Educational

so here is a little more about what i do.
My classes generally start in the afternoon to evening. Usually around 5pm, altho there are earlier and later starts occcasionally. I visit four schools over a month. So tuesday to saturday at a school. then sun, mon off, then the next week at the next school, on a rotational basis. The 3 weeks out of the month im not at school, a japanese teacher takes the lessons. So basically each month the kids get 3 weeks learning english from a japanese teacher and one week with a native english speaker (thats me)

So as i said i have 4 schools. Ill tell you a bit about their locations:

Motomiya is about a 12 minute train ride from my home. (the Koriyama train station is about 5 minutes ride from my house) its two stops from home. After i get to motomiya station i have a short walk to the school, its only a few minutes. Motomiya is alot smaller than Koriyama, altho the central area where my school is located is not neccersarily isolated. But it doesnt have alot. I pass a small local radio station, a tiny family run veg shop, which is pretty much run out of the garage, but is super cheap and i love to get a bag of snap peas here for 150yen which is about $1.80 or so. They are delicious and so sweet you can tell they are straight from the picking. Also i have a 7-11 across the road. A few little restaraunts too along the way. its small compared to koriyama though. it costs me 230yen each way (about $2.50 maybe) Motomiya is a good school, and i have lots of lovely kids here who are so energetic and palyful. I really like this school.

My second school is Nihonmatsu. its about 20 minutes on the train and in the same direction as motomiya. its 4 stops from home. Nihonmatsu is also a very quiet area. I have a much longer walk at this school. It takes just over 15 minutes to get to my school. Its all straight along one main road, and i pass a few service stations, and a dennys restaraunt too. Its pretty quiet though. I dont see alot of people around but it is fairly built up. Again its not like the part im in is surrounded by rice patties, but compared to Koriyama its very small. Nihonmatsu costs me 400yen each way. Nihonmatsu is also a good school. I havent any kids that really cause me any grief, and ive heard some horro stories. The only problem with Nihonmatsu is that the times i finish my classes are not very good compared to the train times. The trains run hourly at that time of night, and i usually finish only 23 minutes before the train is due to come, so if i miss it, i have to wait a full hour, and at 10 or 11 at night thats the last thing i want to do. So i have been getting good at leaving super fast. I always wear my jogging shoes to Nihonmatsu, and i hoep and pray the kids are picked up on time, then i close the classroom in a minute or two, and run like all fury as fast as i can manage to the station to get the train. I am getting quite good at this and have decreased the time to get to the station from 15 minutes to 8. And im less and less puffed each time i do it. its exhausting, but it saves me sitting there for an hour in the wind at night.

So my third school is the school i went to today. Its called Dai2 Sukugawa (pronounced Dai Ni, ni being the japanese word for 2)
This school seems to be a very new classroom. The area is in the opposite direction to motomiya and nihonmatsu, and again only 2 stations away. it is 230 yen each way like motomiya. the difference here is i have a 25-30 minute walk to the school from the station. there is a bus, however, it costs 170yen and by walking i can get excercise and also still claim the bus fair, thus making money by walking. Also i have to walk back anyway after class as the bus doesnt run that late at night. its a fairly pleasent walk and its much more built up that the other schools. it has a mcdonalds, several malls, convieniece stores and many other major stores. So its not too bad. i have only had one calss here so far. and only one kid came, (there are only two in the class) so i cant comment on the children really as i dont know them yet.

my fourth school is called yubuki. its in the same direction as dai 2 sukagawa, but its four stops from home. i havent been there yet so i cant tell you about it, but it also has a bus that i will most likely not catch to save the money and benefit from the excercise.

Well thats my schools. here are some pics so u can see what a classroom is like..

so thats what i usually teach in, i have more tables and lots of storage space too. each classroom is different in size, and some have more posters and decorations, thats all up to the japanese teacher teaching there.

Today i got bored as i got to class very early so i decorated the whiteboard

Its pretty things like this that make it nice to walk to the schools instead of catching the bus

Well thats it for now. Soon ill blog about things in my area, ill also add pics of my bike and ill definatly have stories from my upcoming vacation to fuji

oh one last thing, a pic for you mum, the beetroot was amazing, here is the burgers