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.