At the Tokyo Orientation, they warn you that while learning Japanese will make your life much easier here, your job is actually to speak English, and speak English you should. Fortunately, my Japanese is far too weak to have anything but a mere scratch of a conversation, so I end up speaking English to students purely out of need to get SOMETHING across. However, I don’t imagine that my English teachers mind overly much. Still, the kids aren’t eager to speak in English, and despite very hyperactive talk around me at lunch, not many of them make an attempt to speak with me. It’s actually kind of bemusing to say “How are you?” to a student, who was able to answer the question just fine at the beginning of every single English class of their lives, but somehow when you say it, they must hold a UN conference with their friends before they reply in English,” I don’t speak English.”
Still, I was afraid I would get no Japanese practice in at all, especially not practical sentence structure, which I need the most work on. Then today I taught my first classes, since my self-introductions were finished (correction: I taught my first five classes. It’s pretty rare to have five classes in one day-at my other school it’s only two or three-but it certainly makes the day fly by) and I found, to my delight, the teachers explained English sentences on the board with both verbal and written Japanese. Fantastic! While the kids were scribbling notes on English, I was scribbling them on kanji and sanuki bun, the local dialect. It’s the perfect opportunity to review or explore grammar forms.
At this point, I haven’t proven myself yet, so I’m still kind of a tape recorder/thing for the kids to parrot, but so far, I’ve been having tons of fun. The hardest part is standing for five of the six hours of the day, but otherwise I’m really enjoying myself.

In other news, still no Internet at my apartment, but I finally said Hell, and just signed up for it myself (with help.) With any luck, I’ll have Internet within 15 days, so just in time to post pictures of both my junior high school’s Sports Festivals.
I’m pretty stoked, actually. I’ve never seen a Sports Day, and they seem like such a corner of the Japanese education life- it’s like not knowing about Homecoming in America or something. And at my base school, I’ve apparently been signed up for the Teachers’ relay team.

… The kids have chewed through my stickers though. Why, oh why, 100 Yen Store, must you be a 20 minute bike ride away? I’ve still successively resisted the temptation to buy a car, scooter, or something similar that I don’t have to sweat through my clothes to drive, for which I pat myself on the back. As I think I’ve mentioned, my town is quite nice, but damn if it ain’t a one horse kinda place. I have a grocery store, sans avicados, and a tasty udon shop, so I suppose in a really strict sense I’ve got everything I need, but darn it, I need stickers! These kids demand stickers!

Another activity this month that I look forward to with anticipation is my city’s English speech contest, held on a Friday near the end of September. My city is actually split into quite a few towns, and I am assigned to two of the six or seven towns, which has created an interesting dilemma for me. I tutor a sannensei and ninensai (so, 9th and 8th graders respectively) at both of my schools, and of course the objective is to get them as polished as possible so they can win. I’ve been trying very hard not to have favourites, and not to compare in my head who is better-honestly, every single one of them is a trooper. Harking back to my high school years, I remember how unpopular public speaking in English was, but these students are willing to stand up and speak, memorized, in a foreign language before they’ve even hit high school. The Forensic nerd in me weeps at the very beauty of it. And each of them has their own particular strengths. One sannensai has hilarious delivery-he manages to be funny in a foreign language. The other one has fantastic pronunciation with only the barest accent. And all of them have their weaknesses. I just hope that my direction is enough to get them a high rank. It’s not so much about the trophy, but I want them to walk away with solid confirmation that they have a certain finesse with English. I think it would really help boost the confidence of some of them, who are intrinsically shy.

In a last bit of personal news, I have 1 day to decide if I am doing the 3kyuu, and if I am, I must somehow figure out how to get a 3x4cm picture of myself AND how to pay at the post office or bank when the damn post office and bank are ONLY open during the hours I am at school! Seriously, this thing is harder to apply for than a passport! If I do end up missing the deadline, I’m not too heartbroken; I was nervous about spending that money and failing, with only 3 months to prepare, and while I’m studying for the GRE in November. If I study for 3kyuu for next December, I conceivably have a shot of doing very well, and who knows… if my tutor thinks I’m good enough, maybe I’ll study for 2kyuu in July instead. That’s a complete cake in the sky dream, of course, but hey, Japan was made for dreaming.