下妻物語！！
Okay before I get to the core of this journal just a recommendation to all life forms! WATCH KAMIKAZE GIRLS/Shimotsuma Monogatari ASAP its hilarious and I am completely obsessed with it and have been watching it about once or twice a day for a while now. I've been learning lots of Japanese tho!
And on to something pertaining to my life that isn't related to sitting alone in my apartment!
Now I have to set this up with a little background info on the Japanese junior high school system because it at least pertains partially to the story. Japanese schools are opposite of the way things are done in the US. Instead of the students going around to the teacher's rooms the teachers move around to the students classrooms and each class has the same students all year long in it. Also teachers are assigned a class to be homeroom teacher in and they deal with all the general running of that one class.
Anyways the teacher at my smaller school is homeroom teacher for the 1st years. Today. unknown to me because I have been at my other school, the students were..... climbing Mt. Sarakura. It is RIGHT next to the school so there was easy access hehe. Anyways because my teacher was homeroom of 1st year class she was of course going so there were no English classes today. I really wish I would have known because I was definitely not dressed for it and would have loved to have my camera. Ohhh well. So IT wAs HOT today. Not super hot but hotter than I'd like when climbing a mountain hehe. But basically the goal was to get to the top, the students drew pictures and write haikus and then they were supposed to help clean the area at the top of the mountain. We left at 9:30 and reached the top around 12:30 and since it was a mountain it was 3 hours of uphill hike which amazingly I didn't die since I never exercise I was surprised how easy it was. Well, It's not a very tall mountain I guess. Anyways. we got to the top and there is an AMAZING view of the city I live in and the surrounding areas. I could see how all the areas I've been to connect together which was cool since it's sometimes hard to do on the train because I'm not controlling it and it looks like it is all going in a straight line since its on a track. I chatted with one of the teachers for a while. She is learning English so we had a nice conversation in broken English and broken Japanese. During this time the students were drawing. Some of them are REALLY good. They only had 30 minutes but some of the students just cranked out some amazing art in that time. I was impressed! Their second task was garbage....but UH OH! It's Japan! There IS no garbage! We looked in two places around the mountain and there was about 4 pieces of trash total. Oh well! less work for us! After that we started our climb down which was much harder because the ground was wet on that side and it was steep so traction was a problem. I taught the students the word dangerous because they wanted to know so they spent about 2 hours just saying it over and over again as they slipped down the mountain or called eachother dangerous for pushing. (Also taught them to say NO PUSHING hehe, but it didn't help) It was really cute hehe! So yeah now I'm tired and really sunburnt but had a FUN day! WOO!
Now time for my once a day Kamikaze GIrls!
And on to something pertaining to my life that isn't related to sitting alone in my apartment!
Now I have to set this up with a little background info on the Japanese junior high school system because it at least pertains partially to the story. Japanese schools are opposite of the way things are done in the US. Instead of the students going around to the teacher's rooms the teachers move around to the students classrooms and each class has the same students all year long in it. Also teachers are assigned a class to be homeroom teacher in and they deal with all the general running of that one class.
Anyways the teacher at my smaller school is homeroom teacher for the 1st years. Today. unknown to me because I have been at my other school, the students were..... climbing Mt. Sarakura. It is RIGHT next to the school so there was easy access hehe. Anyways because my teacher was homeroom of 1st year class she was of course going so there were no English classes today. I really wish I would have known because I was definitely not dressed for it and would have loved to have my camera. Ohhh well. So IT wAs HOT today. Not super hot but hotter than I'd like when climbing a mountain hehe. But basically the goal was to get to the top, the students drew pictures and write haikus and then they were supposed to help clean the area at the top of the mountain. We left at 9:30 and reached the top around 12:30 and since it was a mountain it was 3 hours of uphill hike which amazingly I didn't die since I never exercise I was surprised how easy it was. Well, It's not a very tall mountain I guess. Anyways. we got to the top and there is an AMAZING view of the city I live in and the surrounding areas. I could see how all the areas I've been to connect together which was cool since it's sometimes hard to do on the train because I'm not controlling it and it looks like it is all going in a straight line since its on a track. I chatted with one of the teachers for a while. She is learning English so we had a nice conversation in broken English and broken Japanese. During this time the students were drawing. Some of them are REALLY good. They only had 30 minutes but some of the students just cranked out some amazing art in that time. I was impressed! Their second task was garbage....but UH OH! It's Japan! There IS no garbage! We looked in two places around the mountain and there was about 4 pieces of trash total. Oh well! less work for us! After that we started our climb down which was much harder because the ground was wet on that side and it was steep so traction was a problem. I taught the students the word dangerous because they wanted to know so they spent about 2 hours just saying it over and over again as they slipped down the mountain or called eachother dangerous for pushing. (Also taught them to say NO PUSHING hehe, but it didn't help) It was really cute hehe! So yeah now I'm tired and really sunburnt but had a FUN day! WOO!
Now time for my once a day Kamikaze GIrls!