Friday was pretty chill. I visited my second junior high school, Ryusei JHS in the Moji ward of Kitakyushu, in the morning. Both the principal and vice-principal were gone but I did get to meet the third grade (equal to 9th grade in the US) English teacher. He's so little but his English was great! He showed me around the school and I was pleasantly surprised to find my assigned locker for my indoor shoes in addition to a welcome note waiting for me on my desk in the teachers' room. I think my fave part about the teachers' room in that it has AC. The rest of the school doesn't so yes, it's hotter than hades. After the visit, I headed back to the BOE and watched the rest of my cohorts do dry-runs of their self-intro presentations. Later, a small group of us went to the 100 Yen Shop. Luckily, I made it home before the rain!
That night, 9 of us went out to a bar called 'Bravo!' in the Kurosaki area of KitaQ. Three of the other ALTs live in that area and have been hanging out there for the past month so we finally decided so see what all the hype was about. The nice CIR in KitaQ came and joined us too! I pretty much chillaxed the whole night and was very entertained by the ooc people all around me. I should have written down all of the crazy things people were saying! I ended up crashing in Kurosaki because the trains stop at a way-too-early midnight. The next morning, I arrived back in my Kokura nieghborhood around 10:30 and went shopping for work clothes around the station before taking the monorail home.
Once home, I had a few hours to breathe until Latin American Night at the Kitakyushu International Association in the Yahata ward. Lots of English and Espanol speakers present and I could actually understand the things that were being said! I was also able to have a pina colada (alright, a bad one) and food from Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia! I ran into a few new friends I had met the previous week which was uber-exciting! I met some Japanese people who would just randomly come up to me wanting to practice their English. All of them gave me their business cards too. I feel like such a little networker! The majority of the night was spent on the dance floor doing the salsa. There was a pseudo-mariachi band and I thought the whole scene was hilarious. I think the highlight of the night was when another ALT and myself taught some Japanese ladies how to do the macarena. They went ballistic and I laughed so hard :) At the end of the night, I wanted to get my picture in front of the mermaid statue (they are everywhere in Norfolk) that was a gift from Norfolk, VA, one of KitaQ's sister cities and this random Hispanic guy jumped in the picture and kissed my cheek. Yikes!
Though I had another super-late night due to Skyping with family and friends at times more convenient for them, I roused myself out of bed to check out the 10:15 service at this Christian Church about a 3 minute walk from my house. Turns out, this was a Methodist Church and there was an English teacher there. He translated the entire sermon for her. Nearing the end of the service, one member gave the number of people in attendance and then brought a microphone over to me so that I could introduce myself to the entire congregation. And oh yeah, I did it in Japanese! Yet another funny coincidence, when the teacher found out I was from Tacoma, he told me that he (along with the church) hosted a group of students from Bellarmine in June! Then, his family invited me to have lunch with them at the church and I proceeded to learn all about Finger Five, the Japanese take on the Jackson 5 in the 70's.
Sidenote: One more crazy coincidence! One of my best friends from Semester at Sea is somehow, randomly rooming at optometry school with a friend I've known since 8th grade through summer camp and working together later at that same summer camp! All these connections are honestly getting ridiculous.
Oh, but anyways, Sunday ended with chilling at Starbucks with for a few hours with a couple ALTs and a Japanese woman who apparently has experience teaching Japanese. I thought the whole situation with very awk.com but somehow I lasted. Then I just finished a bunch of errands and made my usual Sunday journey to Trial for grocery shopping. I actually made it to bed by 10:30 and yes, I felt like a grandma.
Today was a big day - my first official day at one of my junior high schools! Less than 5 minutes after I arrived, I had the privilege of watching one student get his hair chopped off due to his 'unique hairstyle.' The kid was just asking for trouble and I had heard stories of this very thing happening. I thought it was kinda funny and all of his friends wanted to watch but the teachers ushered them out of the teachers' room. The day really began with the opening ceremony, where I had to get up in front of the entire school and introduce myself in Japanese. I survived and everyone clapped. I think they had to. Once the vice-principal heard I was from Seattle, he came over and exclaimed 'Mariners!'. Hahaha, the whole Ichiro thing never gets old, does it? The rest of the day, they had me sit at my desk. I ended up studying Japanese and plotting out my schedule. I met a slew of teachers too but I was rather quiet because, oh wait, I don't know Japanese and the majority of teachers don't speak English.
I also found out that I can order a bento for around $4 everyday but the catch is that the bento changes everyday. I could randomly end up with fugu or some other seafood I would never touch. One teacher kept warning me that the bento had Japanese food in it. I mean, it's not like I expected a Big Mac or a hot dog to be in there, you know? But whatevs, I like bringing my own sandwich anyway. Stopped by a few of the clubs after school. Basically, these are the equivalent of school sports. The kids went nuts and I got synchronized goodbyes from the entire group. The kids are fascinated by me and are very friendly. They know some basic English phrases but I had to whip out the Eng-Jap dictionary about 482327 times today already.
Overall, like Borat would say, today was great success! But I'm exhausted. Sitting at your desk isn't hard work but everything is still mentally draining. You have no idea what people are saying in Japanese around you (or about you) and you never know if one of the teachers is analyzing your every move. Let's just hope they don't secretly despise me by the end of the week!
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