Sitting home waiting for Seiko to return, so figured I might as well get on with writing a bit more - though at present - I am talking with Helen on MSN, so progress might be a little slow, in fact, I may not finish by tonite - so you may well find two different accounts here ….

Anyway, I’m starting to ramble, let’s onward and avarst ye young see dog…
Today as I wrote yesterday, I had to give 3 kids lessons, 2 of them kinder classes (which I was quite looking forward to) - though getting up early was horrible. I don’t know if anyone else gets this, but if i don’t have enough sleep i feel all grotty and like my hair is all itchy - which then causes my head to break out in mini one day spots…. arrgh….

So anyway, first lesson was kinders which i was looking quite forward to, but maybe also a little nervous as it would be a full class. It started off well enough, we were going through the colouring books and getting on with the flash cards - but I soon saw why teachers don’t like the kinders - they seem to get bored quite easily and start just climbing up the walls?!? haha… you then don’t know how firm you should be with them to get them to stop - like properly shout, or just go with the passive approach.

I dont like telling off kids, so i stuck to the “try and just coax them over” technique, which while worked, certainly isn’t the fastest method - though we did get through the whole class without too much of an issue and it certainly is easier than doing an adult lesson.

So do I recommend it… hmm, as long as they are well behaved it can be good fun, though if not, you might come into issues. The second class seemed to have a few more trouble makers in it, but still, it went ok…
Second class was a man to man kids lesson, but I hadn’t been given the correct material to take home, so was kinda a bit lost in this one - I managed to follow the plan as I went along, but didn’t manage to cover all the curriculum as it was in really small and i missed it - however he did very well and got it all done
Lunchtime didn’t come soon enough, and it was off to the AM:PM to get a microwave meal of spaghetti and sausage. When paying, I did my usual “arigatou”, but this time the woman asked me “…..nihongo….” (i didn’t get the rest), however it was pretty safe to assume she asked did i speak japanese…

I told her a “little, tiny” - at which point she then started asking me some (basic) questions - where was i from, how long had i been in Japan, where did I study etc…. ok, so again, it wasn’t much - but it was still a lot more than i could have done if i knew nothing. She also got the other assistant to join in, who is quite cute ;), which was nice … haha …

So back to school for the final half (at least the day is split exactly into 2, 4 lessons, lunch, 4 lessons) which was 2 voice classes and 2 groups of 4… usually i run away from such a schedule, but today, i seemed to have some extra power in me, and gave I think some very good lessons
Something needs to be done about Usuke though, yet again he sent Yumi into a flood of tears …. I don’t know what to do … but really, this cannot go in. I know she doesn’t want to say anything, but if she is going to leave the company anyway, she might as well go out guns blazing !

And heareth lies the cut - Seiko came home, so went out ….

Being quite tired, we figured we would just go and find some food and then hit an izakaya or something, so off we went. Seiko reckoned there was a good restaurant up the road, so we set off …. on getting to the top of the hill, we realised there wasn’t so decided to walk down the Setagaya-dori…. 15 minutes later we had reached Sangenjaya (where we had decided we definately didn’t want to be) - it was now 12 midnight and i was starving, so Seiko suggested we walk to the next station along (Ikejiriohashi)…..

20 minutes later (:eek:) we finally got there to be greeted by ….. NOTHING ….. haha … not wanting to walk around any further, we just went into a local ramen place, which to it’s credit was actually really nice, however, there is a perfectly nice ramen shop at the end of our street - go figure ….

Seiko seems to have caught quite a bad cold, and unfortunately it started to come out quite badly last night. I must admit it was quite funny, as her voice went really high pitched as she coughed each time she tried to talk, but I mustn’t be too mean - Upshot is, we caught a taxi home… but you know, we did nothing, but I won’t call it a waste of a weekend as it was really nice to spend quality time with her.

We have agreed that once I come back, we are going to make a real effort with each other, there should be a sofa by then, so we can watch movies together and stuff…. w00t!

So anyway, back home now and gonna toddle off to bed in a moment…. Night!

Yup, I still couldn’t get to sleep until about 4am, so come 9am i was in no mood to get up for school. I’m going to go to the pharmacy at some point to get some sleeping tablets or something, this is getting stupid.

I had also forgotten that I was starting work earlier (doh!) so awoke my usual time, looked down at the floor and shock horror, saw the piece of paper strategically placed to remind me… lol…

It was ok, I still made it in on time, but i think i was pretty lucky as i hadn’t set an alarm or anything…

Arrived in work to find Yumi having a hayfever fit (or so i thought), it was quite amusing, so i just laughed and went into the staff room. It was only after listening to her through the wall that I started think maybe it wasn’t a hayfever fit she was having - my suspicions were confirmed when she ran into the staff room and to me in a flood of tears. A brief bit of consoling then ensued (along with wiping the snot off my shirt …) - however it was obvious she didn’t want to say what was up in front of everyone and would much rather go to sleep…

Work was pretty much same old, same old, though had 2 voice classes which was a nice way to break up the time. Then it was all over, so it was back to mine where is was Yumi’s turn to cook.

Yaki Udon again, but this time there was no Shiho to steal half of it, haha, so we sat on the bed to watch “The Shawshank Redemption” whilst we ate. It was only after an hour or so that I noticed Yumi had fallen asleep, so put the cover over her and carried on watching…

This proved to be a fatal mistake on my part, as come 1am (and when i wanted to go to bed) - she was sparko and wouldn’t get up. Not wanting a repeat of the other nite (i needed good sleep as I had kids training today) - i managed to eventually wake her up (though i felt quite guilty) and send her back out into the cold
So as mentioned, today was “Kids Training Day” - essentially we (I) go on a course which teaches us the basics on how to conduct the kids lessons. It was an 8 hour day, held in the same place as my last training session.

Well, I’ve just got back from it now, knowing pretty much as little as I knew before. I can’t say I really rated it very much at all and every one seemed a bit confused at the end. This seems to be a trend with Nova though, the training seems pretty basic and you are expected to pick up most of the knowledge on your own.

I also have a nasty suspicion I will have a Kids class tomorrow, which I really don’t feel ready for. However this was true of the normal lessons before, so I guess it’s just a case of doing it - thus getting used to it….

You may be wondering what the huge song names are I’ve been listening to, I recently started to listen to shoutcast radio stations again - in particular “Digital Imported” the “Happy Hardcore” station. This could (I suspect) be part of the reason I can never sleep as my mind is racing too fast, so I’m going to start switching it off a bit before bed and work on my Japanese (Still transferring between books) - if that doesn’t send me to sleep, nothing will… haha…

Makes me really miss the music and clubs of the UK though - it’s amazing how much music affects me I think, it really can turn a depressing time to a happy time. Shame my tastes are really not catered for out here - so god bless the internet… w00t!

Ah well, school tomorrow, so I better wrap this up and get on with my writing - Air Con ON!! Hiragana AWAY!!!