This post will be a bit longer because I am not totally dead after work today and feel like posting something. Today I started work at a Jr. High school. I only go there twice a week for two classes but todays experience was so good I am considering trying to weasel a full time job out of it at the end of the year possibly. The high school that I am forced to wasted 4 hours of my life at every friday is seriously a garbage dump compared to this school. It made me honestly pity the students at the high school because the quality of education that they are getting is so much lower than this Jr. high school and the weird thing is that the high school is private. For example, the high school has no computers and no projectors for the classrooms. The Jr. high school had multiple projectors, these crazy magnetized projector screens that can be rolled up, and while they were setting up the projector I noticed that there was no computer but within 2 minutes of me letting the staff know there was no computer one had arrived in the classroom along with a member of the AV staff to set everything up. When the bell rang the students actually sat down instead of walking around shirtless (which routinely happens at the high school because the boys are trying to look tough), when they asked me a question they stood up. Also, there was a Japanese teacher in the room with me. Which makes an insane amount of difference. In the high school i have to waste so much time translating what i am trying to say to the students that the amount of time they actually hear me speak english is so minimal that it makes no difference. but at the Jr. High school the teacher translates in 10 seconds, the students understand perfectly and we move on.

The biggest difference that i noticed at the Jr. High school was the attitude of the staff. The teachers room at the Jr. High school was wide, lots of windows, spacious, the teachers were smiling, and greeted me with waves. Someone met me at the front door and everyone at least tried to speak english to me (the schools TA cant speak japanese). I made a powerpoint presentation about Chicago and the teacher who I assist told the vice principal, the principal, the head of the english dept. and other teachers I had made this presentation and when my class started seriously like 15 people who had free lessons, including the principal and vp and head of the english dept. came to my classroom to watch the presentation and when it was finished they left. It was just nice to be working at a place where the teachers actually cared about the students education and i think they realize what a native english speaker can add to a child's education and were excited that I had put the time in to make a presentation.

Last weekend was pretty fun. Other than the times when i contemplated suicide while waiting in the Japanese DMV. My friend Noriko was kind enough to come with me to the DMV and help me practice the course. After that we had lunch at a Denny's style restaurant and then went to one of the many rivers that run through my new city. I went swimming for a little bit in the river and after that she drove me to a bookstore that sold used english books and i got some old novel by Dan Brown that is not related to the Da Vinci Code. Then on monday i went back to the DMV and then went to the beach with a friend of mine. We got bento boxes, which are basically nothing more than pre made lunches with a variety of meats and veggies and then headed to the beach. There is a really delicious bento shop near my work that makes them fresh when you order them and they are only like 5 bucks. So good. The beach was nice. It was monday so there was basically nobody there and it was a beautiful sunny day about 75 degrees or so. There is no swimming at the beach we went to because i guess there is a huge drop off and the undertow is really dangerous so there is no surfing or swimming. The only other people at the beach was a group of old people who volunteer to clean up the beach and a group of vietnamese tourists. There is also an aquarium on the beach but we didn't go. It doesn't look very nice.

I think i might have my chicago card taken away but I am really enjoying living in a place where the main attraction is its nature. After living in big cities for basically my whole life I have learned to appreciate things like swimming in the river which unless you want some kind of rash is basically unheard of in chicago. Maybe I am becoming a softie.