Busy, busy

I've been really busy lately. Since the last school year, my work load has increased significanlty. Also I have been very busy with Yosakoi practice. My team's first performance of the year is this Saturday. (Which reminds me that many weeks ago I said I would write about last year's festival season and then never did).

Some new students came to my adult English class last week. One of them was an older woman with no English skills, and she did not come back this week. The other two did. They are both young people. Yay!

On Saturday there was a festival in Konoura. A hand cart dressed up as a float was pushed around the streets of the town. On the cart were two taiko drums. Members of the local kids taiko team played festival music as they went. The cart and chants and drums were used to bless the houses of Konoura, and many residents gave money to the children. I followed the float around my district of town, with a croud made up of my neighbours. I took some photos, but I haven't copied them off my camera yet.

Yesterday I had my first Elementary classes of the school year. From now on, I am going to be teaching 5th and 6th grade classes in two-period blocks. That is to say, for 1 1/2 hours with only a 5 minute break in the middle. Umm, even though they are the oldest kids in the elementary school, they don't have attention spans that long. Yesterdays lesson started out alright, but when I tried to get them to do the last activity of the lesson, they all just stared at me blankly. They are going to have to get used to it because all my lessons with them this term (and possibly longer) are going to be like that.