Aaaaah! Actually busy now.

Hello hello!
I apologize in advance that this entry is not going to be very fulfilling or detail ridden.  It is already nearly 10:30 PM, and I have to get up again tomorrow at 6 so I'd like to go to bed soon.
I'll do my best to write what I can, but I'm sure I've already forgotten a lot of it.  Maybe I'll add another entry onto this one later, or add extra ideas as comments, or just go through and fix the entry at a later date. Either way, if you're interested about the last week and a half check back HERE to see if anything has changed.

Where did I leave off...?

Last Wednesday was the opening ceremony.  The whole school convened in the morning in the gym, and listened to a few speeches by the administration staff about conduct and making this a good second semester.  (The Japanese school system is opposite to the American one, so instead of starting a new school year in fall, we are starting the second half of a school year.  The students go up a grade level in the spring.)  There is a new English teacher as well as me, so we both sat in the front of the crowd with the Principal and Vice Principal to be introduced.  The Principal did a very brief introduction, and then Ms. Mochizuki (which is her name) and I did our very short introductions following.  Hers was in Japanese and very polite, and mine was in English.  I would have been able to do it in Japanese, but they wanted me to do it in English for the kids.  Also, I think they want to postpone the kids realizing that I speak Japanese as long as possible, so they'll at least attempt to speak to me in English sometime.  I think the speech was kind of fun, and despite giving it in front of 700 middle schoolers, I wasn't that nervous.  Preforming in front of lots of people makes me less nervous that performing in front of only a few.

After that I was able to go back to the office and prepare some more things for the first day of class.  The actual school day was shortened for the students so I didn't have any classes.

Thursday was a test day to see what level all of the students were at.  Again, the class schedule was rearranged for this day so I didn't have any classes I had to teach.  I spoke to a few of the English teachers that I would be working with on Friday, and they finally started to tell me some more concrete things they wanted me to put together.  I knew I was going to have to do a self introduction, so I had been putting together objects and pictures from home to show to the kids.  I also wrote down a few sentences about myself.  Finally, one of the teachers (Ms. Mochizuki 1, which I will explain in a moment) came up to me and said that she'd like to make the whole 50 minute period basically for my use.  The first 5 minutes or so are dedicated to checking for materials and giving out points or returning tests or whatever, and greetings in English.  She wanted me to put together a game or sheet that had to do with my self introduction, so I thought about a crossword puzzle.  I took some time putting one together and setting up my introduction speech so that it would be easy enough to understand, and exactly all of the points that needed to be on the worksheet.  After I was done with the worksheet she told me that it would be way too hard for the first years, so she put in some Japanese words where they wouldn't understand.  I prepared this, and basically used the same introduction speech for a different teacher who had put together her own worksheet with only a few different questions added.

I have to go to bed now.  Sorry for the abrupt ending, but I'm not focusing.

Good night!  I'll finish tomorrow.  This entry is just going to have to come in installments.