In the near future

So after a month of sitting in orientation after orientation, language classes, meetings, summer camps for the kids, tours and board of education meetings....tomorrow, school finally starts back for its second session. The Japanese school year, which starts in april, has three semesters with breaks in july, december and march. I'll be starting about halfway through the academic year...so the only new guy in school will be me. awesome.

Tomorrow should be interesting because there wont be a whole lot of teaching, just paperwork and assemblies to get the kids going again. My big job tomorrow, besides just being there, will be to give a speech during the school wide assembly in front of staff, students and anyone else who pokes their head in. The speech, has been requested to be in as much Japanese as possible. awesome.

I'm so excited, and here's why...you can walk around this country and say to any kid you might pass by, sit next to on the train or who is just staring at you, "Hello!". And they all will get this huge smile on their face and respond in return "Hello". Its simple, and makes me smile every time.

English is just about as popular as spanish, or french or any other foreign language was when we were in junior high, that is to say not popular at all. The kicker though is that it is required just like math or science....if they want to learn another language, they stay after school and join the club. I'm here...to make learning it fun, expose the kids to fluent english, even though it is with a west texan drawl. The english teachers here know more about grammar than I and possibly any other JET in the country does, but very rarely can they say "pray" without it sounding like "play". I'll go into more about what exactly my job is at some later point but that kind of gives an idea. anywho.


This week is not only big because of this, but I also am flying back to the states friday to be the best man in my brother Josh and soon to be sister Mandi's wedding. Exciting, exciting...it combines three of the things I love most in this world: my family, travel and wine. The ceremony is being held at this really cool old winery.

The pic is of a day camp where some of the english teachers in Matsue went with bus loads of kids and learned about the local history and culture....it was really fun.