English

I can't take any credit for that baseball game. I won a book in a raffle during orientation that is filled with games focused on warm-up activities, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, etc. The book is great because it has a description of each game in English and Japanese. This has been a life-saver because the teachers barely speak English. Out of the 10 teachers that I team-teach with, four know/speak English well enough to communicate with easily. The others know basic sentences and only vocabulary that is in the textbooks that they use, so there has been some confusion.

These are a few things that one of the teachers said to me:

What, name? (she was asking the name of my college)
Oh, there are much snow in Boston?
Do you like animal?
Do you know sushi?

Actually, that last question is used by every Japanese person I've talked to so far. They ask Do you know....? And put in inanimate objects. It makes me cringe a little when they ask me if I know sushi as if it is a person. I think my new goal this year is to explain to the teachers that 'of' or 'about' needs to be added to that question unless it is a person. I know that this is a tricky part of English, and I understand why they make those particular mistakes, but I guess I'm just shocked that I'm getting this from the people that are teaching English. Plus, I know enough Japanese to know that a teacher was translating parts of my self-introduction incorrectly.

Today the 2nd years (9th graders) were extremely rude. One kid in particular spoke whenever I spoke and lots of kids were laughing. So I asked him to come up to the front so that the entire class could hear. I asked him twice. Then he started doing his homework (writing) instead. It's not my job to discipline the kids, but I don't want to give up or give an incomplete lesson because the other kids in the class shouldn't have to suffer. I'd rather have one kid hate me if the class runs well than the two kids in the front being the only ones that understand the lesson. I can't discipline them, so I'll use embarrassment in worst-case classes.

Updates:
- I got my modem in the mail last night, but my service won't start until Sept 22. So that's when my vonage line will start working too.
- My water bill was only ￥485 (about $4.50) for one month of service! My rent is only about $160/month. My phone and internet bill (once service starts!) will probably make up for it though. Everything but rent is automatically withdrawn from my account each month.
- September 11th was covered in Japanese news. They rarely report on non-Japan news, but September 11th, Pres Bush, and America's war on terrorism were all mentioned.