That first week was a lot of training for us. Most of it took place at the campus that I teach at, however, I did have to go into Tennoji for one day of training. And I hope to never or rarely have to do that again, for one simple reason -- the train ride there was brutal!! Between Kobe and Osaka was busy enough, but then when I got on the subway to go between Umeda and Tennoji -- it was beyond ridiculous! I couldn't get on the first train that came because there was already too many people, and while I did make it on the next one -- it was equally packed! Everyone was so tight together that I couldn't move a muscle and my arms got pushed so close to me that it was actually mildly painful. A lot of our training was on teaching methods and planning and such things, but there was also some other unique things as well. For example, our intruder training. Apparently our schools have these stick things with a u-shaped prong on the end and we can use them to immobilize intruders (so long as we don't get them taken away from us by force). Originally, us new teachers had thought that we wouldn't have training or only a little bit on the Thursday before the students started (they came on a Friday), but we ended up having training for all but about 30 minutes. That made it kind of stressful because we also had to prepare our classrooms (in my case I had all blank, white walls, no toys, and things like that) and also figure out what we would be doing with our students that first day. So -- as a result everyone put in some overtime that evening --- I must have stayed til around 9pm, at which point I decided to go home or I wouldn't be useful at all the following day (not to mention - I was SO hungry!!) In addition to the overtime --- that first Saturday was also the entrance ceremony for the new K1 (3 year olds) students at all of our campuses -- so add another half day of work. Apparently this ceremony is usually held in Osaka, but this year they couldn't book their venue so they ended up having it in Kobe, actually in a place quite close to my apartment, which was very convenient. Since then, the overtime in the evenings has continued as I have been trying to complete my classroom displays and such, but hopefully with time that will calm down somewhat.
On the first Saturday of the month, I got my hair cut (just a trim) and I ended up going to another live that evening (as he had told me about it on Thursday evening and recommended I come if I had time). That evening was really fun -- he did the live with another singer and in the second half when it was his turn to sing -- he only used his guitar for a couple songs, and then had a guy who played accordion accompany him. It definitely made for some different feelings for some of his songs (and I prefer his guitar), but it was interesting anyway. Although when they had finished, the accordion guy kept staring at me....kind of uncomfortable. But I got to talk together with ヨシダさん and he made me try on the new glasses that he was selling as part of his products, and he kept high-fiving me and gave the impression that he wanted to talk more.
Outside of work, in that first week -- the sakura were blooming, so I took many walks in the evenings to go see them...
Of course I also saw them during the day as well...
On the Saturday afternoon that we had the entrance ceremony I went in to Osaka because there was a place I knew of which had many sakura trees along the river, and I wanted to see them....
But...there was a festival going on that weekend and there were so many people that you couldn't really enjoy it because the stalls were in the way and you had to spend your time focusing on making your way through the hordes of people.
After getting through all those people, I was really tired so I headed back to the Umeda area and listened to a street live for a little while before heading back home.
In the middle of the month the weather was great so I found a beach which is really long and went to take in some sun and read for a little while.
The day following the beach, I went into Osaka again, for various reasons, but I was still looking for things that I needed for my apartment, and on the way home, I saw ヨシダさん again at Grand Front! I was surprised, and it turned out that he was just getting ready to start his street live. Lucky! So I stayed and listened to him again. As it was a Sunday evening not so many people were around, so when he finished, I got to talk with him a lot and he asked me to watch his guitar and stuff while he put away the music busker sign and got to talk some more. Good night!!
The following week, on Friday evening, I had been out for a walk and I got a big surprise --- while I was on my way back to my apartment, I saw something big on the sidewalk, and thought someone just left something there. And then it started to move. It was a boar! A giant boar! It was dark, so I couldn't see it well, but based on what I could see it was probably tall enough to come up to my hips, and was quite wide as well. My reaction was to freeze, quietly back up to the intersection of the street (while keeping an eye on it), and cross to the other side of the road. I had wanted to go hiking that weekend, but after seeing that, I was understandably less enthusastic about that, and decided to do ither things instead. Later, when I told some of the staff at my school about this encounter, they told me stories about people's bags being stolen by boars, and other such things. Not particularly reassuring.
The last Monday of the month was a curriculum meeting for my student's parents and it was a kind of intense event that we had to spend a lot of time preparing for (more overtime). The last week of April was a 4 day work week because on the 29th, Golden Week started! And that will be the topic of my next blog post, so look forward to it!
Also, I have updated my previous blog post, as I realized I didn't add in a video I had taken, and there were a few more pictures I wanted to add as well. You can either check it out by clicking on the links on the side of the page, or click here.
