Summer has been reasonably hot but very very humid! It's stopped raining now and the skies are often blue.
Today was my first official day at my new school and I had to give a speech to the whole school. I decided that I prefer using Japanese and English (even though no-one else does!) it's good for the students to hear English in different contexts and I'm so much more comfortable using English! I've spent a bit of time with some of the students and the student who I helped with the English contest said I did a good job! (Thanks JB for the editing .... and a few translations).
I'm enjoying it here so far. The student's English allow for much greater conversation and they have a bit more confidence to carry it through. It's also much closer to home... I can walk it in about 30 mins (probably less when I'm not tired and it isn't hot) or I can catch the bus (still a bit of walking, but it takes one hill off the trip).
The school has a big marching band which are playing while I'm writing this. It sounds great. Often when I'm here in the afternoons they're all practising - but different songs, all over the school! I have been invited to practise (play?) with them. If nothing else I can get a bit of regular practise without worrying about the neighbours. And no-one is going to notice an extra noisy musician here!
I know I called this a vacation, but actually it wasn't really - I had 3 days off, but otherwise went to work. I mostly visited junior high schools (I went to my old one a few times) helping students with speech contest practice or English clubs. I also visited a kindergarten (pre-school and kindergarten kids), the senior high school (my new school) and did other random work related things (conferences and meetings). I must admit that I'm looking forward to going to the same school everyday and doing more than just helping kids with their pronunciation (th, l/r) for English contests.
(It seems that instead of writing lots of smaller blogs more often, it's just a big long one every month or so..)
I took one day off and went on a day trip with one of my teachers. We went up north to the next island, had lunch off a roof tile and drove over the longest bridge in Japan. (I have to admit that I forget the names of the places we went to... sorry).
So, lunch off a roof tile? Yep! Noodles are cooked on a roof tile and are nice and crispy, then there is also some finely shredded egg, beef, and seaweed. It's a lot of food, so basically one tile between 2. You pick up some food, dip it in some sauce then straight to your mouth! Actually it was really good.
It was also nice to see water (no waves) but there was lots of people!! For some reason I was surprised how many people were there, but I should have expected it.
Guess that mostly covers the basics.. All going well - strange to think that's it's been a year already (although sometimes feels much longer).
