is "The Importance of Physical Education." The 9th grade class was fun. We did another English conversation in a funny voice. I was really happy beacause the students did funny voices too! I prepared the 7th graders speaking test today. Good luck, 7th graders! After school, an employee of the JA Unnan Company asked me for a favor. He wants to buy some Red Savina Habanero Peppers, the hottest in the world, as a gift for a company he is visiting this month from an English website, BUT he doesn't know any English at all. So, he wants me to buy them for him. It is a little annoying, but I said, "OK."
Today was a normal day at the Junior High School. The 9th grade classes were really boring because all we were doing was correcting the end-of-the-semester tests. I had nothing to do. Oh well, what can you do! The 8th graders had a fun speaking class, though.
The big news today was that for Winter Break Signe and I will be spending 2 weeks in the small island country of Palau! Cool, huh!
I was going to use my paid vacation days for the trip, but when I got to the board of education to fill out the paperwork, Mr. Osaka, my supervisor, said, "Why are you using your vacation days? Don't you still have some compensatory time left over that you can use?" Since I never use my compensatory time (this is time I get off for working overtime and going to special events on my days off), it turns out that I have accrued since May over 90 hours of compensatory time!!! That means I can vacation in Palau using only compensatory time! I don't have to use any vacation days! Rock rock on!
