Wow, I have just finished my first day at the elementary school; or rather I have finished all my classes. I had 4 classes on the trot with barely time to breath in between them, it was a lot of fun though, the kids are bursting with energy! All the lessons were very planned, with a different activity every ten minutes, and most of the activities had their own music too. I kicked off with the 2nd year class, they were probably the craziest and most energetic. After the greetings and good mornings I just spread all my pictures and flags and maps on the floor and had them gather round, the mostly got very exited about my house for some reason and they loved the world map as well, we spent quite a lot of time finding various countries, they were shocked and awed it seemed to find Japan on the map, go figure. You are part of the world Japan! Apparently a lot of them like chicken, or at least a lot of them came up to me proudly proclaimed so. One little girl kept saying ‘horse eat apple’ to me, very cute. Oh they also like the pictures of my dog. And as always I heard lots of Harry potters when they were looking at pics of Edinburgh. They also sang a song for me in Japanese, very loudly! At the end they had their fingers in their years and were shouting at the tops of their not so little voices, awesome. Next straight off to the kindergarten, here they had prepared a paper red carpet and little archway for me to walk along and under respectively. We did a dance which was cool and then I had shout out number while holding up flash cards, kinda boring, I tried to make it more fun by having them shout loudly but this is what the teacher had planned so. I left with much Hi-5’s and goodbyes, and kids climbing on me etc etc. I think they had just been waiting to let loose after the numbers game, one little group of boys followed me all the way back to the staff room, Hi-5ing with me all the way. So then a 2 mintues break, grab some ocha and then the 6th year class, these dudes were a bit more sedate, some of them a bit shy I guess, but it went well and they asked some good questions as the end, oh we played the murder game as well. They had all made nice name tags with British and Japanese flags, very nice. Then the 4th class, they were pretty much as genki as the 2nd years but they could also ask decent questions so that was an awesome class to, we played several games of murder and they went bonkers over all my pictures. For some reason on little boy was amazed that we kept goats at home, and when I told him we had 6 he was even more amazed and went off to discuss this at length with his friends. These kids were bouncing, when they saw they picture of the karate in Scotland they decide to have a go at that too. One boy then came back to the class after it was done and offered to carry all my pictures etc. for me, nice of him. That was my last class but the fun wasn’t over yet, oh no! I had lunch with the 2nd years in their class room, that was pretty crazy, I helped them clean up after, scrapping glue of the windows with a Stanley knife with a couple of kids, yep that’s right the kids here can use Stanley knifes unsupervised (well I guess I was there today). They had a free period after lunch so I got led (or rather pulled) by a bunch of girls (including ‘horse eat apple!’ girl) to the library, all very fine, and then they showed me a series of books on well sex, love and life in general. Ok so this was pretty surprising for me. These books are just sitting in the elementary school library for any kid to read, not on a high shelf or anything. I don’t think I have anything against it, maybe, but it’s definitely not what I am used to. The books were fully explicit, perhaps more than they needed to be. One picture which drew my attention was of a woman massaging some sort of foam into a mans back, he’s naked and she is in underwear, and in the doorway is what can only be described as a porn star type counting money and looking at the couple. The ‘porn star’ is wearing a Hawaiian shirt buttoned down, medallion on a hairy chest and sunglasses, and why is he counting money!! There were pictures of people actually having sex, pictures of little boys masturbating in bed, and watching porn. The books seemed to cover every area of sex and relationships. There is a picture of a yuppie in a flash sports car trying to get a girl into his car, pictures of young people gay and straight exploring their developing sexuality, pretty much everything from a young boy looking at a girl’s underwear to a picture of a woman giving birth, with the head poking out. These books seemed pretty comprehensive, I guess parents in Japan never had to give the birds and the bees talk, and kids here don’t ever ask question like ‘where do babies come from?’ I guess things are just different here, I mean I knew they were more open about sex here, but at elementary school, even the kindergarten kids could see these books! Well anyway, I then went off and played on the monkey bars with the kids, yeah I am a big kid myself. Oh then a group of kids, I think from the special needs class, gave me a card they had made for me, I was touched, I shall have to translate it later. The picture is of the card.

I had my last introduction class Today and I kind of ended on a high. The others had gone pretty well, round of applause when I take of the mask and the questions didn’t require too much prompting. The last class I introduced myself too were the second years at the junior high, and I had been warned that they were very shy, so I was expecting silent stares, sleeping and stubborn refusal to answer questions but they were awesome, the most animated of all the years I think. I had much laughter and pointing when I came in with the mask on, and they launched into asking the question with much more gusto than any of the other years, I had a small forest of hand wanting to ask questions. The rest of the lesson went well and quickly, so far they are my favorite class. Here is one amusing story from the class; there were two boys who decided to take a nap, I have to admit the girls of the class were by far the more enthusiastic, and the girls at that lunch table kept hitting them and saying ‘excuse me’ and ‘hurry up!’ (with Japanese accents of course). It amused me anyway ;). The JTE afterwards told me she was surprised the kids weren’t shy, well she didn’t figure on Scottish charm that’s what! Yeah Scotland! In general I find the students here much more relaxed and enthusiastic in class than I remember Scottish students as being. Although the class room is a more relaxed place in general here it seems, sleeping in class and refusal to answer questions are perfectly acceptable here. Anyway I am feeling very good about that class so I thought I would post my thought about it. I also had an english conversation class today and that was awsome too, I guess its going to be kids who like enligsh anyways but at the end a boy came up and thanked me for a fun lesson, that made me feel good. Ok I realise I may be gushing a little bit, but I kinda expected to kids to be like scottish kids and not very interested in class so I am kinda stoked at how cool they are. I have no picture of the class so I shall include one of when I was snooping around the coral rock when the tide was out, in the picture the tide is coming in and rushing between the gaps in the old coral rock. That’s Nagi, one of my taiko friends in the distance. Oh and the big pyramidal rock is called ‘Izena castle’, although I have no idea of the Japanese name.

The mask I wore for my first lessons, the pupils had to ask me question to fill in a sheet before I would take off the mask. 

Pictures of the sea as the typhoon aproached 

I had my first class last Friday. It was my introduction lesson, so basically lots of pictures of me and Scotland and me talking about myself. It went pretty well, I think, I came in with a paper mask over my head and they had to ask me some questions before I would reveal myself, I totally stole the idea from the Naha orientation but hey. They all had already seen me, but I think it's good to start of a little crazy/weird. It was the 3rd year class at the junior high school, so they were interesting in and pretty good at English; I suspect the younger years will be a bit more reluctant to speak out in class. So at this moment we are in the middle of a typhoon, luckily though it veered north at the last minute and so Izena was spared the worst of it. The waves around Izena were pretty impressive yesterday, it is windier today but its also raining allot, so no pictures. I didn't manage to go swimming as I had planned on Saturday as it was a bit too rough out at sea. It was also low tide so I and Nagi had a wonder around the exposed coral/rock and had a gander at all the things trapped in little pools. I am amazed at the amount of stuff living in the sea here. I also had my welcome party for the junior high school on Friday night, so food, drink and lots of speeches! I had Natsu-sensei help me make a longer speak which I read off a piece of paper, but it went down very well indeed. It is true that some Japanese will only become your friend after you have been drunk with them I think. There are two teachers in the school that rarely talk, one I think hadn't talked to me at all, but once they had drunk a little, wow, different story. I and the two previously tight lipped teachers stayed up the longest drinking, talking etc. good fun! I then got together with them and a few others for a game of touch rugby the next day also very good fun! I managed to put on a reasonably dazzling display of quick feet and speed, one of the teachers seems keen to organise some touch rugger for the junior high school kids, definitely looking forward to doing that. Sunday was mostly spent indoors due to the typhoon, although I did pop out to take the pictures of the sea. I also managed to practice a little on my keyboard which was good as I haven’t had enough free time to do that yet. A couple of my Taiko friends are keen to play some music with me so I must dust of my ancient and dilapidated piano skills soon! Well take care y'all, I have TWO classes today! Busy Busy Busy ;)