Yesterday was the one week mark of being here... in some ways it feels like I've been here way longer than that and in other ways... this week has flown by.
I really only have a few things to report since this weekend:
1 - I'm still in the process of making the video of my apartment... but its coming soon.
2 - I've been working all week to get set up at school. I don't have a classroom yet because they had to build it off another room and are not finished yet. When its done I still will have to move everything in, organize it all, and coordinate stuff with the art teacher (we share the room). Ya... school starts Monday... crazy! Thankfully Mr. Elofson has cancelled the specialty classes for the first day of school so other than the High School Journalism class I'm teaching, I'll have the whole day to organize and get ready. This week I've been working out of the library, going through all the materials I have. Today I threw away two garbage bags of music that were just old copies and stuff that I'll never use... it felt good to go through all the old music stuff. Apparently no one has gone through it in a while because I found a music catalog from 1988 and a newspaper article from 1980. However, I was coming here expecting to not have many resources as far as music goes... and I have more than I need. We have different kinds of instruments, way too many tambourines, and plenty of books to teach the students from. I feel blessed to have what I have, even if some of the stuff is older and a little outdated... it is perfect to me.
I'm storing my stuff in the library right now until I get to move into my room... its better to go through it in there than in the non-air-conditioned storage closet. :)
3 - we ordered Christmas program materials today and I'm excited and anxious to get it so I can start planning the program and start teaching the kids all the music and drama lines. I feel very nervous about everything because its my first time doing any of it... I know I can do it and I have a lot of great support in my new friends and fellow teachers here. It kind of feels weird planning for Christmas already, this year is going to fly by.
4 - one of my life goals has always been to be less directionally challenged. Ask anyone in my family or close friends from growing up... I never knew how to get anywhere! I don't know if it was moving to Southern California and Arizona and having to figure out the roads on my own, or if it is just a survival skill that I've developed being here... but I'm doing great here with directions! I've been here a week and already know my way around the general area that we live (which is saying something because most of the small streets do not have names and a lot of the larger ones are in Japanese with small English subtitles). Its very easy to get confused about streets and areas here... and we've taken many detours, but I always seem to get us home somehow. We call the ride home from school our "daily detour" because we always seem to get turned around on the way back from school. Whether we make a stop at the grocery store, 100 yen store, or just accidentally turning down the wrong street, we never seem to get home the same way twice. Somehow I always know which way we need to be going, which is very out of character for me but I am very proud of myself for already figuring out the big picture of the road structure here and being able to navigate around. Kristen appreciates it as well because she hasn't figured out directions here yet.
5 - we braved grocery shopping tuesday... one of the other teachers took us which was a huge help! she showed us what everything was and we got quite a bit of food. we had grilled cheese for dinner tonight and enjoyed it since the cheese here is pretty expensive so we probably won't get it very often. we have rice and a rice cooker but the directions are all in japanese so we haven't tried it yet... we're hoping to try it soon though.
the GIANT fish that was for sale at the grocery store... I thought it was fake at first... no, its real.
6 - Kristen and I went to the American Village with my friend Danielle from California last night. Danielle is here as a live in nanny with a military family but is going home soon so it was good to see her while she's here. It was kind of odd seeing someone here that I haven't seen in Cali in over a year, but it was so good to see a familiar face and we had a lot of fun. It was the first time any of us had actually walked around the American Village so that was fun and I think it is very pretty over there. It was kind of funny to see what they deem "American" and I'm excited to have more time to explore that area some other time. When we were there, a little Japanese boy and his mom stopped us... the boy hesitated but his mom encouraged him to "go ahead and ask" (i'm assuming thats what she said, thats what her body language said anyways). He mustered up the courage and said, "can i take a picture with you?" (his English was pretty good) It was the first time that we've really been treated any differently (positively or negatively) for being American. We each took a picture with him in front of the American Village steps... he was so nervous, it was very cute.
the three of us at dinner, it was our first time eating soba and it was very good.
the larger-than-life hello kitty statue in the mall... i took this pic for my friend heather who is obsessed with hello kitty... I think I would have taken the picture anyways though, because this is pretty awesome!
getting my picture taken with the little boy... he was adorable
my friend Danielle and I in front of the American Village
7 - I think I'm going to love teaching... as nervous as I am about the first few weeks and all the planning I have to do, I am way more excited to be a teacher than I was 2 weeks ago and I think that I'm going to love it. I have enjoyed being around the other teachers' kids this week as we've been working at the school and I've even showed some of them some music stuff. It is such a joy to watch them learn and experience music as they experiment with basic noises and sounds. I wasn't sure that I was going to enjoy teaching... and we'll see what I say after this year is over, but right now... I couldn't be more content with what I'm doing this year... as crazy as it is at times.
I gave Dominic some noise maker sticks and a box to use as a drum set... he loved it
then, as is typical with young kids, he lost interest pretty quickly and turned it into a fort... then proceeded to chase me around in it.
His brother took interest in the musical stuff and I showed him how to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the mini xylophone.
wow... "only a few things to report" turned into a few more with longer explanations... I guess I had a few more things to say than i thought. I know you all enjoy hearing about everything here so I hope you enjoyed this update. Everything is an adventure here and I'm excited to keep sharing my experiences... I appreciate all the comments and emails, they have been so encouraging. I hope you are all doing well and that you have a wonderful weekend! :)
Thats it for now I guess, I promise the apartment video is coming soon. Hopefully it will be up by Monday.
ps - I've been watching a Japanese game show on tv as I typed this... its very interesting. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but now that I understand, its very entertaining to watch. There are around 11 competitors trying to get the judges to laugh or break a smile in different comedy challenges. Its funny even though I have no idea what they're saying which is half the show. this is actually the first tv we've watched since we got here... we've just been so busy and then we've been just relaxing in the evenings and have been blogging and talking to people a lot so we haven't had much interest in the tv yet. Supposedly there is one american channel here but we don't get it on our tv so tonight i may be very well acquainted with Japanese game shows by the time I come home.
