Photo Challenge Day 15

March 15: In your bag

What’s in my bag you ask? Well, lots of things, but this picture was the most interesting.

Wonder what it says about my teaching style that I feel the need to carry 2 decks of cards, Uno and dice (in the Rebecca tin) everywhere I go?

Here are some of the books I’ve got too. Narnia in Japanese, my planner and my journal.

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This is what I woke up to this morning: isn’t it glorious? I don’t know how he manages to do it, but God manages to wow me with this view every morning.

Today was graduation at one of my small elementary schools. These signs say Congratulations on graduation.

Though it sounds tiny with three students, this school had the biggest graduation for one of my small schools. I can’t believe these three are going to be JHS students soon.

When you are a ‘dignitary’ you get served green tea and they give you mochi. One of my friends who I boarded with the other day was the office lady there last year, so she came too. It was fun chatting with her and the other English teacher while we were sitting in the office.

At the end of the school day, I got to coach my HEC students. We did a practice test so they could see what it was like (and so I could practice it, too!). They have improved sooo much! I’m looking forward to seeing how they do on the test. I hope they get to go to camp – it would be great for them to get to practice English that much.

After work, I had a short break and then I went boarding with one of my high school students who I’ve known since she was in junior high school. It’s always fun getting to do something other than teach English with these kids.

Photo Challenge Day 10

March 10: Time

Today was the Junior High’s Graduation day. What happened? Just the other day these kids were 6th graders and now they’re graduation from Junior High?? How did that happen?

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Despite the fact that it was long and the vocabulary for something like graduation is difficult. It was fun to get to watch this group of kids graduate from junior high school.

Here are some of the fun things that happen at my junior high school for graduation.

When all the visitors come to the school, they take off their shoes. Since people can’t wear shoes in Japanese school buildings, they put their outside shoes on a tarp and either wear the shoes they brought or the slippers provided by the school.

 

In Japan, special “dignitaries” are invited to school ceremonies. My friend and school office lady, K, waits for the dignitaries to come. The dignitaries are people like the mayor, the other school principals, the head of the PTA and other important people. Sometimes I’m one of them – I always much prefer to be a regular audience member though. Before the ceremony, they wait in the Principal’s office and speak in difficult Japanese.

The kids create massive amounts of these tissue paper flowers and use them to decorate the school.

This wall says “Thank You.”

The students’ recent science projects are on display here.

Before graduation there’s a special room for the parents to wait in while the kids have homeroom, and a few other things to do.

If there’s a space with not much happening, it was decorated.

This says “Omedeto” it means “Congratulations.”

The graduating students (I think) write letters to their classmates and maybe their families.

This is the stage. The sign across the top says something like “Congratulations on your Graduation.” The flags below are for Hokkaido, Japan, and my town. When someone goes on stage, they bow to the Japanese flag. The trees in the back are made up of a ton of tiny Cherry Blossom cutouts.

The line of video cameras. These people also come out at every ceremony or school festival.

After the students have walked the stage, speeches are given.

First, the principal.

Next, a representative from the Board of Education.

After that, the mayor.

Last, the head of the PTA.

After they spoke, the students sang a couple of songs.

After that, it was party time. This was my place marker.

The party was fun. There was of course, lunch. After that it was animal bingo – I was one of several winners.

After bingo, we played the telephone game. My team didn’t win, but one of the rounds I passed on what I had heard correctly and the next time, I was probably the weak link in the chain. It’s soo hard to play the telephone game in your second language. Now I kind of know how my kids feel – they’re usually playing with each other and words they know. I was playing with a bunch of things I had no clue about.

The weather was terrible, so as we cleared our cars, my new-this-year JTE and I had a nice chat about winter in Japan vs. Portland.

Photo Challenge Day 6

March 6: Straight

Today I finished and sent my taxes straight to the paper wasters (aka. the IRS). Yay for not having to keep thinking about them after this. I love the cute stamps in Japan, for Valentine’s Day they had super cute Disney stamps.

Here’s the answer to Day 4’s challenge:

It’s a crochet hook. Mom (on the blog site) and Mandie (on Facebook) got it.

In other news I got the HNg (Hokkaido Newcommers Guide) for this year. Guess whose photo is on the front?

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Today was the last day of elementary school classes. I still am slightly in shock that this year’s students were third graders when I came and in less than a month they’ll be starting Junior High School. Time flies so quickly!

It was also my last ES class teaching with Mr. I. It was a lot of fun teaching with the same teacher for all of the classes. In part, because we had time to talk and change lessons as we wanted to. He was also always super receptive to my ideas for the ES English classes, which as a trained ES teacher, made me super happy.

Just because I’m still in awe of how much snow Niseko has every year, here is a picture of the Niseko snow this weekend. Wow!