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Another unplanned post titled from our trusty textbook.

It was 26 and sunny on Saturday, it will be only 6 degrees and rainy tomorrow. 

I don’t know why Melbourne weather is considered bad,  this doesn’t seem so much better.  It snowed in Spring, after the first winter ever of no snow in Tokyo… seems very unpredictable to me.

I am not complaining about the cold, the longer the summer takes to arrive, the happier I will be.

As the weather has been a little miserable, we still haven’t had much opportunity to do anything bloggable so I am forced to write a bit more about work.

There is one very low level student who is a regular at our branch, he is very keen to learn, tries very hard each class, and is enormous fun to teach.  He must be close to retirement age if not retired already, and sports a very intimidating scowl most of the time.  He also has an unfortunate habit of being drunk during most classes and retains only a little from each lesson.

He has been improving in leaps and bounds over the last few weeks and has started to not only remember a few words from each class, but use them appropriately as well.

A few weeks ago we covered ‘discussing the weather’.  I was absolutely glowing with pride this afternoon when a familiar voice yelled out across the reception to me this afternoon: “Miss Sally!  It’s raining!”

Now I know I have made a difference.

During the cold weather here, I have come to quite like our star-trek style lavatory.  At first, I was a little shocked each time I arrived home to find the seat toasty warm, as if someone had just vacated it.  Now, I have simply grown to expect a warm seat wherever I go.  Patrick is already planning on having a high-tech loo exported to wherever we move to next.

Since seeing this article this morning, however, I am beginning to find all that warmth a little menacing.

These last few days have not been very exciting. Work and home, work and home…

I prefer not to write too much about work, as I want it to only be a small part of my time here. However.. I am still a little nervous to say so in case I jinx myself, but… I am really enjoying it.

So many of the classes are so much fun, and there are hundreds of different people I get to meet and chat to each day. There are students that I see daily, and still others that I am meeting for the first time two months into the job.

There is a real range of personalities and professions and I enjoy getting to talk with so many people I would never normally meet or speak with.

There are enough crazies to keep things a little unpredictable too.

I imagine it would be a hugely rewarding profession to be a real teacher, especially a good one.

My weekend has arrived again, as suddenly and unexpectedly as usual. These last few days have been drizzly and dull so its been a real strain to tear myself away from DVDs and Patrick-hugs to go to work.

I think I might spend these next few days watching DVDs, reading and generally doing nothing. THAT will be good.

I had to teach a children’s class today.

Luckily for me, one of the children didn’t turn up. so I was left with one little girl by herself. She behaved! We had fun AND she learnt stuff.

Ahhh.. Now just a little bit of my fear of children has lifted.

I was craving fruit when I finished work this evening, so we headed over to the fruit shop I had noticed across the road. The fruit shop wasn’t a juice bar as I had expected, but a store that sold fruit packaged as gifts.

I spied a lovely bunch of big green grapes but nearly died when I saw the price. They were $70.

Seventy. Dollars.

It was a regular sized bunch of grapes…

This hardly compared, however, to the mango that was $110.

One mango.

…

I don’t understand.

Thank god they have the prices written on the shelves. We settled for a little tub of pineapple. A bargain at $5.

The cherry blossoms have bloomed; they appeared yesterday. Patrick walked me through the park to see them on the way home, but they were not as well lit as we expected them to be, so it was a little difficult to see. Despite the bad lighting, there were still plenty of merrymakers happily getting sloshed under the blossomed branches.

Better luck in the daytime tomorrow!

We had dinner in one of our budget eateries tonight. This place makes lovely fresh tasting udon plus beef bowls or curries. They also have a great selection of tempura battered bits and pieces to add to our trays. We can both happily stuff our faces here for only around $10 for the two of us. Excellent! I also like the picture out the front of the little girl enjoying her udon.

I have been telling Patrick that to save money, we should stop buying cakes all the time.  It’s very difficult not to buy cakes here as they are so yum.  And cheap.

I really feel like cake at the moment.  I must find a way to make Patrick suggest we buy cake, then I will give in.

Bloody difficult…

For some reason I decided today to teach one of my classes how to use the word “bloody”.  The “where the bloody hell are you?” advertisement didn’t work particularly well here as it was translated as “are you coming?”. 

I taught the students how the word could be used to strengthen the meaning of statements, or to discourage drink driving.

They thought it was very useful and wrote careful notes. 

At the end of class, as I walked out the door a lovely, sweet woman called out “Bloody thank-you!”

I was touched.

We haven’t done a lot since the weekend, so I haven’t had anything to post about.  I don’t want to break the habit, so will post about not much.

I got my second good comment from a student over the weekend. 

The first good comment from a student came last week after I had a special class to help him with describing wines.  He is going to be a judge at the international wine festival in Tokyo in a few months, and needed help with deciphering the language.  Believe it or not, he thought I was very helpful and told the staff he thought it was an excellent lesson.

The second comment was from a student who said that the group class she was in on Saturday was the best class she has had for a year.  Yay!

Wish I knew which student and class it was, they don’t bother to tell me that.

Patrick said he will come and pretend to be a student and praise me too if I like.  I think they may notice he is a fake though.

We went for dinner at a nice Korean place again tonight.  Not as special as the Asakusa restaurant, but a good restaurant all the same.  I must start myself a little registry of restaurant names and addresses so we dont forget any.

Patrick studied very hard then managed to order our dessert in Japanese. 

Go Patrick!