Weekend!

There's some ridiculousness that happened this week. Let's start small, with the "bingo" board I made today so that the kids can learn prepositions (in, under, on). They started off simple enough, but I got bored... and got creative:



The chair is on the bear! The Kangaroo is under the box! The Rhino is under the desk!

The main event was wednesday, when my junior high school had some sort of open house for all the teachers in the area. Not only did every school from Higashidoori send a contingent of teachers, but so did some from neighboring towns/Mutsu as well. It was intimidating to be doing a class and having a good 10 extra people in the room, most of whom you know and one is from Oklahoma.

In the end everyone seemed pretty happy with what I did. It seems to have opened some sort of door, too, because folks at my main school actually started conversations with me today, which was exciting.

Also saw a Japanese play about conserving energy. I didn't pay to get in. A friend (another ALT) was the token foreigner randomly inserted into the play to excite the crowd. I won't go into details, partly because the whole 2 1/2 hour ordeal was very boring, but mainly because I couldn't understand a single blessed word they said.

"Ok, so that's the dad right?"
"The grandmother is a guy in drag, right?"
"Why is that dude dressed like a horse?"
"Wait, wait, are the lyrics to this song actually 'please save energy, Shimokita'?"


Oh, and at Oippe I helped make the third graders make squid-stuffed-squid. Sorry the picture is crooked, but, um, deal.