June 9, 2009

Good morning, how’s it rollin?

The last three days have been really nice. I have gotten to do some exploring, I already met up with and made new friends, and training has commenced wonderfully. It isn’t too hot here quite yet, and may be due to consistent cloud cover everyday besides Saturday, which I have appreciated as I have had to walk to lunch during my breaks during training. Hehe they have 7 eleven and AM PM here and the food they sell are perfect lunches. It may just be the novelty of em, but I seem to like the ones more than those back in the states based them having more types of food I would actually consider eating for lunch. I also managed to get to the McDonald’s next door to the 7-eleven because I wanted to try to the Teriyaki burger they offer. It was pretty good. I won’t be eating there often, but I must say that the amount of service and care that go into the food and customer service there greatly exceed that of their counterparts in the states. Watching them do their thing actually resembled that of a diligent In-N-Out crew working at a McDonald’s. I want to also note that the menu is pretty simple. There were 8 meals and around 7 familiar items on their 100 and 120 円 (basically “dollar”) menus, as opposed to nearly 30 or 40 (?) different items one can get at one in the states.

I trained all day Saturday and Sunday. Including an hour break and a few 10-minute breaks here and there, training days are about 9 hours long. The trainers are all super kind and helpful. They have been instructing us how to go about presenting the materials they provide in a manner that has shown to be most effective to efficient and better learning over the years. We also just learned about how to teach kids . . . I am kind of nervous about it. I know I will have at least 8 kids classes, so I need to get confident and get over it. I’ll be depending a lot on my staff for tips and pointers I think. Overall, everything is actually pretty interesting, though I am anxious to learn and move on. I have been a student pretty much all my life. I want to do the job; I know I need the training but I am still really looking forward to getting to my branch school on Monday and starting the job for real. Today we practice our abilities on students they train in from schools around the area. I’m super excited! My first professional contact with Japanese people since I have gotten here . . . hopefully I do well. Ok I have to head off to work . . . Will complete this at the end of the work day . . . hopefully =P

It went well >_< My enthusiasm has held up thanks to the students as I though it would. Today we trained some on how we will be teaching tomorrow, but the highlight of the day came after lunch break when we started practice for the “mock class.” My partner and I got some good practice in and then they came; about 9 Japanese AEON students like those that I will be teaching. We were all staged in our little staging area and got to meet and chat with our three students that came in. They were very kind and seemed enthusiastic about speaking with us. It actually relaxed me, as I knew that they wanted to be there as much as I wanted to help them and that would make instruction considerably easier. So three of us did a practice lesson with the three and they were great. They were patient and super motivated. They even would exceed our instructions on certain parts of an activity. So helpful! I went last, but didn’t have much of a worry. I was fairly well rehearsed and I knew the students rocked. I wasn’t near perfect as any would expect, but the feedback I got back from the trainer was very encouraging. I might just be good at this and I am looking forward to doing more so I can find out. I will be good at this (if not the best) I promise. Students like those I had today deserve nothing less.

In terms of “personal time” stuff, I already had the great fortune of making some friends. One of my TAs from my Japanese class, Yosuke, was in Tokyo on Sunday and I met up with him and hung out with him, his friends as well as his older brother and his older brother’s friends (9 of us +1 more at dinner). We actually started off helping his older brother move from one apartment to the other. It was a super nice pad on the top floor of his building with a to-die-for view of the town he lived in (Ogikubo). It is super small according to American standards, but the quality couldn’t be beat. He had dark hardwood floors and the place had not yet been lived in. I was glad to have helped him move in order to see what different apartments are like and just see how moving works in Japan. Once we were finished, we headed into town where Yosuke’s brother treated us to some really good Japanese food and some Sapporo (beer). I had chicken sashimi, dried squid (almost like jerky) and a few other dishes I can’t remember the name of but I enjoyed it all. The best part of it all is I made friends with Yosuke’s brother and friends. I got away with 6 different sets of contact info and Yosuke’s brother even invited me to his concert this weekend. I think I am actually gonna try to go to >_< We shall see. . . Wow this is long. I will try to be more consistent so entries aren’t so ridiculous. Sorry!