The end of the school year

So, today was my last day to teach at Shoyo Junior High school. Starting next month, I will be teaching private classes at homes. But for the past year, as a part time job, I have been teaching Japanese 8th graders. It has been a very eye opening experience to work in Japan, and experience what school is like for Japanese people. School is quite different here, and it's hard to know how exactly without seeing it for yourself. I think I can also relate better with some of my Japanese friends in college, because I better understand what school was like for them. (And now all the anime where people are at school seems more normal and makes more sense)


For the last class we played Jeopardy, as you can maybe see the questions on the board, and took a group picture at the end. Notice the separation between the guys and the girls? Very normal.


Also, all the students (all 120 of them) made me a goodbye and thank you card. They were quite nice. Here are few that I took a photo so you can see.




I really enjoyed teaching. I don't know how good of a teacher I am, in regard to teaching information, but my Japanese co-teachers told me that I was always smiling and happy so the students enjoyed me in class. That made me happy to hear.

Some of the other co-teachers are changing to a different school, so our team of teachers this year is sort of disbanding, but I'm glad that they are moving to bigger and better things. There is a party for teachers next week, so I can see everyone again, but I'm sure it wont be the last time.

Good bye Shoyo,
for now...

Sorry, I actually don't have any pictures. There hasn't been a whole lot out of the ordinary recently.

Some good news is I now have a new roommate. He is a freshman, soon to be a sophomore, and we are good friends. We actually met, because he started coming to my English class sometime last year, and now he joins Bible time and we hang out some other times(I may be going to Karaoke a lot more, because he told me it's his absolute favorite!)

But now that we live together, we get to hang out a lot more! I also think I'll see some more students around here more often now that he lives here too. He loves computers, which is awesome, because so do I! He is actually planning on building a computer, which is something I have already done a few times, so we already have a project to work on together. He's just waiting on a few parts to come in.

This week is the Navigators staff conference in Karuizawa, so I'll be away for that. It will be fun to meet the other staff in other parts of Japan that I don't get to see so often. Apparently there is a team from Texas coming to help run the daycare during the conference so the parents can actually attend and not worry about their children (I think it was a concern from last year) Anyway, all I can say is WOW to all the people that are coming. I know it is a huge blessing to all the parents.