my sore throat had started to return towards the end of the period so I let the class out a few minutes early. I had them in discussion groups, and they started off doing the task in English. However, it's the last class on Friday and sure enough the discussion drifted over into Japanese and then about weekend plans & gossip. I would have had them then just talk about their weekend plans in English but that actually was a lesson a few weeks ago. oh well.

In a few minutes my colleague is going to come get me so we can go drown his about-to-get-divorced sorrows.

Turns out I don't have quite enough for the BluRay burner + NetBook after all. That and I need to use some of my funding to pay for registration at the JALT conference in November. So I figure I'll just buy one item with my funding and get the other item out of pocket. It will be a sort of belated birthday present for myself.

Classes are going well. Today I had a class that I've nicknamed "the robots", but they were actually quite lively. Last week's classes while not exactly the best ever were pretty good considering the 2-month break. They all basically just wanted to catch up with each other and talk about what they did over the summer break - which I incorporated into the lesson, they just had to talk about it in English.

( Oh and finally, some pics from Silver Week 2009. )

Now I just have to grade the darn things.... That Monday class must have been a fluke because the rest of the tests were quite good. Then again, that was a different department (Pharmacy). University in Japan is different than back home because the departments take the same set of classes. For example, English I. Each English I class will be populated with students of the same department. Monday's English class was Pharmacy. Tuesdays and Thursdays are International Relations. Fridays I have 3 different classes, Business & IT, International Relations, and Nutrition. So yeah, perhaps my Pharmacy students on Monday had a big test that day and studied more for it instead. This incidentally is the only class where the mood is like the students are taking it not because they want to but because they're required to. They have the lowest level and motivation. I'm not holding it against them because they have a lot on their plate. In the big picture, I'm sure English I just isn't quite as relevant to them as Organic Chemistry. Prior to, I was told that my IT class was also another low level/motivation challenge. However, they're great. I really look forward to working with them.

In other news, I'm just taking things one day at a time. I've been feeling (understandably) bummed out, but more on a subconscious level - just a really subdued melancholy.

Anyway, gonna try to hit up a Matsuri on Saturday and then fireworks on Sunday.

Classes today were awesome. The students are really getting into finals mode. I think they're going to kick ass on these finals. They're all worried, but I'm almost positive the vast majority are going to get a B or higher.

Then I came home and made dinner. The ever-popular mushroom curry, this time I added beef. However I wasn't hungry by the time I finished so I went for a bike ride. Here's where I went. (I wanted to embed the map, but for some reason it's not working, oh well.) Not an especially intense ride, just a short uphill climb to whet my appetite. I got back feeling quite invigorated and hungry. I had a bowl of curry and rice and watched Back To School. Funny movie! I knew Oingo Boingo was in it, but I had no idea Elfman wrote the score. How about that. Now I'm about to take a nice long bath to get the kinks out and then hit the hay.
(^___^)

Tomorrow Miyuki and I are going to try to go fishing. I can't believe it's taken this long for my first time fishing in Japan. I remember the first month I was on JET, one of the Japanese teachers of English and I were talking about free time and he says "I like to go fishing on weekends."
"Oh really? Where do you go? What kinds of fish do you catch?"
And he goes "Oh, there's a river in my town that has some trout. Also, I like to go bass fishing at a lake near my house."
"I love bass fishing! I'd like to try it in Japan sometime." *hinthint*
... *dead silence*
What was I supposed to do, as a 1-week-off-the-boat-ALT, ask him "Do you think you could take me fishing with you next time?" So yeah, the dude never invited me.
Another lady and I talked about going to the beach, and we did go. I totally forgot about fishing by then and we just planned on a nice day at the beach. When we got to the beach I got that fishing itch again that I never did get scratched. I ended up going back home soon thereafter. The last time I lived in Japan, I didn't live near any fishing spots so it was never an issue. This time around I finally have the time and access to go fishing. I'm not going to let this chance pass me by.

In other news, classes were good yesterday and today. They all ended a lot stronger than they started. Typical class: I walk in, the room is hot and humid, and half the class has their head down on the table. I have to really sell the warm-up activity in order to get them up and about. Once warmed-up we go into the textbook. Some heads go down, but at least this time they're a distinct minority in the room. We do a couple more speaking activities. Participation in these goes up as it gets closer to the end of the period. One last quick activity, everyone's (finally) fully into it, and we end the class on a high note.

I know I said I was going to try and cut them some slack. However, judging from their performance at the end of the class, I know what they're capable of. Their level of interest was highest when they were expending the most energy. When they just sit there passively, they just take notes and look like they're having an awful time. Once they start talking and moving about it's a completely different room.

The rest of the week has been ok. I went for a bike ride last night. It was surprisingly cool by the time I got home. It's doing the same today. I like these cool evenings. Anyway, Miyuki wants to go fishing really early tomorrow. I'd better hit the hay.

When I got home from work, dark heavy clouds had formed and, indeed, off in the hills in the distance it was already raining. I didn't want to go out and then get caught in that so I stayed home.

It never did rain. Oh well. The only thing I really need is a couple of surge protectors. I have power strips but I'd like to have a little something to protect against voltage spikes. I also want to get a mouse pad for my computer stand at the apt. Oh yeah and maybe a DVD/divx player, lol

I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture again today. It was never one of my favorite Star Trek films, but I do remember liking it a lot more than most of my friends did. I still like it. However it's major flaw, especially in light of the other films, is that it just takes itself too seriously. The other films tend to have a lot more fun with it and are generally more enjoyable, that is IF they are well written. I still like Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan the best. After that is a tie between First Contact and Star Trek (2009). My least favorites are Generations (ugh, one of the worst movies I've ever seen btw), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Nemesis. This is an odd confession to make but I actually always wanted to be a trekkie. At the age that I started to get into it (elementary/junior high), I just didn't have access to any of that stuff and I ended up getting into other things - mainly video games, D&D, and comics.

So anyway, I downloaded a couple of, ummm, files and seeded them to well over 100% while watching Star Trek: TMP today. I'm not a big fan of hit-and-run torrenting. I feel one should at least give back as much as they've received. That was very difficult on eMobile. That upload was a fraction of the download (seriously it was about 10% as fast). Actually, with fiber optic fully maxed my new upload is a little slower than my download to tell the truth. I don't know what's up with that. However, since I took my download speed on torrents down a few notches and set my upload speed to match, I can do both simultaneously. By the way, I checked out my fiber optic modem. I have no idea how the digital cable tuner is going to jack into it. I wonder....

ok ok, I don't need to let everyone know what my internet at the apartment is like. I'm sure you all have figured out by now that it's pretty fast and I like it. Sorry about that.

My first class today wasn't as fantastic as what I had last week. For one thing it was really sunny and warm out today. Two, I suspect they pretty much had a "Case of the Mondays". So a little while later, I asked some of my upperclassmen students in a different class about what their classes outside of English are like and they said that generally their other classes have about 100 students each. The teacher gives a lecture for 90 minutes straight. The students take notes, maybe are assigned some homework, and every now and then have a quiz or test. Except for laboratory classes, the teachers never call on the students to answer questions about the lecture, much less ask them to do anything in pairs or groups in the class.

The point is I might want to ease up on the classroom participation expectations. Nothing irks me more than the students just sitting there in silence, like bumps on a log. However, this is what they do in ALL of their other classes, so basically they're just being good students, that is, according to what their other classes expect. Fortunately I've been rolling with it, but today perhaps I let it show a little more than usual. I had last week's set of classes on the brain and the bar was set pretty high today.

I got my Saitama Resident's Tax bill the other day. That pretty much wiped out the surprise money I got. (T_T) Oh well. At least they let us pay in installments.

While I'm on a down note, I might as well mention that the Orlando Magic got BLOWN OUT in the first game of the NBA Finals. *sigh* Still, it's just one game in a best of seven series. Hopefully they can regroup and do better in game 2.

On a happier note, I had the best sets of classes on Thursday & Friday. Seriously, it doesn't even feel like I did any work. All I have to do is set up/explain the activities and they go. I then move around the classroom checking for mistakes and such. If I see that some groups are making the same mistake I'll pause the activity and point it out. They then do a pretty good job of self-correction. Prior to university the (Japanese) students have had 6 years of grammar/translation English lessons. They have already been exposed to all of the grammar in our textbook. They can pretty much recognize and analyze it. Not all of them have mastered it and fewer have even actually used it. So what I try to do is get them to access and activate this knowledge they have hidden away somewhere. I tell them to put away the textbooks and electronic dictionaries and try to use what they know. It took a few lessons for them to warm up to the idea but they're making good progress.

Anyway, I've got nothing going on this weekend. I had dinner with Miyuki last night. She's busy this weekend but said she'll try to see me when she has time. In between I guess I'll run some errands: shopping, laundry, etc...

My usual Friday-4th-period-bundle-of-energy was a bit subdued today. She was hungover. Moreover, we were doing a lesson on superlatives and one question form was "What is the most delicious ____ that you've ever had?" Everyone proceeded to fill in the blank with sake, shochu, beer, wine, whiskey, tequila, etc. These kids today, I tell ya....

At any rate, the weekend is finally here. I have no plans really. I do need to clean up around the place and call that one dude to see when he wants to see Star Trek. I'll also need to take the old bike out for a spin. (I haven't been riding my bike lately due to weather/bringing tennis gear to work.) So yeah, other than that I think I'll just take it easy and read a couple of ebooks.

Ok, I've had enough of this place for today. Time to go home.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting. The style reminded me of those "serial" comic strips in the paper. For example, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, Terry and the Pirates, etc... It was an interesting read. I have no idea what the movie is going to be like.

Oh and speaking of having no idea what the movie is like. This is pretty much how I approach watching movies these days. For example, The Matrix. I had heard about the hype, but made a conscious effort to avoid it. Then I saw the movie and was completely blown away. Anyway, I was watching the news this morning and they were talking about how the new Star Trek was coming to Japan. They had some interesting sound bites from the cast, but they would show scenes from the movie over the sound bite. They were showing so many scenes from the movie that I had to change channels. Japan doesn't quite get it when it comes to spoilers. When Episode II came out here in Japan, all the tv programs talking about the movie ALL showed clips of the fight scene between Count Dooku and Yoda. (Fortunately I had already seen the movie by then, but still.) So yeah, I may have been unknowingly spoilered on something in the new Star Trek. I'm just going to forget that I even watched tv this morning.

In other news, I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how motivated and active the students are in my classes. Prior to, people who I know that have taught at Japanese universities warned me about how unenthusiastic, lazy, quiet, etc... these students can be. Even the literature on the matter has said the same. To a lesser extent, it seemed like my co-workers also had the same sentiment. Somehow I don't think I lucked out with this many classes. Indeed, today I was doing a lesson more straight out of the textbook than usual (I did fewer super happy fun exciting speaking activities) and yet they were engaged throughout.

My first thought was that this is all perhaps due to the fact that I'm new here and they're excited to have a new teacher. However, almost all of my classes are 1st-year students. So then I thought that this is all because they're new here and excited to be at university. However, those negative reports included those instructors teaching 1st-year students. So yeah, I dunno. I'm going to try to not read too much into it and just go with the flow. So far, so good! (^_^)

Dang, is that the time? No wonder I'm so sleepy!

The Orlando Magic won the first game in their series with the Cavaliers! This is a huge deal because the Cavs have literally been unstoppable so far in the playoffs. They swept the Pistons and the Hawks in the first 2 rounds. LeBron James had a monster game, but the Magic played good team ball and came out with the win.

A student corrected a mistake of mine in class today. I misread the question from the text and wrote an incorrect answer on the board. That was kind of embarrassing.

Where can I get me some eBooks? Preferably in PDF format, but anything will do. I just spent my evening after dinner rereading The Lost World (Crichton). I love these page turners.

Biking to work is good exercise, but I need more. Hopefully I'll be getting some tennis in on Wednesdays, starting next week. I also found out that teachers are allowed to use the gym. I dunno if I want to have students bugging me while I try to work out though. Hmmm....

As fate would have it, it looks like rain tomorrow so I won't be biking to work. Oh well.

So I got this e-mail from Nelnet (student loans) saying that they're going paperless. Cool. I set-up my account on-line and well, it's been a while. What exactly is my balance anyway? (I've been sending money to my folks for them to make payments in my stead. I basically send them X, which is a chunk of change more than my minimum monthly payment. They make the minimum payment and pocket the rest.) At any rate, I check my balance and.... I almost have enough on hand to pay off my student loans!

However, all that money is here in Japan. So when Nelnet goes paperless, I figure I can still make the minimum monthlies with my American bank account. Then, the next time I visit home, I'll deposit enough into my account to cover the balance and then pay my loans off completely.

With that in mind, I've also decided that I'm not going to make any big ticket purchases, read: Playstation 3, until my student loans are paid off once and for all. The PS3 would give me 2 things, BluRay movies and games. Regular DVDs look great as-is, and pretty soon I'll have digital cable, which will come with a selection of HD movie channels. Moreover, I haven't really been all that into games lately anyway, so that's not a necessity either.

Bottom line: no expensive toys (an air conditioner doesn't count as a toy) until my bills are paid.

In other news, first day back from work after Golden Week was a bit of a challenge. This challenge came about due to three factors:
One, first day back from Golden Week.
Two, it was raining all day long today.
Three, it just so happened that the section where we were in the textbook was a painfully boring grammar bit.
In my classes today I just looked around the room and everyone was kind of out of it. I warmed them up with a pre-speaking activity, which perked up the room a bit. Then the students performed the speaking activities just fine. The listening activities went well too, but the grammar section flew like a lead balloon. I didn't want to end on such a downer, so we did one more light speaking activity (which livened things back up) and called it a day.

Interesting mix of classes. I teach 1st and 2nd year English, Oral Communication. The majority of my students are female, I'd say a 60/40 or possibly even a 70/30 split. I had that one class that was 1/4 non-Japanese, but all of my other classes are pretty much all Japanese, with the occasional foreign student here and there. Class size runs the gamut, I have one class with 3 students(!) and another with 33. The average class size I'd say is about 20 students.

The textbooks are not very good. But that's ok, they really like speaking activities. We don't spend a lot of time actually in the textbook. Rather we do a bunch of speaking activities related to whatever the current chapter is about. Predictably, the first chapter in every textbook is about meeting and greeting people. I used the ever-popular "Find someone who..." activity, using information from their student profiles. Once they saw that it was specific to their class, they got a real kick out of it. Generally it takes them a little while to get warmed up, but once they are they can be quite chatty. I do have one class that is something like 25 girls and 3 guys, and that class is chatty from the start - however, they do most of their chatting in Japanese. I just need to steer some of that energy towards English, lol. Generally, their level is quite good. They don't really like to volunteer in class, but when I call on students to answer they're almost always correct.

One really good thing is classroom management. The kids at the elementary school could get quite noisy. Sometimes I'd have to expend a lot of energy just getting the kids to settle down so we could do the lesson. Here I hardly have to do a thing. Also, once I start an activity I can let them go and they'll do it without me having to hover over them making sure they're on task. That frees me up to prepare for the next activity.

One concern I have is motivation. These classes are mandatory, so there are bound to be students that just don't want to be here. Fortunately, they're all participating actively (once they get warmed up) - so far, so good. Again, it's only Week 1. A lot can happen between now and the end of the term.

Hmmm.... there were a couple other things I wanted to write about but they currently slip my mind. Oh well, that's enough for now I suppose.

Done!

Overall, I felt they were all quite good. A bit on the quiet side, but for Day 1 Class 1 they did quite well. My lesson plan didn't need much tweaking, which was good. I wasn't sure how they would respond as I basically just modified a couple of games I played at the elementary school. They had fun though. However, I doubt I'll be able to whip out BINGO or "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" anytime soon, lol. Not all the students had the book yet, so I let them out a bit early today.

In other news, my kitchen table set is coming tomorrow. I'd like to move my workspace to it, at least until I get a proper desk. I'm currently using a low table and yeah I'm a bit tired of sitting on the floor all the time. My office is so much more comfortable with a proper desk and chair, even if it is kinda rickety (the wheels are shot and it squeaks).

At any rate, I need to prep a bit for my Monday classes but that's pretty much all for today.

I'm kind of nervous about my classes today. When I break it down, I know there isn't anything to be nervous about, but I still am. For example:
1.) The material is easy enough to teach. - Definitely a higher level of English than what I was working with at the elementary school, but not anything I haven't seen/taught before.
2.) Average class size is 20-25 students. - Nothing out of the ordinary there.
3.) All Most of the students have been exposed to at least 6 years of English. (Of course, how much they actually learned is a different matter though.) - I had just been teaching English to students that haven't even learned Japanese yet. (ETA: I just taught my first class, 1/4 of the students were NOT Japanese!)
4.) Class time is 90 minutes. - This is new to me. I did teach a twice weekly 3-hour class for one semester back home, but that was only that one class. Having a schedule of teaching 90-minute classes will take some getting used to.
5.) College age students, mostly young adults with perhaps some older students mixed in. Also, virtually all are Japanese, although I did see a few foreign names in my rosters - I'm pretty confident I can develop a good rapport with this demographic.

So what's the big deal? I dunno. It may be just because I'm now a "university instructor" that the mere job title is psyching me out.




As always however... FIGHT! p(^o^)q

At the bye-bye party tonight, they showed a clip of my 1st graders singing a song I taught them. Once again I had a good cry. Oh it was so awesome. The kids were singing in English and looked like they were having the best. time. ever. Some teachers came up to me afterward saying that they didn't know the 1st graders were that good in English. That they could be that good AND have so much fun doing so means that I must be a really GREAT teacher. I just bowed, waved my hand around and said "no, no... I didn't do a thing, it's the kids that did everything." Then some teachers said, "If you want to come back for a 3rd time, please do - we'll be waiting!" At the end, they gave me a huge bouquet of flowers, a couple envelopes of money and asked me to sing a song (in Japanese, I sang Sanpo), and give a speech (also in Japanese, basically the same speech I gave at the school's closing ceremony earlier today).

Afterward, there was a Party Round 2. However, I have A LOT of errands to run tomorrow before I head out to Shizuoka. I need to get up early and run them!

The curry leftovers were delish, but I ran out of rice! (;_;) I didn't feel like making another pot just for seconds, so I just did without. After I got over that initial craving, I did just fine. I could do with consuming less food anyway. I've got enough curry for about 2-3 more servings, so I figure I'll make a pot of rice tonight and stretch it out for a couple more days. I still can't get over how good the mushrooms are. The maitake in particular. I wonder if I could do a mushroom only curry and then maybe just add a bit of chicken stock/broth for flavor. I think I'll give that a shot next time.

The school year is winding down but my kids are still going strong. I did a writing lesson today based on this unit's grammar point, pretty basic concept - plural "s". I thought that maybe they'd think it kind of boring actually but they just had so much fun with it. Once they figured it out, they started applying it to everything they could see more than one of (that they knew the words for) - pencils, flowers, books, desks, chairs, students, etc... One could almost see the lightbulb come on over their heads once the connection was made. Again, this is a relatively simple concept but this sort of joy of discovery really helps keep the kids' motivation and level of engagement high.

I just rocked up to a 1st grade class, and the homeroom teacher was finishing up ripping into them for something. Then they invited me in and we started our lesson. They were SO quiet, restrained even. There was none of the usual chitchat. Everything they did was strictly by the book. Even our game was strangely subdued. I wonder what they did to deserve such a tongue-lashing....

After work, I think I'll go into Omiya today to look for some "pair goods". Some kind of matching jewelry or something.

and we still ain't seen nothing yet.

I got home from work today and as usual I started checking out junk on the internet. One thing led to another, now it's about 9 pm and I really don't want to go to the gym due to the cold. Thing is, this is relatively balmy compared to what it's going to be like in Jan/Feb. If I'm a wuss now, I'm going to be an even bigger wuss in a few weeks. I just need to go. OK, after this entry.

Oh on the way home I decided to pick up some batteries for my doorbell. I put them in and.... the thing still doesn't work. I guess I really do need to call up the landlord and have them take a look at it.

Classes were ok today (3rd grade). Mondays tend to be rowdy for whatever reason. Still, I have a pretty good set of activities for this week's grammar point. We're talking about hers/his/theirs/ours. Trying to explain this completely in English to a room full of 8/9 year-old Japanese kids is no small task. First, we did a "What's this?" game (review grammar/vocab). Then we did a "Whose ___ is this game?" (again review, but more advanced), first time with possessive 's and the last time with hers/his (today's objective). I'll do the same sort of thing with theirs/ours next lesson.

Tomorrow I have 1st grade and we're doing "Is this a ___?" with the main vocabulary being that of animals. I throw in other vocab as well (classroom objects and foods). They get pretty excited when I hold up a picture of a desk and ask "Is this a banana?" lol. Similar game battery to build up to the target language. First a "What's this?" game. Then "Is this a ___?" with first response being "Yes, it is?" next set "No, it isn't. It's a ____." Then finally, giving the kids free rein to ask each other their own Qs with matching answers. Their progress with this has been outstanding. They play that Q&A game amongst themselves in the halls during their free time. I feel like the cock of the walk when I visit the first grade hallway and all the kids are using English with each other.
(^___^)

Anyway, I really need to go to the gym and stuff. My GF's visiting this weekend!

I did go to work today and drink coffee & TheraFlu all day long. That other bit about doing my essays. Never happened. I did have a good conversation with the new guy about teaching approaches and ideologies though, and that got my gears turning towards my essays. So the day wasn't a complete loss.

Yeah, good conversation. We talked at length about how English is taught in Japan, their reasons for learning it, and the vicious cycle of it all. (For those of you familiar with the teaching-English-in-Japan scene, the following will be all too familiar.) English is a compulsory subject starting from the 1st year of junior high school. Plans are currently in the works to extend it to the upper grades of elementary school as well. Anyway, the ultimate goal of education in Japan is.... to pass the university entrance exam. This exam has an English section on it. So from junior high through the end of high school, 6 years total, they are really not taught English as a language but rather English as a problem to be solved on some test. The traditional English lesson in Japan is as follows. The teacher writes an English sentence on the board. The students listen and repeat it, maybe a few times. Then a lengthy dissection of this sentence is conducted entirely in Japanese. Every word is translated and every grammar point analyzed. Repeat for 6 years. Even with that experience, there are some who decide to pursue teaching English as a profession and major in it at university. What do they learn? They learn how to translate every word and how to analyze every grammar point. In other words, they learn how to teach kids how to pass the English portion of the university entrance exam.

How does this relate to the situation at my school? The current batch of 6th graders have turned sour on learning English. They just had a bad luck of the draw and didn't have very good English teachers during their time here. So, the powers-that-be (whoever they are) decide that the kids don't like English because it's too difficult/too much work. They want the kids to have fun in English and decide to implement the singing/dancing/arts/crafts curriculum. Unfortunately this approach is not going to work either. 1.) The kids hate English already, so putting it in a clown suit isn't going to make it any more appealing. 2.) Putting the emphasis on the 'fun' aspect may get the students attention at the beginning, but will fade in the long run. With the singing/dancing/arts/crafts curriculum, the learning gets trivialized and the idea that English doesn't matter will perpetuate.

A common question I've heard is "How can we make the students do this?" My answer: "We can't make them do anything." We can't. If they don't want to do it, they won't. They need the proper motivation. This motivation has to, must come from within. The students have to want to learn English on their own accord. My lessons are not fun and educational. They are fun because they are educational. Generally people, kids especially, like to learn new things. Now, not every kid likes to work, and learning a language does take work. My goal is to tap into that innate feeling of wonder and discovery that every child has. With that, they'll be doing work without even realizing they are working. To paraphrase Bruce Lee it's "the art of working without working."

At any rate, despite that last report from the new guy's meeting with you-know-who, I feel my days here are numbered. That's not to say that I think my contract is in danger of not being renewed. Indeed, I checked the wrong box on the 'intent to renew contract' survey a little while ago and the head office staff dude freaked out. I don't feel that everyone here is on the same page. Everyone has their own agenda it seems. So what it seems to me is that the school doesn't want English educators, they want English entertainers. I know, I know - "Welcome to Japan" right? Well, I honestly thought this school was more progressive than that. Think about it, regular English lessons from grade 1 to grade 6 of elementary school. The potential is there for greatness. Unfortunately however, the English program is just another one of the bells and whistles here at this school. Something to oooh and aaah about, but of what good is it really?

So yeah, I really need to get cracking on those essays. My desk is so full of my lesson prep crap that I can't get into a groove there. I think I'll grab a notebook and camp out in the library during my downtime tomorrow. Too bad I can't bring coffee in there, that would be ideal....

background: We have a new native English teacher. Long story short, due to personal reasons the girl from Australia went back home. The school decided to pick up this guy from New Zealand to take her place. (There's even a bit of back drama about how we came to have this guy in the first place, but it's minor compared to the bomb I'm about to drop right here...)

Anyway, the dude is in training right now. He's been watching all of our classes, grades 1-6. Well, he has his little followup training meetings with you-know-who and in one of them he tells her "I really like Kevin's style of teaching. I think I'm basically going to do the exact same thing he does."
Then you-know-who busts out with "That's a good idea. He's the only native speaker with a formal background in education and he's an excellent teacher."

w. t. f.

It wasn't that long ago that my lessons were deemed "inappropriate", and now suddenly I'm an "excellent teacher". It's official, this lady is off her rocker. I mean, she finally got the excellent teacher part correct (yes, I'm excellent and humble... ^_^) but to go from one extreme to the other like that in such a short period of time, during which I haven't changed a thing, crazy stuff.

I still feel achy, but due to changes in the schedule I don't have any classes tomorrow. I think can manage to just show up and drink coffee/TheraFlu all day long. It'll also give me time to work on my essays as I can't get a damn thing done in my apartment.

It's only 9:30? Oh well, I guess I'll turn in early. Hopefully the extra Z's will do me some good.