Glico Man

Konichiwa everyone!

So much has happened in the last few days.

My first day of teaching went well. It was by all definition not perfect but I really enjoyed myself. I had six different classes scheduled and one of them canceled.

The free time lessons went ok. I had one adult businessman, two university giggling girls, and one high school student who was way too smart to be in high school.

I also had two kids classes. The first one was more like being a zoo keeper than an actual teacher. They threw me into a room with 6 five to seven year olds. Half were boys and the other half were girls. Just imagine what you were like at that age and how much you got away with when there was a substitute teacher.

Ya it was that scary. No not really. I did have troublemakers but everyone was having fun anyway, they were all acting like wild animals but they played the review games and everyone had fun. I have to say that the clowns that were goofing off were actually my favorite.

I will have to learn how to maintain order in the classroom though.

My second kids class were only two students. A brother and a sister. They were Gods gift to teaching. They did everything I asked, calmly. They were smart and smiled. They had fun and we got through the lesson.

I think that what we have here is an example of the two ways a class can go. Crazy and loud or quiet and  calm.

The staff at this school was fantastic! The other English teachers introduced themselves and showed me around. I had some great conversations with the Japanese staff as well.

Later on that night I met up with the other teachers from my training group for a victory beer at Torikizoku by Higashi Umeda station. There was a middle age foreigner waiting outside so I walked up to make small talk.

His name was Steve and he was from Australia. He has been going back and forth between Osaka and Sydney for the last 25 years. He was real nice and so we got to talking. Apparently he owns his own company. He owns a racing company with over thirty race cars and motorcycles.

The conversation was good and so I invited him to join my friends and I for a beer. Long story short, it turned out that this guy was a millionaire, like a real one, and he treated all of us to whatever we wanted. He paid for the food, the beer, everything!

Sometimes it does pay to talk to strangers.

I just called Personnel and got my schedule for the day. I will be at Tennoji Station School subbing for the free time lessons there. Basically I go to the school at 3:45 and do administrative work (that's a fancy way or saying handing out fliers and making photocopies). I am basically on call there until 5:20 after that, if they don't call me to work someplace else then I stay at that school and teach until my shift ends at 9:35.

A long day ahead, and my second day of teaching.

Here we go again!

My schedule

Yay so I signed my contract today. I get Thursday and Friday off work every week.
The schools that I'm teaching at are in Nara, Wakayama, A sub day (that means they can send me anywhere to sub) Nd some other rural citythat I can never seem to remember the name of.

I'm so excited because half of my students are little kids and the other hLf are split between teenagers and adults so I get to teach everyone!

Also Nara is one of my favorite cities and I work two days there a week.

I Am a little nervous about Wakayama though because they Re still on tsunami watch. It's only for the next two weeks though.

I guess I just have to get used to that kind of thing.

I will be teaching over 25 classes a week so I will be busy.

Sorry about the typos I'm on my phone.

What's shakin' in Osaka?

Sorry it took so long to update this but it took me a wile to gather all the information.

So here is what happened in my neck of the bamboo woods...

I was training on the 9th floor of my building with about eight other foreigners. We were being entertained by the window washers repelling  down the side of the building and looking at all the nice Gaijin in the Gaijin tank.

I took their picture thinking that it would be one of my best Facebook updates yet.

Just as we went back into our lesson, I felt dizzy and a strange thought went into my head. I thought why is that window washer pulling the building back and forth.

It took me and the other two native Californians about two seconds to recognize that it was an earthquake.

This one was different somehow though. In Cali I'm used to the short and violent type quake that gives everyone a good jostle. This quake was a slow roll.

About thirty seconds into it, the Lois Lane in me thought, I should be updating this as it happens. As I was Facebooking, the teachers from other parts of the world who had never experienced and earthquake before were trying to stay calm.

 Quakes are common place for me, but they were in a different country, 3000 miles from home, swaying back and forth like a palm tree for the first time in their lives and they were able to keep their cool. RESPECT.

After about three to five minutes the rolling slowed and then stopped.

We had no idea how massive the quake was until later.

A Japanese woman came on the loud speaker and an alarm went off. They told everyone to stay away from the windows and to remain calm and in the building.

Throughout the day we got word on tsunamis and other warnings. My heart aches for those hurt by this disaster. I am not to ashamed to mention that I feel completely relieved that Osaka did not have any great damage.

Throughout the rest of the day we continued training and tried our best to deal with the aftershocks.

Thank you everyone for your concern. Please don't feel worried any longer, for now everything is fine.

If you have any questions please ask me and I will try my best to find an answer for you here.

Just a side note, we all went out for beers together after it was all over, best beer of my life.

Round Two, FIGHT!!!

Today is round two of the demonstrations.

This time it's the upper levels.

I need to remember all of the steps and do them with confidence and in the correct order.

I don't feel prepared at all but sink or swim, I'm jumpin' in.

Stand by for the results.

Victory Dance! Cha Cha Cha

All that prep work and help from my fellow teachers in training paid off.

I passed the lesson and quite nicely if I do say so myself. I can't tell you how good it feels to make a someone who insulted me, EAT THEIR WORDS!

To be honest the lesson was kind of a blur and I messed up a small section at the end but...I am free to move forward.

I think that now that I have a better idea of what they are looking for, I will have no huge problem jumping through more of their hoops, even if they light them on fire.

After that terribly terrifying experience I just wanted to crawl into a corner, curl up into a ball and rock slowly back and forth singing 'rock a by baby'. But instead was given two new textbooks to review and homework to fill out.

This is quickly becoming the longest two weeks of my life.

On a lighter note, I got a taste of Osaka rush hour on the way home.

Imagine a can of sardines. Now dress the fish in suits, add an overcoat, umbrella, and handsome atachet case and hire a man in white gloves to push more fish into the can every time the door opens and you have Osaka rush hour.

It was very entertaining but I think that I was the only one on the subway amused.

By the way, thank you so much everyone for cheering me on! I am not out of the woods yet but I will continue to do my best. I love and miss you all.

A long way to go.

Training yesterday was a disaster. They have an entire script to memorize word for word and that is how you are to teach every class.

I am more of the free willed type so even though I tried my best to conform to their lesson plans word for word, I failed miserably.

I was the only one out of the 6 people training who was asked to meet on the eighth floor for a meeting. Will, my trainer respectfully told me that I was falling behind and that I need to do a great lecture tomorrow or he does not know if I will be able to complete the course.

Needless to say, I was floored!!!!!

I had no idea I was doing so poorly. It is only the third day of training and they told me I was the weakest link.

Everyone has been real supportive about it and my new friends bought me dinner last night.  They are all going to help me prepare for the lesson today so I can rock the demo tomorrow.

Man after Prague I thought that anything ECC could throw at me would be nothing in comparison. Maybe that's where I went wrong. This is an entirely different country with entirely different expectations. 

Oh well, not much to do now but to work hard and continue to do my best. 

God got me to come here for a reason, and even though I am not quite sure anymore what that reason might be, I trust him. 

Please pray for me because today and tomorrow will be difficult. 

I've had a shot to my pride and a sucker punch to my self esteem but fight the good fight!!!

To Arms Everyone!!!!!

Don't text and bike.

Well, today ha been nice.

Woke up late, ate some Japanese corn flake type things, put my laundry in my washing machine and then left to run some errands.

I left the apartment with two objectives in mind, the first was to purchase a case for my iphone, and the second was to buy milk and bread at the market.

Here is what actually happened...

Walked down the street and decided to call my Mom via skype. Talked to her on the phone wile dodging several bicycles screaming passed. Three out of the 6 bikes that tried to take me out had a teenager texting and cycling.

I know, same drenn different country.

I safely made it to the downtown area when I hung up with Mom and remembered that there was a magical land under the street in this area. This magical land is called Tennoji station and has an underground market with mystical and spectacular treats.

Naturally, I turned away from the department store that sold the iphone case I needed and proceeded to get pulled like Odysseus by the Sirens of tasty magical treats near by.

I walked out the opposite side of the station with two homemade pork buns for my dinner and a small order of shu mai.

When I emerged from Tennoji station my stomach began to growl. Just then I remembered there was a cafe I wanted to try in the building in front of me. Ok I will have lunch there I thought.

Delicious sandwiches and a slice of strawberry cake later I started heading home.

On the way home I remembered that I needed milk and bread so I stopped into the market.

Long story short I walked out with everything but the milk and bread and returned to the apartment.

Now I write this blog having done nothing I set out to do.

I guess that's something I have to work on.

...The pork buns were delicious.

Day one... complete.

Like any new job there is always orientation. Yesterday was so much sign this and fill out that, we need another password and a four digit code, here is your manual and your homework.

I expected as much.

The next two weeks are going to be a rat race to the finish and then after that, I am a substitute teacher for the first couple of weeks.

I wonder if they through spit balls in Japan.

Anyway still having fun but not looking forward to the hard work ahead.

Let the training begin, and what was that I ate last night?

Good morning adventure seekers!

Do I have a tale for you. I have discovered, with the help of Mike the Softbank cellphone guy, the whereabouts of none other than the Billy Banks. Or the late night infomercial Tae Bo kickboxing super star. He has a school near my end of the city.

You can imagine my sheer joy at this find. As soon as training for ECC is over, I will do some snooping to see if I have what it takes to be an ultimate Tae Bo kickboxing master, and maybe find those abs I lost in college.

On another note, dinner last night was about $7 and was fantastic. Good old fashioned Japanese comfort food. The Omelerice. All one word meaning an omelet filled with fried rice and then covered in mild curry with raisins. So good and a great price for dinner here.

Training today begins, and I have lost 2 kilos. Whatever that amounts to.

Love you all!!

For all to see.

A blog is a new experience for me. I suppose everything is lately. I hope that everyone enjoys this and I would love any suggestions to make it more exciting.

Today I am going to make a run to find my schools headquarters because I can't be late for training tomorrow.

I have learned that here in Japan "on time" is thirty minutes early, "late" is when you arrive at the time they tell you to be there, and any form or late is unacceptable.

I have to navigate the subway and Japanese Rail system today. I don't have the best sense of direction and have gotten lost nearly every day so far.

I will ask if one of my neighbors want to go with me today. They seem to know what there doing.

I think that the first two weeks that you move to any new place it is required that you spend at least two hours a day absolutely lost.

Recommendation for travelers, always learn the language enough to understand and ask directions. Or bring a lot of Advil because your feet, knees, and muscles will be hurting hard from your hours or walking aimlessly.

Really cold today. Time to embrace my inner polar bear.