07.17.03
All right, I'm actually going to update later tonight when I get home. Wait for iiiiiiiiit.
06.26.03
I'm sick as poo. Have been sick as poo for a while. I haven't forgotten about you all. May actually post something again if I every actually get better.
06.15.03
Now, this is just god damn beautiful; and very haunting somehow.
Cheers to Bob for the heads up on this.
06.14.03
So yesterday was the demo class. There were signs all over the school so the guest teachers could navigate. They all seemed a little formal and boring though, so I took the liberty of scribbling a doodle on the white board at the entrance. My artisitc abilities are as breathtaking as my handwriting, I know.
For some reason everyone in the school knew about it. I expected the teachers to know, but all the students knew and kept wishing me good luck as well. If I heard one more "ganbatte!!" I was going to start chucking people out windows. We weren't blasting off to the moon for god's sake, it was just a stupid class.
Did I mention that there were a lot of people at this thing? Sure it doesn't look that bad by looking at the photos but when all these people, as well as your boss, as well as their boss from the Fukuma Board of Education, as well as all their bosses from the Fukuoka Prefectural Board of Education, are watching and taking notes on your every move for almost an hour, it gets a little nerve-wracking. Nakahara-sensei was also there video taping the whole thing as well (he says he was told to by the board of education) so they could reproduce a record of my pain should they ever so desire. I had not known about that. :( As well, with that many people in the room it was, as we in the education biz like to say, hot-as-balls!
There was a meeting afterward which was dumb. Everyone got a chance to say what a great lesson it was and how we were great, blah blah. Just goes to show how messed up the Japanese Ed system is when a lesson can be as bad as it was and no one notices. The only good thing was that I got to oogle over the hottie Japanese teacher that had been standing on Fletcher's right durning the class. H-O-T-T, HOTT!! o_O
Long story short, it's over. And wonder of wonders, today was the first morning in a week that I haven't woken up with a headache. Coincidence?
06.11.03
(Today's photo has nothing to do with anything. It's in Nakasu in Fukuoka-city for those who care about that sort of thing.)
I've had a headache since around noon on Sunday. This does not make Skottie happy. It makes me cranky and generally hate everyone around me simply for being who they are. I'd had enough of it and, upon concluding that four days in entirely too long for any headache to last, I went to the hospital.
I had gone to the doctor on Monday. "Going to the doctor" in Japan means you go to some cute, little neighborhood clinic that has enough equipment to basically give you a blood test and fork over some medicine. Good enough for most of the crap you'd usually go for, but the piercing pain directly above and behind my left eye prompted me to want a 'proper' checkup. And a proper checkup I got; MRI scan and everything baby, eat your heart out!!
The Doc told me that there was nothing physically wrong with me in any big way, which means it's probably stress and/or tension related. I don't doubt it considering what's waiting for me this Friday. My Principal, whom I otherwise admire and enjoy talking to and being his underling, took the liberty of volunteering myself and one of the other English teachers to give a demonstration class for the other JETs and Japanese English teachers in the entire area.
Hurrah.
This same principal, also had the brilliant foresight to volunteer myself and the teacher that I get along least with for this demo class. (Yeah, this fuqr is living on borrowed time, let me tell you.)
It's not that she's a bad teacher, she's actually pretty good. What she is, is a bad team teacher. We spent some time last Wednesday going over an activity and making a plan for this lesson. On Friday we had a meeting with the other English teachers at our school to get some input. She handed out the lesson plan and it was 100% different. The activity we planned was nowhere to be seen. "Um, did we change the plan?" I naively asked. "Yes, there probably wasn't time for the other game."
Gee thanks, so nice of you to first tell me and then let me contribute to the replacement plan, especially before showing it to the other teachers here and making me look like an idiot.
Hurrah again.
We did the lesson twice in two different classes today as kind of a shakedown cruise. Shake it down, we did. Disaster. I am absolutely dreading Friday. The worst part is that I can't even say something to the principal or the Prefecture people that'll be there like, "Please don't think I had anything to do with this scoop of scholastic scat," because while there are no consequences for me as a JET, it can seriously affect this teacher's job, and I just don't want to do that to her.
It's weeks like this that make me consider becoming a chain-smoking alcoholic. No wonder I have a headace.
</relentless bitching>
