I've lost my best friend...

...SLEEP. COME BACK TO ME SLEEP!! I miss your sweet sweet embrace.

Rather, I miss GOOD sleep. And really I shouldn't complain too much, considering that its my fault I'm so tired as much as it is my new job. Having to get up at 6:30 SHOULD tell me to get to bed by 10 at the latest, but noooooo, I have to stay up till 11 and then shuffle around the next day! I think what I hate the most is that coffee makes it better. I've managed to avoid a coffee dependency up 'till now, I don't want to start!! Ah fah, whatcha gonna do.

So! I'm sorry for the lack of an update, but while I was at camp I got into the habit of leaving my laptop at the school since I was barely going to use it at home, and I kept forgetting to upload the pictures I had taken.

As I mentioned last time, I had my (first, since apparently there will be a second!) welcome party! It was a small dinnner affair that had most of the English teachers, minus a couple who were away with school related stuff, attending. They're all really awesome people, especially in social situations when I can get to know them better!

They took me to a restaurant down around the pier where you can take a boat tour of 'the 99 Islands', or the Goto Islands. Apparently the consider a plot of land about the size of your head an 'island' in that title, but there are also more than 99 so I suppose it evens out! The restaurant was called 'Pinnochio' and it served really great Italian food. You can see Rika on her phone there.
Here ou can see four of the teachers who came. Clockwise from upper left is Kuzuno-sensei (who is really awesome but pretty hardcore with her students!), Rika, Sunada-sensei (who sits next to me everyday and is quiet but sweet), and Goto-sensei, who runs the English club and makes me really wish I understood more Japanese, because even with what I can pick out she's a riot.


Here I am, with that wonderful red eye my camera is so fond of, sitting next to the head of the English department (on the right). If I were completely awake right now, I'm sure I'd remember his name! As it is...uh....there ya go. He's really nice, though quite timid, and seems to have a bit of trouble getting words out. He's got an excellent grasp on English though, as I've read his writing and its flawless. Behind us you might be able to see a table that consisted of a party of Americans. I kept zoning on the conversations at my table and craning an ear behind me, to see what they were chatting about. At one point I heard them talk about finally seeing a moose, and I jerked with an internal shout of "CANADA?!?!?!" But nay, as far as I could tell, they were with the Navy. I don't know what was up with the moose.

This man apparently organized the party, and he seemed really nice, but again I've forgotten his name. He also spoke no English, but I was told that apparently its his job to get the parties going so here he is!

I didn't get a very good picture of it, but at one point the teachers ordered an appetizer that seemed to consist of four very long, skinny hotdogs, with ketchup and mustard on the plate. I hope it wasn't expensive, because well...they were hotdogs. The women let Sunada-sensei eat them all, and he was oh so willing.

When I arrived, I was told to order something, so I ordered some pasta for what I thought would be for myself. What ended up happening instead rather, was that every dish was shared, and we all took onto our own plates what we wanted to eat. I managed to realize this before I dug into the pasta I had ordered thank goodness, but I was a little confused at first. All the pizza and pasta I could have wanted as ordered for the table, and we all shared them, it was really delicious!

And for dessert, wonderful wonderful dessert, I had a banana chocolate crepe. Mmmmmn. Anyody who knows me knows how much I enjoyed that crepe. Oh my yes. Some of you may be wondering why I'm posting so many pics of the food I ate. Well, frankly, its my blog and I'll post what I want to. :P

The following night I headed out with a few friends to a Reggae party on one of the Sasebo beaches, and met up with Megan and Gill there. Since it was dark I obviously don't have many pictures, but it was a fun time. The place was crawling with Navy men. Basically you were either a hoochied-up Japanese girl, or an American man, with a few of us 'others' sprinkled in around them. There was a huge stage where performances took place, and then a lower one where dancing happened. I'm 22, and like to think of myself as pretty laid back, but holy goodness, I saw some dancing up there that made even ME blush!!
Allow me to say that Japanese 'Reggae' is pretty amusing. It sounds like Reggae, sorta of, but in Japanese. I'm not sure how to describe it other than amusing. And seeing young Japanese people with Jamaican colours decorating them, their hair in long braids or cornrows, and the various other takes on the Jamaican culture was also....interesting. *laughs*

I don't think I'll be attending too many beach parties in the future however, I found sand pretty much everywhere the next day, and I'm still sweeping it out of my apartment.

So as I said, this past Monday-Wednesday I was at a different school, helping out with an English camp. It was basically a language-intensive experience for a group of about 40 students from this commercial high school, which is from what I can tell a kind of business school. Since the school's population is about 80% girls, the camp was as well, with three boys attending. Apparently most of the students who go there go on to be hostesses, flight attendents, or have other such service-industry jobs where knowing English is greatly encouraged. The kids were there 24/7, and were constantly busy. Their bed time was actually scheduled at 12, with a morning set for 6:30! None of us were surprised when kids would konk out at random intervals between (and sometimes during) each lesson.

Our job was to conduct lessons on such things as 'Future and Past Tense', 'Comparatives (long, longer etc.)', 'Descriptors (pretty, ugly)', Prepositions, Self-Introductions, and so on. They lessons were mostly game-related, but the kids did get tested so they did have to absorb things. I worked with a handful of other ALTs, who I'd all met before and were in the same general area. One the left are Cortney from California, and Nicola from England.


There was also Arlen from California, who is also fluent in Spanish! I tried to get Jon into this picture, but he's just on the side there. Jon was not my favourite ALT there. If I had to hear one more time about how "cute" and "genki" the girls were (who ranged from 14-16 years old), and about how much he wanted to 'adopt' one of them, I was going to strangle him. ALTs fawning over their students inappropriately is apparently my new pet peeve!! :D

The students were all really energetic and earnest, even the ones who could speak almost no English. They were divided into three groups: Basic, Intermediate, and Challenge. Each group was distinct in how we taught them, but they were all good kids. The girls were always very happy to pose for pictures, but the elusive boys made themselves scarce when the ALTs had their cameras out.


On the last day we all took pictures with some of the students, and created a nifty fire-escape hazard on the staircase!

The building we were in was situated halfway up a hill, overlooking a part of Sasebo that actually has quite a rural feel to it. To get to the bus stop I had to hike the rest of the way up the hill, and it gave me a great vantage point to take some pictures!! On the right there is the building, which the highschool owned and I guess uses for events such as ours.

Most of the days were overcast (or pouring rain) and incredibly humid. The building had no air-conditioning. I was sweating like a race-horse pretty much all the time, but I'm actually getting used to it. Not that I enjoy it, but its no longer a "omygoodness I'm sweating how embaressing!" It's more like "Now wheeeere did I put mah sweat rag?"

Now that the camp is over, I'm back at Sasebo West (or Sanishi as its nicknamed, Nishi being 'West' in Japanese), and doing the teacher thing again. Today I was supposed to have three classes, but a number of school festivals are coming up, including the sports festival this Sunday! As such, the whole school is getting ready for it and the two-day cultural festival next weekend. Junior and Senior high schools all across Japan do these festivals, and the surrounding communities always come out to watch them. Different clubs, classes and groups of students around the school prepare events and games, and dances to compete against each other. This was the view outside of the fourth floor window yesterday:

They dance to either music (theme songs from anime most of the time, I've been told) or to drums, and its pretty neat to see them all attemping to move in tandem.

The English club has asked me to join and help them come up with their own attraction for the cultural festival, and much to my surprise/horror, they want to do a picture slide-show of "A day in the life of Kate!!" So this next week I'll be working with them to prepare that, because apparently it'll be a great opportunity for the students to get to know me. And my incredibly boring life. Hurrah!

Lord, give me strength. *laughs*

At the moment I'm sitting in the teacher's lounge almost completely alone, standing sentinal against any students who might try to come in here. While all the other teachers are outside with the students preparing for the festival, I'm sitting here in my work clothes, acting as designated guard-dog. Fine by me! Let's see, go outside and sit in the heat, listening to Japanese speeches and instructions for a few hours orrrr....sit in the air conditioned teacher's room on my laptop? .....actually that's not quite as easy a choice as it sounds, the boredom gets pretty crippling in here sometimes. :P

Welps that's all for now, tonight I'm going out to karaoke with Meg and Gill if we're all up to it, and Sunday is the sports festival, so hopefully I'll have pictures then!

Bye for now. ^^