I am SO overdue on a post, I know!
At the moment I procrastinating not one, not two, but THREE important things (that would be TEFL, Wide Island View and work!), so I'm going to keep this really brief. I just realised that the longer I put it off, the harder it would be too write because it would be so long ago I would forget what had happened in the interim.
So, for ease of reference, I'm gonna bullet point this...
- JLPT - that is, the Japanese test we sat way back when. Well, we got our results back. Jeff passed with flying colours, though not quite as high as I had foretold, and I failed by one point, so not quite as low as I foretold. The plan was I would resit this December, but the applications closed while we were in NZ and we were so busy running round getting ready for that that I didn't have time to get hold of the paperwork, never mind get it done, complete payment etc. Maybe next July, if I'm organised!
- New Zealand - was awesome. I was so excited by all the new beers and ciders that have turned up in the supermarket since our last visit home! We had a nice time catching up with family (well, those that were around, anyway. Kate and Beth didn't even SUGGEST flying home from London to catch up... no love!) and later friends. The wedding in Whitianga was really lovely and there was only five minutes of serious rain where the ceremony had to be shifted to the shed at the end of the garden! I was really nervous about my wee speech at the reception, but despite Jeff's original verdict of my speech when I practised in the car ("That's kinda what I was going to say. But mine was going to be much better."), I upped my game once I was in front of the 80-strong audience and Jeff declared I was "awesome". Which means that either I was, indeed, "awesome", or that Jeff had had a lot of beer by that point. Either is possible, but I'm telling myself it was the first! Anyway, once I had got by speech out of the way, I was just left with warm fuzzies that I could be part of the 'team' at my good friends' wedding.
- Marathon - yes, that 10km 'marathon' is fast approaching! On Wednesday I did an 8km run and felt AMAZING - possibly due to the new NZ-purchased running shoes! But then yesterday I went for a wee run of a mere 5km and felt like I was dying. I had to break to walk a bunch of times, I was sniffling, my ears got blocked and I felt queasy after. Guess you really can't pick your good days and bad days. Now I just have to start praying that November 3rd is a good day!!!
- What else?? If you haven't heard yet, Jeff and I have made a final decision that we will be moving back to NZ when our contracts finish at the end of July. And by NZ we MAY mean Australia. I don't like it, but I know I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face when the pay is so much better over there!! We keep discussing our options but I know we are wasting our breath. Ultimately we just have to see where we can get jobs. I was slightly relieved last night to talk to friends, another couple here in Japan, that seem to have a similar issues to us when it comes time to leave Japan. That fear of moving somewhere when you have no job, no home (although I know Jeff and I can stay at my parents') and need to just pick a place to start a new life. I guess everyone goes through the same thing, but it seems twice the hassle when you have two people to accommodate and feed with no income!
Ok, I know that's very brief but I really need to finish TEFL - oh, that's right, TEFL. I meant to explain my TEFL course closes on the 24th of October, so I have only TEN days left to finish up. And I still have 20 hours to do. So I really should finish this pile of student journals so that I can do TEFL at my visit school rather than carting over work to finish from my base school, phew!!
Currently it's 3:10pm and at 3:25pm I have to attend a meeting in the gym for 35 minutes. It will be all conducted in Japanese. I have no idea what it's for and I doubt I will have any better idea by the time the meeting is over. I used to think meetings were hard to understand when I worked for a geothermal power company, but I didn't know how easy I had it!!
I hope you're all doing well and I apologise for this being so long overdue and not including ANY funny student quotes. Almost quarter of my students owe me letters of apology for forgetting their dictionaries, so I promise to put them on here. I love student apology letters so much, they make me happy. I get gems like this one, one of the first to be turned in, "I'm sorry. I didn't bring my dictionaly in school every day. I think I want to bring it.' I don't know what the 'I think' translates as, but it's WELL over-used by my students!!
Oh damn, there's the bell! Time to post this! I haven't had a chance to proof-read so I apologise now for any mistakes!
Charly
xo
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