Hey everyone,
Today is that special occasion that comes once a year... my birthday! (Ok, if you answered 'Beth's birthday', you still get a point for being correct. Damn birthday-stealing little sisters :P ).
It's been fun - starting last night when Jeff cooked me homemade hamburgers (because he didn't want the hassle of cooking my birthday dinner in my little apartment tonight) and we had freshly baked carrot cake for dessert, with lemon cream cheese icing. It was Jeff's first attempt at carrot cake and it was really awesome! He was a little short on carrot, so he added raisins, and they were a great chewy little addition!
This morning I had my English Club students coming in, so I decided to hold a traditional Kiwi birthday party - the type you had when you were six years old. We started with a scavenger hunt ('a magazine' took them a while - I rejected one book and two comics before they got the right idea!), then had an egg and spoon race (that seemed to be their favourite game!), blew up balloons and had morning tea, followed by Musical Chairs (two kids gave themselves carpet burn and were going on about how much it hurt. I was sorely tempted to teach them the popular English phrase 'harden up'), did Statues and finished with Pass the Parcel (prizes were sparkly hair ties, One Piece x Hello Kitty stickers and Anpanman tissues)..
At the end I told them the last thing you need at a birthday party is birthday cake, so I pulled out the second half of Jeff's carrot cake (I had done some soul searching the night before, about whether it was better to keep all the cake for myself and therefore have more cake, or share the cake and have more opportunity to brag about my husband's cooking. It was a hard call, but I decided I didn't need the calories from an ENTIRE carrot cake, so it tipped the scales in favour of sharing). I gave them each a slice while I gave my little fifteen year olds important life advice, "When you get married, make sure you marry a man who can cook." How many of them understood I'm not sure, but they were nodding with big eyes. That may be because of the cake I was wielding though. However, I happen to know that there ARE Japanese men that can cook, they are just few and far between, so if my English Club kids heed my words of wisdom, hopefully at least a couple of them will get guys that help out around the home. Leaving my students more time to pursue their careers as translators and airport staff! (I know that some guys can cook because when I worked teaching guys at a shipping company I used to tease them about 'cooking' instant noodles, so they would get all indignant and tell me the things they could cook. One guy cooked his girlfriend a three course dinner, including dessert! No surprises he's taken!)
Anyway, they were really impressed with Jeff's cake and were HUGE fans of the lemon cream cheese icing. Such big fans, in fact, that when the cake was all gone they used the icing on cookies (understandable) and spicy chips (chips as in crisps, not as in fries. Times NZ English fails me...). Apparently it was good on chips. I took their word for it. Finally they managed to convince one super shy girl that because it looked so like mayonnaise, she should try it with one of the boiled eggs from the egg and spoon race! She kept complaining it was sweet while the other girls kept repeating 'mayonnaise, mayonnaise!'. I was going 'yeah, it's sweet! There is lots of sugar in that!' As I don't like mayo, I was very offended that they considered that delicious icing to be approximate to it. But it's probably good they did what they did, because they got boiled egg in the last of the icing, which stopped me just finishing it up straight out of the bowl...
Tonight Jeff and I are going to a great little cafe in Fukuyama for dinner. Jeff hasn't been there before, but I often have my Wide Island View meetings there. The couple that run it spent some time living in Townsville, Australia, so they have great English and their cafe is rather international feeling. They have a pie on the menu, but it's served with rice (??), so we'll go check it out tonight. I'm telling Jeff not to hold his breath...
Ok, time to pack up and get ready to leave. Hope your day is as fun as mine!
xo
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Much writing about nothing
Things are pretty quiet here in Japan atm. Jeff and I are trying to keep our heads down and save money after our road-trip and before the expensiveness that is Hiroshima Orientation (we will be paid back for most of our Orientation expenses, but not for a couple of months).
I'm pretty excited though - two new JETs turn up in our area this weekend (well, actually today - or was it yesterday even? - but I won't be there until the weekend so that's when it counts ;) ) and another (the one who is employed by Jeff's Board of Education) arrives the following week. It will be fun to meet the new people and it will be a good distraction from the heat.
On the topic of heat, I'm trying to face August with a fighting attitude. I only have to last 31 days, then the worst of summer is OVER (just sucks my birthday is in there. Beer garden it is, then??). Admittedly things won't cool down until about mid-September, but September is a month of hope because I wake every day thinking 'maybe THIS is the day it will cool down!' In the meantime I'm trying to ignore the fact that my body hates hot summers (I get itchy legs, a rash on my hands and feet and zits are having a party on my face. A face that is too sweaty to hide with makeup).
Jeff and I are fairly sure we will only stay one more year (although we won't make a final decision until January), so I'm just celebrating that this is our last full summer in Japan. Next summer we will escape to the chilly dreariness of NZ winter. And we will be SO happy about it!!
Currently the kids are on their six week summer holiday. Only in Japan, 'being on holiday' means classes ONLY in the morning. Wtf?? It seems to mean less breaks for teachers too, so I feel doubly guilty sitting in the office playing with my smartphone (hey, sometimes I'm studying Japanese on it! Sometimes...) or tapping away on my laptop.
The good news is that my application for TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) funding was accepted, so last Friday I started my online TEFL course. The only catch is usually these courses would be done over a year or so (mine is a 100 hour course), but for my course to be subsidised I need to get all my paperwork in by 31st January, meaning I have much less time than others could take. Then, when I was paying for my course, but unable to change because this was the course I had nominated when applying for funding, I noticed in the small print that they only give you three months to finish, or you need to pay almost the original amount again to get an extension. Yikes!
Initially I had a little panic attack, but once I started breathing again I realised it was a good thing, because it would allow me time to study Japanese if I want to re-sit my N5-level Japanese test. So... my game plan is to work like crazy in the summer holidays left to me! When I started the course I had five weeks of student holiday left. Although I have a few training things in Hiroshima, most of that time is open for me to do WHATEVER I WANT. No excuse for not doing my TEFL, right?? So far so good - I signed up on Friday, did Module 1 on Sat, Module 2 on Sun, my first tutor assessment on Mon, Module 3 took Tues and Wed (feckin' hard grammar!!) and Module 4 on Wed. Although I'm sure my genkiness will fade (that's best translated as 'gung-ho'ness to those who haven't learnt Japan's favourite word, although dictionaries translate it as energetic), I want to make the most of the initial 'oh, this is new and interesting!' stage. It's a good feeling charging through it quickly. And, err, all the better charging through it quickly because I'm organised, instead of charging through it quickly because I left it to the last minute, which is my usual technique!
Anyway, in summary (was going to write 'summery' there... guess that would work too!), we're spending lots of time sitting at our desks with no school-related work to do. And I'm learning how much I don't know when it comes to grammar.
I hope you're having a good August supping on cold beer or spiked hot chocolate (whichever is more weather appropriate).
Charly
xo
I'm pretty excited though - two new JETs turn up in our area this weekend (well, actually today - or was it yesterday even? - but I won't be there until the weekend so that's when it counts ;) ) and another (the one who is employed by Jeff's Board of Education) arrives the following week. It will be fun to meet the new people and it will be a good distraction from the heat.
On the topic of heat, I'm trying to face August with a fighting attitude. I only have to last 31 days, then the worst of summer is OVER (just sucks my birthday is in there. Beer garden it is, then??). Admittedly things won't cool down until about mid-September, but September is a month of hope because I wake every day thinking 'maybe THIS is the day it will cool down!' In the meantime I'm trying to ignore the fact that my body hates hot summers (I get itchy legs, a rash on my hands and feet and zits are having a party on my face. A face that is too sweaty to hide with makeup).
Jeff and I are fairly sure we will only stay one more year (although we won't make a final decision until January), so I'm just celebrating that this is our last full summer in Japan. Next summer we will escape to the chilly dreariness of NZ winter. And we will be SO happy about it!!
Currently the kids are on their six week summer holiday. Only in Japan, 'being on holiday' means classes ONLY in the morning. Wtf?? It seems to mean less breaks for teachers too, so I feel doubly guilty sitting in the office playing with my smartphone (hey, sometimes I'm studying Japanese on it! Sometimes...) or tapping away on my laptop.
The good news is that my application for TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) funding was accepted, so last Friday I started my online TEFL course. The only catch is usually these courses would be done over a year or so (mine is a 100 hour course), but for my course to be subsidised I need to get all my paperwork in by 31st January, meaning I have much less time than others could take. Then, when I was paying for my course, but unable to change because this was the course I had nominated when applying for funding, I noticed in the small print that they only give you three months to finish, or you need to pay almost the original amount again to get an extension. Yikes!
Initially I had a little panic attack, but once I started breathing again I realised it was a good thing, because it would allow me time to study Japanese if I want to re-sit my N5-level Japanese test. So... my game plan is to work like crazy in the summer holidays left to me! When I started the course I had five weeks of student holiday left. Although I have a few training things in Hiroshima, most of that time is open for me to do WHATEVER I WANT. No excuse for not doing my TEFL, right?? So far so good - I signed up on Friday, did Module 1 on Sat, Module 2 on Sun, my first tutor assessment on Mon, Module 3 took Tues and Wed (feckin' hard grammar!!) and Module 4 on Wed. Although I'm sure my genkiness will fade (that's best translated as 'gung-ho'ness to those who haven't learnt Japan's favourite word, although dictionaries translate it as energetic), I want to make the most of the initial 'oh, this is new and interesting!' stage. It's a good feeling charging through it quickly. And, err, all the better charging through it quickly because I'm organised, instead of charging through it quickly because I left it to the last minute, which is my usual technique!
Anyway, in summary (was going to write 'summery' there... guess that would work too!), we're spending lots of time sitting at our desks with no school-related work to do. And I'm learning how much I don't know when it comes to grammar.
I hope you're having a good August supping on cold beer or spiked hot chocolate (whichever is more weather appropriate).
Charly
xo
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