Special Ed

I had a better day today with the kids. There's a pretty big difference in the way that the kids behave at each school. Today I team taught three classes, one of which was the special ed class. I've asked many people what they mean by the term they use to describe this class and they can't really translate it well. They say that the kids are slower, but when I interacted with them they seemed fine. So I don't think there's anything severely wrong. They were a lot of fun to teach because they seemed really eager to learn. Tomorrow I have the same type of class but a different grade level to teach. They have been described as kids that have epilepsy and hydrocephally. In the electronic dictionary that this school provided me with, the term for this class means flap or flutter. hmm

In every class after my self introduction there is time to ask me questions and so far I've been asked a lot of the same questions like who my favorite singer is or what my favorite Japanese food is. But today they asked me much more creative questions like how much my glasses cost! I was really impressed.

mountains!

I had a fun weekend packed with site seeing. I took the train out to Nishi-iya (near Nishi-yama on the map in my "Pre-Japan" post) and met up with my friend Justin. I met Justin during orientation. He's from Arkansas and studied economics along with Japanese. But don't worry Eddie-fans, Justin is just a friend. He has a serious girlfriend. Just thought I'd get that out there since he'll probably be mentioned on here a lot.

Anyways, I was able to see and experience practically everything in Nishi-iya. Nishi-iya is gorgeous because it is in the heart of Shikoku's massive mountains. There's a river running through the mountains too. For anyone that knows anything about Japanese history, this area was where the Heike clan found refuge after being overpowered. We went to a Heike "museum" but I'm not quite sure I knew what I was looking at. We went to the famous vine bridge in the area and it looks really old and cool, but we read that they rebuild it every three years for safety reasons. So it's not actually that authentic when you think about it. On the side of the road there's a statue of a young boy going to the bathroom over the side of the mountain into the river. That's always mentioned in the tourism pamphlets, and it was really funny, but it was just on the side of the road. Kinda random.




We also went to three onsens. Onsens are Japanese style bath houses. I'll explain more about them when I have time and internet access at home (to post pictures), but basically I bathed naked in a hot spring hot tub at the top of a mountain with Japanese women that I didn't know (genders were separate). Pretty awesome.
This was the elavator we took up to the top of the mountain.

This was the women's onsen.

This is the indoor one. This is wear you undress beforehand and redress/primp afterwards. Blow driers and nice facial creams are provided.

No one was in here so I was able to take a pic. It's kind of hard to see but the shower area is on the right. You sit on a little stool and wash yourself. The hot spring water is near the window. It's a really big hot tub.


We also went to Kochi City which is on the central southern coast of Shikoku. We visited the Kochi castle, and ate a lot of food. I took 103 pictures this weekend, so it was well documented. I'll post a few as soon as I can.




Today I team taught three classes. The third-year students were loud and quite rude. The teacher just let it go and went on with class despite the constant banging on the window and talking that was going on. But from what I've heard the classes at my technical high school are much worse. hmm. We'll see.

One thing to note before I go is the Asian mullet. I just can't get over it. The majority of the Japanese girls have them. The hair on the top isn't super short or anything, but the back is a tad longer than I'm use to. The hair that is longer is only one layer thick. I don't know if I'm describing this accurately, but be on the lookout for it once I start posting pictures from school events. Next weekend Seto JHS is having an all day culture day, and I've been asked to come.

Despite the fattening food, I've lost 6 lbs since I got here! It's probably all the biking though.

Day 2

It rained all night and into the morning (including my 40 minute ride to school) so we didn't have evacuation practice outside. I taught a class of first years (7th grade) and a class of second years (8th grade) this morning. The second years were terrified of embarrassment and participated very very minimally. The first years were active, but you could see the uncomfortable-ness of puberty setting in. Middle school is so awkward! But anyways, English class is taught in Japanese, and this totally confuses me since every foreign language class I've ever been in was never in English. The kids liked my pictures though. They were confused by the concept of fried cheese. When conprehension questions were asked after my self introduction, they knew the answers regarding Eddie better than the rest. All the teachers and principals have been very nice to me so far.

I ate the school lunch again today. It was an average school lunch where the meat is sketchy but the soup and rice is okay. I ate with the first year class, but it was pretty uneventful. They eat in their own classroom. The kids get the food from the lunch person, bring it to the classroom, dish it out for all the students and then clean up afterwards. They work together very well.

This afternoon I will coach a third year student who will be competing in an English speech contest in a couple weeks. She wrote the speech in Japanese, the English teacher who isn't fluent translated it, and I corrected it.

Have a good weekend everyone!


p.s. Happy 3 year Eddie! I love you!