In thy mighty groves of learning

Today was the first day of school. I got up bright and early, ate some toast, donned my gayest apparel and headed out to Takase. When I got there, it was madness. Everyone was running around faxing, copying and just looking gernerally frantic while I sat there and tried to look engaged in my Team Teaching Handbook. I got that whole exciting "it's the first day of school and I have a new outfit and a box full of pencils" vibe like from way back. Later on I gave a speech about myself to the student body as they sat lined up in the gym. I taught a class about myself, too. I think it went well, no one fell asleep. (With no air conditioning I don't see how they could have.) Lunch was fun because people will never cease to be amazed that I can use chopsticks. The rest of the day I pretty much just graded papers and ate tootsie rolls. The third year kids had to keep summer diaries-they were so cute. Mostly they talked about sports and their clubs, but with the occaisional colorful vocabulary. If you could only award style points when grading papers. All in all a really good first day. The kids are starting to warm up a bit, which is great.
Note: if you want your Japanese co-workers to like you, give them Jolly Ranchers. But be prepared to explain the concept of Blue Raspberry for the rest of the day.

Check me out!
http://www.kurobe-machikyo.jp/ws/koku-saron/recipe.html