Today was my first day with my internship at Izumi Elementary School. My host mother and the kids walked me to school, five minutes away from home, where I was met by the woman I met yesterday at the city office who introduced me to the principal and vice principal, soon after one of the other city workers came, we taljed and they talked about expectations and serious stuff, then we just talked about normal stuff and they cracked a few jokes to try to make me feel less nervous. After this, I went and introduced myself once to all the teachers, then went back to the principal's office where the city workers and I talked a bit more until the teacher I am the assistant for came to meet me and introduce me to the class. She is quite young, only 25, and shorter than me with a round face and long hair slightly dyed in the very common Japanese bleached blond look (slightly orange). Like every other teacher at this school, including the principal and vice principal, she was wearing a track/warm up suit. I introduced myself to the class and they went balistic, they are so amazigly energetic and cheerful. When I walked into the room, five of them came up right away and shook my hand for some reason. After this it was music time, so I went with the kids to the musi class where I sat in the back and tried to sing along as best as I could, one vboy kept looking back at me throughout the whole class. Singing in a foreign language is hard! After music, the kids went back to the classroom and I went to the principal's office for my official orientation and got a bunch of papers to look at. Sadly I am not able to read the school rules, but they said the most important thing is to relax and have fun. After the meeting, I found my way back to the classroom and there was an earthquake drill. When we went outside, I introduced myself once more to everyone at the school and before that, many other students were staring at me. After the drill, there was yhe shorter of two recesses, so I went outside in my suit and played dodgeball with some of the kids from my class. After recess, it was time for science class for two hours. During this class, the kids were learning about Electricity and so I walked around to help them with the experiments and to be sure they were keeping up with the instructions. After that we had lunch, Japanese school lunches are delicious, but a bit small for me. I drew straws to decide where to sit for lunch cuz all the kids wanted to sit with me. Next was Recess take two. I joined a group of girls for tag and a group of boys also joined when they heard I was doing it. Several kids from other classes hovered around are area watching me the whole time. Then it was cleaning time, but I did not really see what was meant by that. The kids spend much of thetime brainstorming ways to beautify or improve the school. Soon after, the class split in half and half the class went to another room while a bunch of 3rd graders came. They did something called a whiteboard meeting where they split into groups and brainstormed how to improve the school. I stuck with one group and observed. They talked about some more stuff I did not really understand, sang a song, then I was up again. The teacher gave question time to the students, so they asked me all sorts of questions, from my favorite food to if I have a girlfriend, to which girl will become really attractive in the future to how old is and what I think of the teacher. I chose to skip some questions of course. Afterwards, some more stuff I did not understand, and then for fun, there were armwrestling competitions where I was apparently the grandmaster everyone wanted to challenge. With that school ended, I stood around and talked to some students, and went with the teacher whose name I really need to remember to the faculty room where I talked with a few of the teachers, one guy seemed to try to set himself up in a senpai position to me which I chose to ignore, and I worked on a journal I am doing for the school saying what I am doing and my thoughts. At one point the vice principal told me to relax a bit and gave me a shoulder massage. After that I returned home. At home we had dinner, sat around chatting more, played with the kids, and watched TV. I am seeing too much of my host brother's butt, he seems to hate pants and sheds them every chance he gets, it is hilarious, but I do not wanna see quite so much of him. Especially when he stands right in front of my face. phew, weekend update tomorrow, good night.
Hi! It sounds as though your celebrity status is alive and well at your school. Maybe it was that suit?!
I had to look up senpai to know what were talking about. Is this guy close to you in age? ... or have an interest in your teacher? This might be reasons that he felt he needed to establish a pecking order.
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Cameron Clark
2/9/2014 06:09:35 am
More likely just my skin color and eyes.
Senpai‐kohai relationshipsare also just a big part of Japanese culture, but a headache for foreigners. That is one part of Japanese culture I do not like, thus chose to ignore which I can do as a foreigner.
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Papa
2/9/2014 07:02:04 am
Cameron, is there any way to denote where you are living or teaching so we can search for it on Google Earth? Nice to be hearing from you again. Maybe Osaka has a Catholic Church.
Love Ya, Papa
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Cameron Clark
2/9/2014 05:15:32 pm
I am working at Izumi Elementary School, Daito-shi and Sanga Elementary school, Daito-shi. I would prefer not posting where I live on a public blog anyone can see.
There are no catholic churches I know of, but there are many shinto shrines. Kobe has a cathedral though. To give you an idea, under 1 percent of Japanese are Catholic.
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Waseda University Blog
I am going to Waseda University in central Tokyo for the 2013-2014 academic year for study abroad. This will be from September 16th through probably early to mid August.