Today was the first day of school! Which consisted of the opening ceremony, homeroom classes, and cleaning. Then the teachers had a meeting while I practiced my self-introduction class for tomorrow.
For the opening ceremony, the entire school gathered in the gym. Since this is Miya JH, there are only about 80 students. Which made giving the speech SO much easier. The staff also were in the gym, lined up along the side.
To open the ceremony, kocho-sensei gave a speech
Students spoke
We sang the school song
and then it was my turn to speak...
one of my JTE's took me up and introduced me to the school, and then I gave my speech in Japanese
It was so short, he didn't have time to get down off the stage and get a shot of me from the front, lol. If you look closely, you can see I'm wearing my indoor shoes. I don't even bother to worry if my shoes match anymore; it's going to be work clothes with Pumas every day! Half of the teachers are in sandals.
Everyone seemed impressed by my speech. They told me my pronounciation was great and my Japanese was really good. They had no trouble understanding what I was saying at all! And Tom told me that the students were very interested in what I was saying; though I couldn't tell by their faces, he said they were paying very close attention to what I was saying and their eyes were all wide. lol, the speech was really short, and I didn't say anything really difficult. But Japanese people are always amazed when foreigners can speak even a little Japanese. Later, they kept asking me who wrote my speech, "I did", eh? where did you study Japanese? "Denver..." wow, you did?! This after I've told everyone multiple times I studied a little Japanese at home.
heh heh heh
Then more people addressed the students
And then it was over!
After the ceremony, classes consisted of homeroom classes, and then soji. Soji is cleaning time, when the students clean the school. It is a fantastic practice; and you would never be able to pull it off in the US. It's pretty much slave labor. I am told tomorrow a student will escort me up to their class to eat with them. And they'll carry my food. muahahahahah, the power
The students took off around noon, and then all the staff had lunch together. Where everyone received omiyage (gifts brought back from a trip) from various people's vacations. I also gave a gift I picked up yesterday in Takayama to everyone as a thank-you for my welcome enaki on Friday. Which I will post about later.
Mine is the cute one on the right ^_^
The teachers then all had meetings in the afternoon, and since I don't really speak Japanese and none of it applied to me anyway I decided to run through my self-intro lesson in one of the classrooms with all my props. aiiieeeee! I hope it goes well.
Wish me luck! 3 intros tomorrow!
1 comment:
Good luck babe! You've got more guts than me!
Post a Comment