This past week and a half has been pretty low key. I've been doing a lot of teaching and I stayed in Aso for the weekend. The students are doing community work this week, so I was able to make my English board for October.
I've also heard from other ALTs that they've had success making English newsletters for their students. I decided to make a monthly paper titled, The Nicole Times (creative, I know!) Each issue has a quiz/word search/cross word etc. and the student from each grade that turns it in the fastest will receive a prize.
Late October is also the English speech contest. The strongest English speakers from each grade (junior high) memorize a passage and are judged on their pronunciation, intonation, speed, clarity etc. I've been working with these students during break time and its been nice to get to know some select students especially well. They are working so hard but there are just some sounds they really struggle with, most notably th's, r's and l's .
The highlight of my weekend was my Sunday trip to COSTCO! Never have I been so excited for shopping in bulk! The Costco is in Fukuoka which is the prefecture to the North of Kumamoto. It took about 1.5 hours to get there by car, but it was well worth the trip! I went with a fellow Aso ALT and we did some damage... The funniest thing about the trip was that most of the Japanese shoppers only bought a few things (which looked ridiculous in their massive carts.) I couldn't help but think, why come to Costco if you're only going to buy a bottle of wine and some laundry detergent? But my reaction to the Japanese shoppers was tame in comparison to the ones they were having in regards to my cart (filled to the brim...)
Everyone that walked by was staring - it was pretty hilarious. My friend is almost fluent in Japanese now (this is her 5th year) so she would translate for me while I witnessed jaw after jaw dropping to the floor.
We had some great finds at Costco, Amy's organic burritos, western cheese (the cheese here is processed and tastes horrible) Halloween candy, and my personal favorite - bread from the La Brea bakery in Los Angeles! I couldn't believe it when I saw it - but I can spot their brown and maroon packaging anywhere! We then drove back to the 'moto (as we are now calling Kumamoto) and I snuggled up to watch Lost in Translation. I hadn't seen it before, but since it is about being a foreigner in Japan, I had been told I needed to see it before I got too accustomed to living here.
So much about that movie is spot on - if you haven't seen it, I recommend it. Then come visit me and watch it again!
Today was an interesting day though. This morning I had a health test given to all employees of the City Hall (where the Board of Education is.) One of my teachers was there and took me under her wing guiding me through the different stations even though she doesn't speak English. Things started normally enough with the usual - eye test, hearing test, height, weight etc. but then came the blood test and they couldn't find a vein. They made me sit with a heating pad on my arm while they all beckoned each other over to see what the problem was.
After finally and successfully drawing blood, they had me lie down while they put sensors all over me. They also put these claw like things on my wrists and ankles to test who knows what. After I passed that stage I had to go to a van for what would be my first ultrasound. Yes - ultrasound. Not being pregnant, this was a little surprising as I had the warm goo rubbed all over my stomach, but hey, it's Japan. I'm sure something they found in there was helpful?
This evening I had my first shodo (calligraphy) class. With every stroke I made, my sensei said 背語彙！which means amazing. I tried hard not to laugh as I had literally just moved my brush across the paper, but maybe the foreigners she had taught before weren't too good. Nice to see my USC Fine Arts education is helping me out in some way!
And now I'm back and about to go to bed. I'm trying to get all rested up for my long weekend in Hiroshima (stay tuned for the post)! Wish me luck with the typhoon in the mean time!
