Merry Monday

I had a good day today. That’s a good start to the week.

Mondays often feel like crap, at least when I wake up as I realize that the weekend is over and that I have to go back to my mind numbing job as a professional speaker of Engrish. Meaning that I have to go freeze my ass at the JHS while busily surfing facebook and being bored outta my mind until someone comes to chat me up. There really isn’t much else to do, unless I’m on tape recorder duty. Granted, I could study Japanese, which would be a much better use of my time, but I am a lazy ass and re-reading someone’s blog entries in my 2nd language remains more appealing than trying to cram hiragana and katakana into my brain. Yet, today I would be spared the usual mind-numbingness of the job (at least in part) as I was due to direct my very own lesson with the ni-nen sei. Being Canadian – and French – emotions in English had been cool to learn back in my high school days. And no matter that my JTE kept saying that Japanese people could not be “overwhelmed” as they never displayed such emotions, I think the kids got the picture and enjoyed seeing me make an ass out of myself as I laughed hysterically (hysterical), jumped two feet in the air screaming “KUMO!!!!” (frightened) and made moon eyes at the little badass in class (lovestruck).

That was the first lesson of the day. It did a world of good to wake me up (and keep me warm) and I think it did get the kids genki for the day, despite it being 15 wet degrees inside the school.

Yu-chan’s lesson went well as he was in a good mood today, and he completed my body parts worksheet (with one of his favorite cartoon characters as the “body”) in record time.

And then, the surprise of the day. I had been asked (Friday evening, 10 minutes before leaving school, as per habit) to design a worksheet for today, which would be used in the san-nen sei’s lesson. Usually, this allows me 3 minutes in front of the class, actually talking as I explain the worksheet. But not today. Nope. Today, I was to stand at the front of the class for about 15 minutes, explaining what an INVITATION was, demonstrated it with the JTE, and then writing out the key sentences on the board for asking someone to do something, accepting or declining the invitation. And for once, there were more than 2 examples for EACH sentence!!! I was giddy!!! I mean, for once, I got to teach, and it was a pattern sentence that can actually be useful , and it was to students who were listening, enraptured by my every word!! Ok, maybe that’s pushing it, but they were listening and taking notes at least, which is a huge improvement over my apathetic high school kids that I wanted to strangle every damn class back in Quebec. The lesson ended with a textbook reading, but I didn’t even mind, and I was pretty happy again as the JTE joked with the students about the fact that no self-respecting JHS student would ever suggest Ghandi as a flick to watch with friends on the weekend. Seriously. What 13 year old wants to watch a 3 hour + movie about the British’s reign in India and how Ghandi ended it?

And lastly, school lunch had actual MEAT today (yakitori, I think, chicken brochettes), was all around delicious and still WARM, despite the all-around cold! Good day! ^^