Game-Changer

I had an okay first year lesson on Thursday.  The JTE wanted me to do one of the random "extra" lessons from the back of the textbook.  It was about planning and schedules.  I wasn`t sure what kind of activity to do for this lesson, so I looked online and found a premade worksheet with activities.  My plan was to have the kids fill out the schedule portion, and then work on the wordsearch for the rest of class (we had some textbook dialogues to go through first).  But I forgot that if you give kids a word search, they`re going to ignore everything else.  So I had to set a time limit and make them hand them in just so they would finish the damn things.  Then I had ten minutes I didn`t know what to do with, so we had a spelling race.  I split the class into three teams, had one person from each team come up to the board, and they had to write the word I gave them a) correctly, and b) as fast as they could.  They loved it. 

So, my school plays music in the halls at lunch for whatever reason and THEY`RE PLAYING THE FIRST FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST THEME SONG AND I`M IN HERE SINGING AND BOBBING ALONG AND MY SUPERVISOR THINKS I`M NUTS.  Given that it`s usually One Direction, Taylor Swift, or some J-Pop I`ve never heard of, this is kind of a big deal and I`m well within my rights to fangirl a little bit.  Take your judgement elsewhere, thank you.

My mystery game was almost done.  After almost three solid days of working on it, I had enough of it figured out that I knew what few pieces I had left.  I made sure that everyone either talked to or asked about the villain, but not in an obvious way, every came in contact with at least one red herring, it was great.  Then we announced in class that that`s what we were doing at the end of the month.  Two of the students approached us at break with concerns about our Halloween mystery party.  They`re Jehovah`s Witnesses.  They can`t participate in anything Halloween or anything with monsters because it`s against their religion.  I have to change everything.  It`s fine, it`s cool.  It`s not like I felt a little part of me die or anything (I totally did).  It`s not like I have to scrap pretty much everything I worked on for the past three days (I do).  I don`t mean to sound.... whatever the word is when you`re against someone else`s religion.  And really, I`m not.  I get it.  I don`t necessarily agree with it (probably because I have about the same level of religious affiliation as my kitchen chair), but I get it.  I am all about the tolerance and harmony; really, I`m going to break into song about it any second now.  And they were sweet about it, too.  They said if it was too much trouble that they could just not participate in that portion of the class.  I`m so not going to do that.  I want to include everyone.  Plus, even if it`s fun, they`re still learning and practicing English.  I just might go home and cry while eating a bar of chocolate first.  This also means I can stop thinking about Christmas activities before I even start.

Friday was thoroughly uneventful.  I did a metric tonne of marking, taught the same lesson three times over, and sat at my desk resoloutely avoiding replanning my mystery game.

My plans to go to see monkeys in Nagano fell through, so on Saturday I took myself on a day trip to Osaka.  Partly this was because I found a bilingual day spa, which was all kinds of awesome, and partly because I actually wanted to see things in Osaka (not just the shopping district).  It takes about two hours to get there by train from where I'm at, so it's not a bad day trip, but not something I'd do regularly.  Plus, if I want to be cheap (which I am) and take normal trains rather than the faster, pricier trains with the reserved seats, I'm a lot more limited in my travel time.  Anyway.  So my appointment was at 2PM, and once it was done I decided to walk myself over to Osaka Castle.  I didn't go up in the tower, but I still saw some pretty cool stuff.  The park around the castle is a very popular running spot!

 Dotonbori canal, along which the widely popular Dotonbori shopping district is built.

 The moat around the outer castle walls.

 Main tower of Osaka Castle.

 Kendama is a ball-and-cup toy that is a notoriously difficult game. This guy is doing two ricidulously long ones simultaneously while on a ladder.

While wandering through the castle grounds, I came across a random large group of small dogs, milling about leashless, with their owners.  A pile of them were even in a giant stroller!  Must have been 'Take Your Small Dog to Osaka Castle Day.'  I wanted to take pictures, but did not.  Once I was finished with the castle and wandering through the surrounding park area, I stumbled across 'Take Your Trained Hunting Bird to Osaka Castle Day.'  I took pictures this time.

Since Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving, I decided to host a small dinner party (thank you, family, for genetically predisposing me with a need to feed people).  I spent Sunday grocery shopping and baking my rolls and pie, after Skyping with my family.  And cleaning.  We're not talking about the state my apartment was in at that point.  Monday was a relaxing morning (after more Skype time), followed by some cooking.  Turkeys aren't exactly easy to come by here unless you special order them in advance, probably online, so I was doing a pork roast.  I've done pulled pork before, and beef pot roast, but never a roasted pork, so this was new for me.  I decided to do an herb rub on it as well, so I was really just making things up as I went along and hoping for the best (as I usually do).  It turned out fantastic, we had way too much food, and it was so much fun!

Today I was at my special needs school for another lesson with my elementary kids.  We did more head and shoulders, some sports vocabulary, and connect-the-dots with alphabet and number grids (I called out the number or letter to connect to the previous dot, and it made a picture in the end).  Two different teachers who sort of live in my area gave me suggestions for pasta restaurants (seriously, what is with my teachers and pasta?!).  I was also approached by the middle school English teacher about joining a teachers' team for a relay race happening somewhere around here at the end of November.  Of course I said yes!  Running and being part of a group?!  Sure!  It's not a standard relay, though.  It's kind of a distance relay?  She said that each runner goes about 700m.  Should be interesting.  I definitely have to make sure to keep my running up!