My first week of work was not nearly as eventful as I thought it should have been. But we'll go in order. S...aturday? Yes, Saturday we (a nice sized group of four) went into Sendai to...hm, console each other on the end of our freedom? That sounds about right. Since we all started work/teaching/stuffs the following Monday-ish. We didn't do much. Wandered around looking for a place to drink, which shouldn't be nearly as difficult as it was, but I guess when one of your party (this is my guilty face) only drinks coffee, it can be hard. Found some other foreigners, apparently Touhoku College students (a local university type place. same place my Japanese professor went to school, actually) and asked them if they knew a good place to drink. They blew us off, as they were snobs and needed to be set on fire. Eventually we found a place. That made really, really good - and really really expensive - coffee. And I got to play Time Crisis 4 at an arcade! +) ~was happy~ Tom (hi!) won a huge-assed chocolate bar in one of the grabby machines. It was funny because he wasn't really trying, but he got so close the first time that a group of girls wouldn't let him quit. He had his own cheering section. =) At the train station a very drunk older man bought us all these glass...jars of sake. Which I pretended to drink and then traded to Tom for his chocolate bar - it went great with my coffee, yo. We managed to get home without train hiccups this time.
Monday I got to meet my Board of Education people and my schools. Which was scary as hell, but somehow I didn't pass out. For the most part they seemed really nice. My junior high school is a little scary because one of the JTEs (the English teachers, or Japanese Teachers of English) has a permanent scowl affixed to his face, and I always get the impression that I should be apologizing for breathing his air whenever I'm around him. And then, of course, I didn't start until Thursday, so I went back to sitting on my bum for two days and freaking out at my lack of a schedule/plan/knowing what the hell I should be doing.
My first day of work, many ALTs can probably relate, I spent sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs. I had to introduce myself to the staff in the morning, where I discovered that self introductions are in fact the bane of my existence. They are my mortal nemesis, and must be destroyed/brought down/knocked off post haste, at all costs. My poor teachers. My morning self introduction was about thirty seconds long, in which I told them everything that the guy that introduced me had already said. Then I sat. And pretended to be busy while everyone else ran around and actually was. I found myself slightly jealous. My monotony was broken up by lunch, which was surprisingly very not revolting. It was actually really good. No nightmares about my own junior high and high school lunches ran through my head. I think they even used real meat. It was so strange.
Some of the other teachers did attempt to talk to me when they weren't busy, and they're really nice. Two gave me candy. +) Then I got to attend the introductory ceremony for the JH first years (the seventh graders). And do yet another self introduction for the entire student body. Which was much smaller than I had thought. But still nerve racking. They had asked me beforehand to try to make my speech about 2 or 3 minutes. Yeah. That didn't happen. And I'm pretty sure no one understood a damn thing I said anyway. *le sigh*
Friday was my second day, and I actually did get to teach a class. It was the special needs class, with three students, and we did greetings and the alphabet. I found this out that morning. It was an interesting lesson. And yes, very bad. But hey, the students were laughing. Whether at me or at me I couldn't say. I still have no idea when I'm supposed to be leaving at the end of the day.
I have also had my first experience driving, which is actually a great deal of fun. But since I've always liked to drive, I shouldn't have worried about it so much. I still forget which side of the road I'm supposed to be on, but I haven't killed anyone yet, so I'm doing okay, I think. I drove down to an AEON center mall thing Thursday night with Reed, the other ALT that lives out here, and got us horribly amazingly lost on the way back. But surprisingly we still ended up getting home without having to stop and ask for directions. I love the road signs over here. They were made for stupid foreigners like myself. Then we met Dan, one of our salespeople and the poor guy I constantly email with stupid questions. Since I haven't actually been anywhere in my town, I didn't know where we could go eat and we ended up in an isakaiwa - family drinking hole - thingy. But neither Dan nor I drink. I did discover a really yummy milky white soda thing that has no alcohol, and if anyone knows what it's called, tell me? Was much with the yum.
And that's...pretty much what I've been doing. Real work for me probably starts next week. Right now I'm debating if I want to go to this ALT sakura picnic thingamajig that everyone's talking about. It's just so expensive to go into Sendai. And I'll stop rambling. I doubt many of you even made it this far though, I probably wouldn't have read all that either, no worries.
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