Last night I woke up almost every hour starting at 1:30. I finally got out of bed a little after 6:45. Strange for me, yeah? School started at 9. We observed and helped out in Majelyn Sensei (sensei = teacher) in her English classes. They each lasted maybe 20 minutes and consisted of a good morning song, animal flashcards, games with the animal flashcards, and a goodbye song. Not too bad, plus 90% of the class was in English! (cuz it's a class for learning Enlglish) It was exhausting and kinda confusing and a little frightening because next Monday, WE teach it and Majelyn Sensei is out of the room. Yikes.
Around noon the English classes ended and Madelyn and I were put into 2 different classes of 5 year olds (Shion A and Shion B) and ate lunch with the kids. Lunch was more curry rice, some weird vegetables called borouck? maybe?, and some onion soup. I don't feel good now so something was off about it. This was when the really negative, bad feelings started hitting me. The teacher spoke only a few words of English, the kids could only say things like "my name is", "hello", and "i love you". That was nice to have that little bit of communication but they talked and talked and TALKED! Having twenty 5 year olds asking you questions, telling you stories, and just wanting your attention is great, it makes you feel loved and wanted. But when it's all in another language it makes you feel confused, helpless, and like a failure because you know you can't provide the attention the kids are asked for simply because you can't understant them! They didn't seem to mind much because I still was given stickers for my apron :) Some kids cackled in my face to see my reaction (Eric, this reminded me of you). Others did the splits to show off their flexibility. Others told me they loved me. Others yelled into my ears the names of colors in a mix of English and Japanese based on what flashcard I was holding up. Dad and Mom: thank you for teaching me the few phrases I used in class today like "sit down please", "This is __", "In English __", and " In Japanese __" It was very useful! But other than that...yikes this was a LONG, frustrating hour.
Afterwards, I found Madelyn and we went to the Welcome SAU Student Ceremony under the "Happy Dome". It has misted for most of today so under Happy Dome it felt like everything was covered in sticky spit because it is SO humid in Japan. The ceremony consisted of work out dances, introduction of Madelyn and me, "Yo-ro-shi-ku On-e-gai-shi-masu" spoken en masse very slowly, the Head & Shoulders song, and close to 300 high fives (luckily some kids had to catch the bus so we didn't get to high five all 350 kids). Afterwards was supposed to be our break, but Majelyn came up to us and begged us to teach her last Enlgish class because she had to go into the city for some very important reason. So we fumbled our way through the lesson trying to follow her format from this morning as much as we could. Those poor kids probably have no clue what was happening the entire time! Oh well :) Now we are on break and because we covered for Majelyn, she excused us from Kids Club today which is normally everyday from 3-5pm. YAY! So we have nothing until 5:30 when Majelyn will come back and discuss Tuesday's schedule with us.
Wow. I hope I can make it for another 7 weeks. It's so confusing. I don't understand their expectations of us, but I can tell we're supposed to do more than what was explained to me before I signed up for this trip! What makes not understanding worse is the fact that we have no clue how to make them understand our questions and confusion because they have explained as much as they can. Sigh. I just feel so unprepared. No matter how nice they are, if we fail to come through on something they expect us to be prepared for because they thought we understood everything because we thought we did too....ah! All I know is that there is going to be dissappointment at some point! PLUS! As soon as we kind figure out the schedule, it will be the end of their year and summer school will begin which is a new schedule and new expectations! I think the last day of regular school is July 11th? So yeah, you can see how quickly I expect us to pick up on what's happening here. All I know is I'm very thankful for tonight and the time off in the evenings that we have. Maybe next week I'll be more adventerous and bike to town or at least to the convenience store? That is, I will if it stops raining! But I'd rather have cool and rainy and HUMID! than super hot and HUMID! Moral of the story: it's humid. I'm rocking the curls!
A few pictures creepily taken from the window of our room because I don't know the rule of cameras in the classroom: (click on the picture to make it bigger)
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| Kids from Shion D |
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| Waving hello to Emely Sensei! (they spotted me in the window) |
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| More Japanese kiddos! |
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| Happy Dome! The shower, laundry room, and kitchen are in the small white building in the bottom left. |
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| More playground and more classrooms! |
This evening has given me hope...or something of that sort. We made our own dinner and it wasn't too bad. We had no clue what we were doing which made it fun in a mysterious and confusing way. But we were successful as you can see below:
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| Madelyn cutting up raw chicken. (This is the left side of the kitchen) |
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| Our gas stove atop the oven. And the fridge. (center shot of kitchen) |
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| Cabinets of dishes, rice makers, asian pans, and our food. (right shot of kitchen) |
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| Stickynote on fridge....I hope it wasn't for us! |
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| Crazy Japanese microwave! So thankful we figured out how to work it...took a while. (cooking rice) |
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| Yeah, good luck working with those buttons! Luckily we're good at guessing and used old sticknotes as clues. |
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| Left: weird veggie flavored rice seasoning that tasted like salty fish. Right: dinner! Chicken, rice, and seasoning |
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| Dinner = Success! |
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| Dinner entertainment! (just kdding, we actually watched Aladin...in ENGLISH, baby!) |
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| Good thing these button shapes are international! |
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| Giant remote! Giant humidity! Giant frizz! |
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