A Month in the Life

As you may expect, I've got a lot to say.

I just bought a new keyboard today. Now I can continue, but its a little hard to decide exactly where to begin. Well, in the words of Lewis Carrol, "begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."

I've started teaching. I teach 14 classes a week in about 20 sessions. Granted, I like some classes better than others, but at the end of the day, I love my job. I mean, L-O-V-E it. Here's a metaphorical snapshot of my day:

I've started something at school which I call "Mr. Clark's English Box". Original, I know. Basically, I provide the students with a non-mandatory writing prompt every month, usually pertaining to the month in some way. There are also other fun little writing activities like filling in speech bubbles in a comic strip, and whatnot. I've made it clear to the kids that if they don't want to write about the prompt, they don't have to. Anything's fine as long as they're studying English.

I received my first entry today. Last week, the girl lamented to me that she couldn't write one for me, but that she'd do it next time. When I came in today, it was in the box on my desk. She hadn't written about the topic, but that didn't matter to me. The fact that someone submitted something at all had me all antsy. Her essay was titled "My Dream", and was about how she has dreams of being a famous actress, so she's taking classes with a local theatre company and working really hard to get the roles she wants. That sort of thing. It made me think, though. The idea of self-motivation is a lot different in Japan, but I'm sure that when I was her age, to some extent I felt the same way. I wasn't constantly thinking about my future the way this girl does, but I can't deny that I had that same dream at some point.

I was very moved by the way she had bared herself like that. I corrected it quickly, left her a note on the bottom, and handed it back just before lunch. When I came in to her class, she quickly stood up and just started repeating over and over again, "thank you, thank you" (in English, thankfully) and reaching out to shake my hand.

I was going to make some sort of judgment at this point, but now I'm not sure to think, so just decide for yourself what that means.

I really failed at starting at the beginning, eh?

So I go to work 5 days a week. Lately, by bicycle through the rain. I get along with most of my teachers really well. In fact, the vice principal of one of my elementary schools took me and my predecessor out to dinner this past Saturday. I had 'red clam' sashimi for the first time.

Last month, we had a five day vacation. A series of holidays just happened to line up in the perfect configuration, the kind of thing that happens once every 9 years. As a sort of joke, people called it Silver Week, a play off of Golden Week, another 5 day holiday week that happens every May.

For Silver Week, I went down to Southern Japan and visited my friend Lauren and Mr. Joseph Carter, the one and only. I was constantly moving that weekend, all around the area, so I bet it'll just be easier to let the pictures do the talking.

In Nara, there are wild dear that wander the temple grounds. They are considered sacred animals, and you are encouraged to feed them. Yes, the picture below actually did happen.