I love it when...

...I am sitting at my desk at 9:25 in the morning and I get a call saying "your class starts at 9:30, where are you?".

Makes me feel like a terrible person and a horrible teacher. Somehow I pulled this one off, but honestly this whole paradigm of "Lets not tell Jesse anything about whats actually going on" is really starting to bug me.

I mean honestly, all I ask for is a list of things saying "be here, do this, this is why, this is for how long. thanks"

And its not for lack of trying.
Admitidly at first I didnt communicate well. Now I at least know what questions to ask.
Yet things like this still keep happening.

let me explain.

Before I left for vacation my Boss handed me my "rough sketch" (its actually the only sketch) of my schedule for the next three months. I said Thank You and sat back down. Good thing I read it right away because I noticed three days in January that had Kanji I didnt recognize. I went back to him and was like "what is this?" He looked at it and said something like "you are teaching people at the community center". Ok, I thought. So I asked who and what am I teaching. He had no idea.

The next day another guy came to the BOE and asked me if I wanted to teach these lessons. Note that this was AFTER I was assigned to teach said lessons. I said yes but I asked again who and what am I teaching. He said I was teaching kids english.

If you are a teacher then you know how useless this answer is. How old are the kids? how many? what level? for how long? is there a break? are they expecting a game/project/culture lesson? who am I working with?
I asked him most of these questions and he said he would get back to me. In the meantime I was handed a sheet in Japanese, which i cant read. I forgot about the sheet and I never heard from him again.

(just so you know, email is apparently not a form of commnication here in Japan. In my whole tenure thus far, I have recived a grand total of zero emails regarding my job.)

I left for America and then came back and this morning I get a call reminding me that I have to teach my lesson at 9:30. So I get a ride down to the community center and then get escorted to my class. All the kids are already there with their books open and waiting. It was awesome, except the exact opposite. I ask the community center administrator whose taking picture of me in action, "so when do I go until"?

"11:30" he says.

Oh, great. two hours.

I have enough experiance now that I can fill up a standard 50 minute class block on-the-fly and make it fun. but two hours is over my head. So I make a weak comment that I need to get my bag, cause it has stuff in it I need. I walk across the hall to the office and start rummaging through my backpack. Ive got cards with pictures and names of types of weather, ive got 4 sets of Alphabet flash cards, an inflatable globe and ive got about 83 cents in america money. Excellent. I am saved.

The money were the prizes and the games were many. Telephone game, mini-english conversation, card-slapping game, alphabet pronounciation practice, self-introductions, throw-the-globe-around-the-room-and-ask-questions, learn to write your name....yay.

It went by faster than I had imagined and in the end I was saved by my trusty backpack. But I must say it was the worst feeling walking from the classroom to the office, praying to God that I had brought something in my backpack that I could use. Otherwise it would have been one of those Crash & Burn days, and I hate those days.

So, I guess the lesson is something like always be prepared, but I never liked the boy scouts and I would much rather point fingers and place blame on the people whose job it is to tell me what I am supposed to do. If I had known what the enviroment was and the times and all, I could have done a whole mini-unit on something really cool that these kids who are volunteering their winter break time to come and study english would have loved.

Oh well.

Live and learn.

I guess I just need to be annoying and keep asking questions until I know for sure what is going on. That seems like a simple enough idea. I dont know whats wrong with me.

Ok so now I am very tired.
Going to bed.
night all.