The new school year started in April. Derrick and I are both teaching at the same schools as last year, so we are happy with that. In Mito the schoolboard does this funny thing where they can send a teacher to any school and any grade. The choice is never the teacher's and the teachers never know where they will teach and in what grade until the middle or end of March. Then they only have maybe two weeks to pack up and change things before having to teach in the new school and new grade.
Anyway, after a couple of changes to the staff at our schools we have gotten used to this new year. The highlight of working at the same school for me is to be able to get to know the kids better. I am learning more names and enjoying more conversations with my students.
Japanese learning. Derrick and I have stepped it up a bit. We are now going to two classes a week each being 2 hours long. One is Saturday morning, which we have been doing since January, and we have just decided to start going to the Tuesday evening class at the same place instead of continuing the volunteer class at church. We will miss the class at church, but the other class gives much better preparation for the Japanese Language Test we plan to take in December. We hope to continue to meet with our love church volunteers to teach them English.
Church. I have recently been added to the list of women who prepare the Flower Arrangement for Sunday worship. This means that once every two months I am responsible for buying and arranging a bunch of flowers that sits at the front of the auditorium. I really enjoy doing this! Also I have been taking more responsibility as an attendance counter person (don't know what the title of this responsibility is, but I sit at a desk in the back, check people's names off, meet new people who walk in and just generally make sure everyone's comfortable has a seat and song book and stuff). I enjoy this because it allows for me to meet more people and learn more names.
The people at church are wonderful. There tends to be anywhere from 60 to more than 100 people in attendance. Its a pretty big church (especially considering the one I grew up in in Antwerp). Songs are mostly in Japanese and some in English. I enjoy singing in Japanese. It definitely helps Japanese reading and pronunciation skills.
Unfortunately we had to miss the Church Camp Retreat because that same weekend was the only weekend it worked out for us to meet our friend Masashi in Tokyo while he was home for the summer. We had a great day with him in Tokyo and really enjoyed meeting his father!
AET summer training. Every summer a group of AETs plans a training session for the whole AET group to learn things about how to do our job better and to get together and retrain together as a group as English Teachers. This year I have been asked to take on the responsibility of leading this summer training. I have really enjoyed this responsibility. It has kept me busy and it has taken a lot of effort, but it has been a real blessing to be able to be a part of this. 1 week of this training is already finished. We did it in July at the very beginning of the school's summer vacation here. Then we went on a two week Thailand/Cambodia trip with some friends. The trip was awesome! I will update the blog about the trip on my next post. Tomorrow we start the last 3 days of training.
