As if you didn't have enough to read already

I got a little bit smarter and figured out a way to organize my flood of thoughts. Putting the date at the beginning! Who knew? What a novel idea! Anyway, here's more of my ramblings:

August 24, 2011

(I was just going to omit this part because I sound mope-y but here’s the truth of the matter and I feel like I should be honest.): So, I’m waiting for the feeling of being overwhelmed and a little less lost to kick in right about now. I’ve been trying to think of things to do for lessons for my kids by looking at my predecessor’s stuff and reading book after book but instead of actually getting ideas, I’m just getting (more) tired of trying to absorb it all. I guess the fact that I’ve never done this before is sinking in and I’m a bit scared. I felt like my predecessor was really put together and I’m just herp derpin’ my way through my days here. He’s been a legitimate teacher before though, so I think he had a bit of an advantage (I like to tell myself.) My predecessor has also told me not to worry and just go with the flow – he doesn’t know me well enough to know that all I do is worry! Not an admirable trait, I know. I’ll talk more with my JTE about how this works and maybe that will help me.

In other breaking news, I got gas for my car today! Conveniently for me, there is a self serve gas station right down the street from my apartment. I was told that there are assistants usually but no one was there to help me if I had trouble. But at the same time, I was sort of glad to be alone so no one could watch me possibly fail.  My life has been reduced to guessing about a lot of things and the mentality of “I wonder if this will work!” when I do things.  I’m oddly comfortable with it or rather, I guess I’m used to it. So, with the combination of actually knowing some Japanese and some more guessing, I managed to get 2,000 yen worth of gas in my car. One bar below a full tank (my gauge is digital). Success! No error messages or anything! That’s a good way to start my day.

Alert! There is a giant butterfly in staff room trying really hard to leave. It’s rather sad but funny to watch. And you know, I much prefer unreasonably sized butterflies than unfortunately sized wasps/hornets that I keep hearing about from other ALTs. Keep on trying not so little butterfly. I will keep on trying too.

Augh! You know what I’m not a fan of? Hearing my name or “ALT” mentioned in my co-workers conversation, and I know they are talking about me but I can’t figure out the rest of what they’re saying! Fufuffuu! The JTE is not here right now, so they’re probably discussing something they need to talk to me about but afraid I won’t understand (with good reason), so they’re waiting for the JTE to come back so he can tell me in English. Hah, I did sign up for this right? As GLaDOS would say to me, “You chose this path” (don’t worry if you don’t know who GLaDOS is, the point is…I chose this path and I knew this would happen, so I can’t complain too much!)

One more random point: I finally was able to get my computer up and running on the school’s internet so I don’t always need the computer at the school. There are many things that I don’t like too much about the school computer. 1) The Japanese keyboard is a bit of a maze that I’m not accustomed to quite yet. 2) Using Word in Japanese tends to be more of a challenge than it should be because I cannot remember the English equivalent of whatever I’m looking for. 3) It’s a bit slow. 4) I’d like to keep all my lesson plans and whatever I make for teaching on this computer. Also, I discovered that I in fact can access Facebook, Twitter, and even Tumblr. No Gmail though. That’s sad. No (Mom and Dad), I don’t intend to spend my time at school on these websites but at least I know I’m not completely barred from them.

There is no one in the staff room. Why am I here?

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An interesting case of miscommunication: I was on my way back to the staff room from the bathroom when I ran into the JTE. He asked me, “Do you have the time?” I dug around in my pocket for my phone and told him it the time. He started to laugh and sort of muttered to himself, “Oh, that is a way you ask for the time…” and he tried again by asking, “Do you have time?” He had some things that he wanted to move to the tools room and needed some help. One word difference and the meaning is completely different! HAH! Speaking of difference, that one time I was cleaning with Takamatsu-sensei, she asked me what kind of things I bought from Home Plaza. I wanted to say a shelf and only remembered something along the lines of dana as a means to describe it. What I was going for, I found out later was hondana which really means bookshelf but what I said was danna, which means husband. Oops. Takamatsu-sensei was laughing, saying that they don’t sell husbands. I asked whether she was sure.

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August 25, 2011

So, I’m starting to realize I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m really going to have to talk to my JTE about what his plans are because mine aren’t very good if I have any at all....

Just kidding, I had a brief breakthrough and I just remembered that Mad Libs exists. Aww yeah.