Made more mistakes today. Stayed up until 2 playing zOMG even though I had no intention to do so and was not doing anything of any importance. Simply didn't want to go to sleep. So of course this morning I completely slept through all three of my alarms and woke naturally at 8:30. I could have still hauled ass and gotten to work by 8:50 or so, only 5 minutes late, but instead pulled the covers up tighter and conked out. Of course I was thinking about what I was going to tell my coworkers, what kind of excuse I could use (especially when I was late yesterday too and didn't even come to the office before going straight to Higashisho- strangely, no one contacted me and I wasn't able to call the office so it didn't seem to have any consequence), and about what the kid's reactions might be when they'd hear Rianna-sensei wasn't coming. That one was kind of hard, but it was dispicably easy to just turn it all off and enjoy being bundled in my favorite blanket. The phone rang and I ignored it. My cellphone too. I was half expecting the doorbell to ring, but nothing could give me the oomph to get out of bed. Finally, around 9:50, the phone rang again and this time I dashed to grab it, said only "I'm sorry" and "I'm going now". Takekawa-san had a laugh in her voice. And I did get my act together and head out by 10, only to find out class didn't even start until 10:20. By fate alone my incredibly blatant insubordination had absolutely no effect on anyone.
My big sore spot for today was my first class. The regular teacher was absent and another teacher was standing in. When he asked me how the class usually goes I couldn't answer. I couldn't even remember which teacher it was, let alone the class of kids or the normal format. I also made the mistake of making it seem like I knew what I was doing, fresh from completing a rather competent (I hope) lesson plan for Mice Club and feeling pretty good about my ability to teach. That was ripped to tiny invisible shreds when I tried to teach that class by myself. Not only is my Japanese ability too weak, my explainations were too fast, needlessly complicated, and point A skipped to C instead of B. I'd seen the lesson in the textbook before, but making the jump from assisting in the class to organizing the whole lesson on the spot was too much for me. The reaction was understandably listless and simple things I know they could get if they were being taught in a familiar way were simply lost. The kids know exactly how to operate, they just need certain prompts, and I didn't know any of them. So that was kind of a flaming pile of wreckage.
My other smaller failure came when I was trying to explain counting all the way to 100. I wanted to point out that 30, 40, 50, etc. are the same sounds as 13, 14, 15 and so on but the final n sound was gone. But it was a mess. Just a mess. It made something simple overly complex, wasted time, and stole the kid's opportunity to make the discovery for themselves. I'm sure they would have given time. It wasn't a terrible idea but it would have been better served one or two lessons down the line.
The greatest success of the day was letting the vice principal take the reins in the first sixth grade class. Having eaten my entire humble pie first thing that morning, I knew better than to utter a peep until he had class going well. And then it did go well- chiming in just to provoke audience reaction and sharing the story of my jet lag and what time it was in Montana at that moment simply worked. I was able to slip in new vocabulary (Friday and Thursday) in a relevant way. The kids were impressed by the time difference and learned a bit about science too. And they listened very well to the CD- pulling out words they already knew even though they weren't told to listen for them. They were given a surprise and rolled with it, and I was able to tell them that was the most important part of language study. And really it is. I wish I had more opportunities to tell kids in a way that it sunk in, "There will always be words you don't know, but if you can hear the words you do know, you can make sense of it".
But again I can't say that clearly in Japanese. It's hard. They love me on principle but as a teacher I kinda botched things up today.
The weird thing about it was that both before and after the lessons the kids were just so friendly to me. Even if the lesson was so bad, they still forgive the teacher? I gotta think about this more. What was it like for me when I was in school? During lunch one of the girls asked me how to say a certain flower (I think they said "momohanabiru" but that doesn't make any sense) and when I didn't know the word the one girl drew me a lovely daisy. It happened to be drawn on the back of a piece of paper with other drawings which were really goddamn good for sixth graders. I praised the both of them and we were happy. I talked with the girl next to me at lunch and didn't understand much of her conversation, but she was having fun with the others and seemed comfortable with me. At the end of lunch the boy sitting next to her told me seriously, "Her conversations are always weird. She's weird." She feigned anger, I asked him why he'd tell me that, and the girl who'd drawn the daisy coyly informed me, "Because he likes her." There was some fluttering and then the girl explained to me, "I like him as a friend." She didn't seem terribly defensive but I realized perhaps it was embarassing. People here are so good about hiding their feelings. So I asked if their friendship was interesting and told her that was the important part. When things like that happen I feel like they're letting me into their fold. I just wish I could do the whole teacher job well enough to deserve that acceptance.
Tonight's choir and tomorrow's the natto party with my girlfriends. Worried my throat is going to give out before the concerts on the 24th and 25th. Desparately trying to decide a topic for my 10 page research paper that needs done before the 29th. Thinking globalization since it's driving me crazy atm.
Things were really good there for a while so it's natural I'm having a mini crash, but it still sucks worrying whether I'm going to stay in this slump or not. Missing contact but too busy with social events. Weird combination.
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