My first post!!

Well, I did it!! Welcome to the first post on my blog! Ever since I was a child, I have never really been good with keeping up with diaries, so this is going to be really ineteresting. So let's get this started!!

Fridays are always good because I get to leave work early. Why do I leave early you ask? Well because I get to tutor 2 of the cutest kids in Japan! They are Komachi - 5, and Shoya - 10.
Every week they make a 45-minute trek to my apartment for private English lessons. We play lots of games (BINGO, karuta - a very famous card came here in Japan, and memory), learn English phrases and then have snacks together when the sessions are over. Today we tackled "telling time". I could sense that their mother was a bit hesitant seeing as though Komachi hadn't even learned how to tell time in Japanese! But I told her that by the end of the lesson she would be telling time in English. And i was right! She can tell time to the hour and half-hour. I made them laminated clocks where they could adjust the hands to a time that I said aloud, and taught them the question 'What time is it? It's ~." Then we switched to flashcards with teh time on them, and they were PERFECT! We played a memory game with half of the cards with pictures of clocks and various times and handwritten analog times on the other set. The goal was to match the analog time with the correct clock. Shoya is a PRO at memory, and Komachi is catching on. It was a great lesson. In the end, their mother was VERY impressed!

Once the lesson concluded, as usual, we had juice and a snack. But I had a surprise for the kids. I always try to share holiday experiences with them. Last week I saved some of the turkey and stuffing from Thanksgiving dinner so that they could taste it. They LOVED it. It was a great way to allow them to experience the Thanksgiving vocabulary that we learned the week before. They weren't too fond of the cranberry sauce, but really LOVED the gravy! Go figure. This week, I FINALLY pulled out my Christmas tree and thought it would be a good idea to let the kids decorate it for me. Which is exactly what they did! They had never seen icicles (or as some people call it, angel hair), the sillver strands that glisten on a Christmas tree. So I let them decorate the tree however they wanted. This is the final result:
I really look forward to spending time with them every week. They at least give me the opportunity to utlize my elementary techniques!!

After dinner it was off to Punjab, a new Indian restaurant here in Wakayama City, with Yoshie (whom I call my Japanese sister). We indulged in some really tasty curry, shishkebab, samosas, curry chicken, naan, rice, salad and chai! It was so good we had to wait for a while before we left because we were so full. But it gave us time to plan our upcoming trip to Osaka on Wednesday. I have to get my visa for China and have to go to the consulate in person to get it, so inconvenient! BUT LUCKILY my students have exams all next week so I will not have classes! But I do have to grade about 400 exams! FUN FUN FUN! Other than that, I have to hit the hay since I have to go into work on Saturday in order to finish making the exams! Until next time....oyasuminasai!