Japan and me

I miss sandwiches. There are some delicious looking sandwiches on the internet, and I can't make them because there are two varieties of bread (that I've seen within easy/reasonable reach): white and sugary, or choco-bread, which is sugary without being very chocolaty.

And cereal. Well, I have cornflakes, and a granola cereal that's pretty good. But I haven't found American cereal. We're talking sugary, artificially fruity, colorful, marshmallow-y American cereal.

The reality of living in an old house in a humid climate has hit home: I found mold on my backpack. The last time I used it was for a trip to the beach - so I can understand that it may have been damp when I forgot about it two weeks ago. It was in the bathroom, too. Unpleasant.

My visit to Kawahara went much better today! I was prepared this time, and even managed to have a few conversations with non-English speaking teachers (broken and charade-filled, but conversations nonetheless)! The 6th grade class went really well, but I think I may have made the 5th grade class too hard. But at least it feels like I'm starting to warm up to the school and the students and vice versa.

I'm having to re-evaluate my role at the middle school, though. I have to be very proactive about coming up with ideas and suggesting them to the teachers if I don't want to feel useless in class. Yanase sensei, in particular, doesn't use me for pronunciation practice as much as she should. She also tries to adopt the quirky things I do - things like doing silly voices - which doesn't work as well. Once again, it seems like she's insecure about her way of teaching. So she tends to worry more about how she appears in the class and not enough about the actual effectiveness of the lesson. Or so it seems to me. She reads things too quickly for the kids to understand, and often with words that are too advanced, almost as though she were showing off her own English skills. I'm clearly frustrated, and putting my own spin on this. This is just the kind of thing I pay attention to - the differences between good and bad teachers. Now I just need to take my own criticisms to heart.

Trash day tomorrow. Actually, I determine my own trash day. I throw mine out in the public office bin, and I can do this any day, as far as I can tell. This is Fantastic, considering the Crazy Sorting and Trash Schedule most JETs are submitted to.