i leave in a day?

life has been busy the last week or two and have been neglecting my blog a bit. had a visitor over the weekend, seena came and stayed with me for a few days on her way home to guam. it was really great to see her! got to show her around my area and we also headed into tokyo for a day.







now for todays activities...

as i am officially an employee of the board of education, part of my duties include visiting elementary schools occasionally (well basically whenever they ask). so today i had my first elementary school visit. and it was great. i went to tokashima shogakko, a very small school, i mean only 28 students in the school!!

the visit was a whirlwind of activity in a short period of time. had two classes (all students divided between them). did my self intro, they introduced themselves (hi my name is..., nice to meet you. my favorite food is...), then we talked about what they want for christmas, and finally played pin the nose of rudolph. then i ate lunch with the 3rd and 4th graders. and after lunch we went to the gym and i played basketball with ALL of the students and some of the teachers. it was great!! it is days like this that i really enjoy working here, and i actually feel like i serve a purpose.

eventually headed back to my regular school, but not before a few of the little kids gave me some flowers they picked, a bunch of photos that one of the teachers had printed, and of course about 5 cups of tea! (oh and all of the kids and teachers came out and waved goodbye as i was leaving).

aren't they adorable...
















then got back to school and one of my classes was making mushiyaki, so i got to go and help/watch.





it was an exhausting day! but lots of fun.

and now i would just like to wish everyone reading this a wonderful christmas and happy new year!! i am headed back to the good old us of a on friday morning (only one more day of school, time is flying!).

sweet potatoes, apples and carrots

so to my knowledge in japan there is no such thing as an ice cream truck that drives around dishing out ice cream to kids. but they do have the yaki imo man! the yaki imo is a sweet potato that is roasted on hot stones and charcoal. so apparently starting in mid November the yaki imo man begins driving through neighborhoods peddling these cherished seasonal japanese food and will continue throughout the winter. the truck is set up so that the imo (sweet potatoes) are roasting on a fire in the back of the truck

haven't been able to snap a picture of the yaki imo man in my area but found this picture


but there is more to this whole thing, the man drives around chanting the yaki imo call. and the first time i heard it, i was very confused. if you check out this link you can hear it: http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/sounds/ishiyakiimo.html

in other news, today when i was just having a lazy day in my apartment there was a knock on my door (not all that common, haha). when i opened the door, my elderly neighbor couple were standing at my door with a bag for me. they brought me 3 apples and 2 carrots. the best part was that there was a note attached, written in english!! so we discussed (in japanese) a bit who had written it, and it turns out that the man speaks some english, who would have thought?!

the note read:

to foreign teacher,
please help yourself to apple and a carrot.
perhaps, this apple is the most delicious in japan.
because this apple was cultivated by a new type of fertilizer.
it's producted only japan.
and this carrot is too!
in memory of japanese tastes.
from neighbor.

how adorable is that!

anyway i was caught off guard by this, as most of my neighbors are pretty quite and just give a little bow when they see me. oh, except the other day, i noticed that one of my other neighbors (a family with 2 little kids that go to the elementary school across from my house) had left the inside light of their car on. i decided that i should let them know, so i went and ended up having to communicate this through an intercom in japanese. yikes! but somehow she understood what i was saying. so now whenever i see her or her kids they all greet me. looks like my neighbors are starting to acknowledge my presence, only took 4 months :)

It is December so I moved back to Itako 2nd today. And unfortunately, today classes were dedicated to returning and reviewing tests that students took last week, which meant no classes for me. Even though I had no classes today I still interacted with the students quite a bit throughout the day. All of the students seem excited when they saw me around and would seek me out in their free time to speak with me. Much like the students reaction, when I walked into the teacher’s room this morning I felt that the teachers were genuinely happy to see me (can’t say I really get the same feeling at Hinode). Already had my English teachers working with me to make plans for the week/month, which is good, it means I’ll actually know what is going on in the classroom and at school, yay! So, I’m fairly confident in saying, in terms of teaching, this month is going to be much better than the last! I’m a little sad that I am only going to be here for three weeks before I head back to the states (which is unbelievably only 17 days away!). December is going to fly by!

its a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

today was a beautiful fall day, a welcome break from the cold of the past few weeks, so i decided to go for a run around the neighborhood, went a different way than normal and discovered 2 different parks! they are both so close to my house, how did i never know they were here. ran into a few groups of my students out enjoying the weather as well, and they all actually stopped me and wanted to talk to me(mostly in English too!!). my students are great, i just wish there wasn't so much bureaucracy in the school system and i could have more 'fun' with them, and that they actually had time to act like kids!

also made carrot bread in my rice cooker this afternoon. this is my second attempt making bread in my rice cooker (made banana bread a few weeks ago), and both have turned out well! i think i have made less rice in my rice cooker than other various foods (applesauce is by far the best discovery so far). how does anyone live without a rice cooker?