Sometimes I wish I didn’t love my kids quite so much. That way, today wouldn’t have hurt so much. But, I know that I really don’t mean that. I adore my students. I think they are the most wonderful group of people in existence on the planet. And that’s why today made me so sad.… [Read more…]
July 20, 2011
Every year, students at virtually every Japanese school will do a chorus festival. Last year, my favourite class were singing a song called YELL. I watched them and instantly fell in love with it. The fact that these kids can actually sing helps, as does the fact that every class seems to possess a world-class… [Read more…]
June 19, 2011
This weekend has seen me driving all around Shirataka, Nagai and Iide for the Nishi Okitama-gun junior high school sports competition. This is the first stage of the giant sports event that eventually culminates in national finals dotted around Japan featuring the winning teams in each sport from each region. Last year, my one schools… [Read more…]
May 20, 2011
I do apologise for the fact that a few weeks have gone by with not a whole lot appearing on this blog. The simple fact is, I’ve been busy. I actually do have a job here and it has been keeping me busy. I’ve had an impressive 3 week cold (the joys), more work, basketball… [Read more…]
April 18, 2011
So, I left off with me stuck in Yamagata for 3 hrs, unable to get a coffee. After dragging my ridiculously heavy case up, and then back down a road, I went into the train station, hoping that the waiting room would at least be open. It was I bought a copy of The Japan… [Read more…]
March 16, 2011
I know quite a few people are now reading this, and quite a few are subscribed, and I guess you’re waiting for an update, so in order to try and keep my brain busy and stop it from thinking that the building is shaking when it definitely isn’t, here’s a quick update on how things… [Read more…]
February 25, 2011
It’s a scary fact that February is almost over already, it hardly feels like the year has started. February is only a short month, and I’m highly grateful in some ways as I seem to have spent most of this month in an unhappy state. I’ve written this blog once already, and just erased it… [Read more…]
October 26, 2010
I decided it was time for another blog about teaching, which I’m still loving every second of. After 2 lovely weeks of junior high school in September, I embarked on a 3 week spell of elementary. This isn’t exactly my idea of fun. I prefer nice long spells in JHS, with short week-long periods of… [Read more…]
September 14, 2010
During my holiday, the time that wasn’t spent gathering blisters in Kyoto or travelling around various prefectures cheering on my basketball boys was spent commuting between my 2 beloved junior high schools to prepare for the speech contest. There are 2 different categories – recital and speech. I had a student from each school in… [Read more…]
August 8, 2010
A few weeks ago I posted a blog about the wonderful basketball team at Higashi Junior High. This weekend we had the next stage of the competition. After winning both games on Saturday, the boys had to win one more on Sunday and we would all be off to Hiroshima. Alas it was not to… [Read more…]
July 23, 2011
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