2 years later

Wow! Completely forgot about this thing. Again.

Much has happened since the last post.
One of the native teachers went back to Australia with his family and in his place we were blessed with a Canadian. Let's refer to him as Bob.
Bob was a great chap. He used to bring homemade lunches to work. These culinary delights consisted of alot of spices and kimchi. Kimchi is a Korean dish made from pickled or fermented vegetables, typically cabbage. It stinks. It really, really stinks. He was also very great at making dialogues for our listening tests. He came up with some classics like "shinglebin" and "skinkansplin." It's a bit of an inside joke.
Well anyways he worked for us for a year and then went home to become a firefighter, or something.
This April we got another new teacher from Canada, lets call her Clara.
First impressions of her are great. It's certainly very different having a female on staff considering we've been a boys only club for a while now. I've noticed that the amount of flatulence being produced audibly is on the decrease, which is a good thing mind you.

Well i can't be bothered writing anymore. I wanna look at some more pictures of the iPhone 4.
Here's a photo of some playing cards i confiscated a while ago.

Yay new post!!

Wow, I completely forgot about this thing.

Anyways time for some updates. The new school year has begun and things are going pretty smoothly so far. I don't have any shitty classes, just a few forgettable ones. I really don't like teaching 202. They are so damn quiet. I feel like a comedian in the middle of a dreadful routine. I'm just waiting for the students to start heckling me and throw overripe fruit and vegetables. Especially tomatoes. People always bring tomatoes.

I only teach 2 first year classes this year, which is a bit disappointing. I like teaching the first years, they're easily impressed. Instead i teach the third years listening. Now teaching listening is a piece of piss but it's not really that fun. Hell, if its not fun for me imagine what it's like for the students. Poor buggers. Sux to be them. HAHHA

Oh yeah. The other day there was a tanuki sighting at our school. A tanuki is a raccoon dog. We had a little bit of free time so we did some research. A tanuki is more closely related to a dog than a raccoon. They are native to China, Korea and Japan. They eat all kinds of shit from bugs to seeds and flowers. Tanuki's are wussy animals and prefer to run away than fight. Anyways the tanuki we had at school looked nothing like this picture. I didn't see him but he looked like he was on his death bed. He was all mangey looking and looked like he welcomed the trip to Tanuki heaven. Or Tanuki hell, if he was a naughty Tanuki. So all the best Mr. Tanuki. I hope you things turn out well for you.

The baton twirling music has started again. It may be a remix CD though. Regardless it's still shit.

We started our interview tests the other day. It went ok. The crap students did crap and good ones did good. I mean, well. The dvd for this semester is Edward Scissors hand. I remember watching that movie back when it was a new release video!! I freaked me out back then. I may have to borrow the DVD later, Tim Burton rocks.

No beer tonight it seems. Thomas rode his bike and Geoff has to go to the hospital and Justin is too busy listening to baton twirling music.
Tis' a shame. Today was a good day to go for a beer. I may have to improvise.

It's been a while

Had a bit of free time so i thought i'd update my blog.
Well it's been over a month and Christmas has come and gone. It is now really cold and being from Australia i really hate the cold. No, i loathe the cold. Apparently the secret to surving the cold here is to wear scarves, mufflers, scufflers whatever you call them. I've never been a scarf person and i've yet to apprehend the mindset of a scarf wearer, so i am reluctant to wear one. I got pretty close to wearing one today but i chickened out coz i thought i looked like a pompous fool. Maybe next time.
Oh yeah, work. Well classes are going smoothly i guess, this semester is really short and we have had quite a few non teaching days. This is good obviously because we dont have to teach but it's also bad coz we have to cram lessons together for the classes that are behind. I hate doing it coz generally my lessons blow whenever i try to rush through all the material.
We did the secret santa thing last year too. I got this lovely mug and mitten keychain. They have "My favorite mitten!" written on them. Aint that cute. The mug also says "Sweet & Warm." Clearly that means i have an admirer round here. I hope it's a female admirer.
Gus has looked better. His fronds are a little yellow but he's starting to sprout new shoots. I think the secretaries took care of him/her/it during the winter holidays. If it weren't for them he would've been compost.
G is a little sick. I can't remember the last time i had a cold. I think i'm on some kind of record. He better not pass on his cold coz i'll be a little perturbed.
I ate a small apple pie for afternoon tea. It wasn't too bad but it really needed some ice cream to go along with it. Maybe next time.....

Testing 1 2 3 Testing

We're right in the middle 1st year tests so i have a lot of free time. 2nd years finished last week and all the tests have already been marked and entered in the computer. They all did pretty well. I reckon i gotta make it a bit harder next semester.
Oh and my favorite miserable brothers Youhei and Eiji got 14 and 17 on the test. Out of 64. A monkey would've done better than Youhei. No discredit to the monkey.
There were a few true or false questions but i still left 4 choices to choose from, y'know to check if the kids we're paying attention. Naturally my boys chose 'c' and 'd'. Invalid choices of course.

To keep myself occupied at work I've been doing a bit of reading and making Simpson avatars . I think the one i made of Trev is the best.

Gus is doing well. His foliage is turning a little yellow i just think he needs more sunlight or water or perhaps a combination of both.

We've got our Christmas party on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to eating some turkey. Should be good. I still gotta buy some presents for it though and i don't have any concrete ideas. Bugger.

Well i think i'm gonna get back to some reading. Will is cooking Lyra an omelette and i wanna know how it turns out.

Asparagus and Apple Pie

It's been a while coz I've been really busy. And slack.
Theres only a few weeks left of classes to go and that's it for the year. Australia here i come!! None of this poxy winter shit for me.
But before holidays i gotta finish writing the listening test for the second years. I've kinda started but i have a lot to go. Then we gotta record the bugger. All before the 19th! Crap! I gotta stop blogging all the time.
Oh yeah, I've got a new addition to my desk. I call him Gus. He's an Asparagus plant. His soft feathery leaves help me to relax and reduce stress. It's a bit of a big commitment but i hope i can give him all the water and nutrients that he needs.
Well I'm gonna do a bit of work now so then i can reward myself with some apple pie.
Yes!

4 day weekend baby!!

Well today is Friday. Well technically it's Thursday but i dont have to work tomorrow. Plus i dont have to work on Monday coz its a public holiday. Know what that means? 4 day weekend!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!
I'm finally gonna have time to play heaps of Halo 3. Ahem....
Nothing much happened this week. Monday i did yoga for the first time as favour for a friend. I pulled both my calf muscles and yelled alot of swear words. I may have frightened the other students in doing so. Oh well. I must say i got pretty damn sweaty, much more than i anticipated.
Work seemed to feel extra slow this week. Dunno why. Just was. I had a couple of shocker lessons too. Well not really bad lessons, just really crap and odd students. I've got this one boy who is year 10. He points at me and says "you're cool." Now, i'm not going to argue with him but he doesnt need to do it every 5 mins. I can also do without the staring at my crotch too.
Then there is Youhei. He is a year 11. He failed Oral English last year. He is miserable in every sense of the word. However, he has nice hair. Today he was in class and i told him to copy what was on the board. He had no pencils or pens so he used his lovely set of crayons. MOTHER FUCKING CRAYONS!! He was so slow in reading the blackboard so i tried dictating to him. I said, "He is the man who ......." He wrote, "He is the man food......." in jumbo incomprehensible blue crayon which took up the entire span of the worksheet. I had a good laugh. Now, im not a bad person but cmon, what teenager doesnt bring pens to school only crayons?
Anyways, I'm home now drinking a beer. I've got Japanese class in an hour. I really don't wanna go.
Maybe i should wag it. Or bring my crayons.

First Day Back

Well after a nearly 2 month break I'm back at work. Summer vacation was pretty sweet. I went to The Philippines for 2 weeks which was pretty damn cool. Beer was so damn cheap over there and the weather was much more comfortable. Unfortunately the beaches i went to were pretty crappy. Imagine the barren landscape of the moon but with water. That's the beach at Leyte. The beach i went to at Cebu was a little better and i did some jet skiing there which was bloody fun.
After i got back to Japan i went to an Onsen in Gero which was very relaxing. And i went rafting somewhere in Gifu. The weather that day was perfect but the actual rafting wasnt as good as last time. Afterwards we had a bbq and consumed shit loads of beer whilst having a little swim in the river. It was great. Even though i left my old rebooks there.
Also i did a bit of study. I had 2 hour Japanese lessons 2 times a week. It was pretty intensive but i dont know if it was productive or not. Maybe i shouldve done all my homework.
Work today was pretty cruisy. I think i lost 5 kilos during opening ceremony, taught 1 class and ate cup noodle for lunch.
Man i forgot how much i hate cup noodle.....