So I became an English teacher...: Meh... (with pictures!)

Well, as far as teaching goes, this week was entirely uneventful. Back to having all my classes, down to the last of my seminars. All pretty routine stuff. Tantrum girl is officially quitting, but Manager assures me that its common for students to quit when NETs change over. One student that I thought was going to quit actually came back, and we had a really fun time together, so hopefully she will stay.

I horrified myself and probably firmly planted myself of the bad side of a student by calling her by the wrong name for the entire class. She is the ony girl in my high school class, and i kept calling her the name of the only girl in my jr. high class. They start with the same character! Still, I felt really bad when i realized it later... I'm starting to develop my favorite students, and have a few that I wish I could get rid of. I have no real way to discipline the students, and its really annoying when a bad egg keeps the rest of the class from learning!

My P4 and P5 classes are my favorite, the elementary school kids. They are eager to learn, and can play more fun and competitive games. I made prizes for them too, its an incentive to not only perform well, but behave in class as well. The students are really starting to warm up to me, as I have been playing around with them before and after class more often as well. I had a trial lesson with a student this week as well. Thats when a non-amity child comes in for a class and then the parent speaks with the manager while you play with the child. It went well! The kid was cute, and very smart. We played for another 25min or so after the 40min lesson and he became very familiar with me (int he beginning he wouldn't even look at me) so it looks like I have a new student.

Obon has officially started! The summer holiday! I have a week and two weekends off from work. Tomorrow night I take a night bus to Tokyo where I will visit old friends and my co-trainees for a week of good times. We will probably swap horror stories about our first month as English teachers, haha. To celebrate the start of our break Briana and I hit up Miroku (of course) to have a relaxing night. At first we were turned away because there was some official pub crawl going on on main street and we didn't have passes to get in. That was annoying, especially since Taisei (a Miroku bartender) was trying to wave us in. We came back later when then even was over though. I unfortunately ended up sitting next to a guy who was completely trashed and was trying to get to handsy. Why do I always attract the overzealous ones? Speaking to him and his friend in pure Japanese though, was really good practice. I just had to keep close to Briana and keep rejecting his propositions to go out on a date. I did get a free drink out of it, however! After that Briana and I made friends with a few guys who were all doctors (two interns and a dentist). They were really nice, and one took quite an interest in Briana (after she took quite an interest in him) so I kind of acted as an interpreter for her for and one of the doctors (who spoke English) worked as an interpreter for him. It was a strange situation, but good practice again. Lucky me. Before we left a random guy who was across the bar asked Ryo (a bartender) to ask me to take a picture with him. Apparently he had been admiring me all night, but lacked the courage to speak to me? Too bad, he was really cute too! If I see him there again, I will try to get him to talk. Briana and I are probably going back tonight for a more laid back night (hopefully) where we can just chat with Ryo, Taisei, and Yuta (the bartenders).