More from iphone adventures: Nov,2012 Yokohama

Okay, i haven't been blogging nearly as much as I intended to when i first started this. The number one reason? I'm a procrastinator. And I apologize.

Anyway, just a small update: I am liking my job. I still have it in the back of my mind that I never intended to work with kids, but ... whenever I think of how things were just 4-5 months ago, I once again am reminded of how thankful and blessed I am.

All crap aside from the last place, I did cringe having to write an email to my last workplace in order to figure out some tax stuff..which is another story ill spare you from. I went from a pretty stressful, small office environment with almost no real opportunities for working with my colleagues to a lively workspace with lots of energy, color and many many opportunities to make a fool of myself while being encouraged to do so.
 
There are annoying kids, but there are also very cute kids. Lots of kids make me laugh. You would be surprised with the kind of things they will do when acting. Just give them a setting. They will make it come alive.

Now.. on to some of the things ive been wasting my time on.

Cubeecraft toys!!! That website has been a gold mind of cool toys you can make out of paper.

Just make sure you have thick paper and lots of time.

This one is Totoro!

I found myself a good bomberman one too!

 

 

With some craftknife magic its done! I do actually use this in some of my lessons. 

 

Some of the other things I do at work consist of talking to teachers, messing around with materials that may be remotely educational and sometimes... goofing off with teachers.

Behold, the water powered rocket.  

I dont know what it is, but elementary school girls love riding unicycles. Every school has a ton of these.

 Kids are into lots of creative things these days. 

Pig with a mustache?

Found some drawings.. notice in the lower right picture there is a 

crayon drawing of a gun. -_-

One reason I find myself lucky to be in this setting is the education.  Im not just amused and amazed at the education that kids receive here, but im stoked that I also have access to a ton of resources for learning what I need to while im here.

I get to work with teachers, the ones in charge of the early stages of these kids' social and educational lives. I also have access to books and endless learning tools.

Check out this book.

Its a manga style story about an onigiri, his ninja upbringing and his friends.

Collecting umeboshi from some mysterious forest usually controlled by another school of ninja's his party has to pass tests in the form of quizzes about food in order to obtain the items he needs.

Cool thing reading this is that its not too difficult for where I am at in Japanese. Its pretty entertaining so far.. and I also learned that umeboshi related fruits are poisonus  until they are ripe. Well.. they can get you a bad stomach ache and severe diarrhea.

Here's another one im trying to find the time for.

 

Annnnd completely unrelated to work.

Here's a polar bear with a mustache.  Compliments of the lady friend. "The way to a man's heart is through is stomach.. or cute stuffed animals with mustaches."

 

 What I get to see and hear every Sunday.  Church in a livehouse. Nice..

My first attempt at cheesebread. 

Something i found on my two hour walking adventure from my station all the way to Yokohama.

The top 3 reasons why I walked all the way to Yokohama:

Excercise

Saving Money

...

To go to the music store... where I found this sweet axe.

Aaaaand its mine.  One of my friends said it looks like a "strat from the future,"

Well, actually, that is what it was designed to be.. the alternative to the strat.. and so much more.

More updates to come more frequently soon!

Halloween...

I did absolutely nothing for Halloween..  well, almost nothing.  It was Wednesday, i had work the next morning.... so i stayed home. At least i made my first beer bread of the year. 

 

Pretty good for unlevened bread. You really do need to get baking powder or yeast in order to make this stuff rise.  

 I suppose its time for a little update. At the moment, i am a bit buzzed from coming back from a nomikai with some of the senseis from one of my school. Indeed, it has been a long day.  You know what I did for work?  I went to a huge park all day with the kids.  The entire school went.

It was a pretty neat setup they did with the groups. 6th-1st grade mixed into smaller groups. Within those smaller groups were even smaller cohorts. 6th graders were in charge of keeping the younger kids in line with the 5th graders being somewhat co-leaders.  

We went to some park called Smile...s omething. Im not sure of the name but it was a huge park.  Lots of green everywhere complete withe a bunny and hamster petting zoo. With different stations set up throughout the park, senseis ran games for the groups of kids that went to the different stations. Everything from jump roping, to the bean bag toss.  It was really neat getting to see all the kids interact with eachother of different classes and age groups.

For those who dont know Japanese elementary schools, when the kids eat lunch its usually in their own classroom with the same group of kids all the time all year.  However, today was really neat as in that all of the kids of different groups interacted with eachother playing games, eating lunch together and cooperating to gain points in the various games.

When I was in elementary school, I definitley dont remember ever participating in something like this. My class was mostly separated from others. Interactions were sometimes even hostile.  But the younger kids here were really looking up to the older ones. And the older ones were really looking out for the younger ones. Specially in the long walk to the park from the school. I noticed the older kids pulling the younger ones to the side of the road whenever cars would come by. Even one little boy was looking up to his 6th grade sempai and holding her hand, even trying to fall asleep in her arms.

All in all, today was a good day. I would have loved to take pictures, however according to company rules,, pictures of my schools are a no no.   Maybe one day i can sneak some.

This job is unexpectedly rewarding. I like these kids more than I expected too.  Maybe cuz they dont actually speak English... Hahaha who knows.