So to briefly summarize, some of the hectics that have taken over my generally domestic life are as follows:
Partying pre-Kencho in Yamaguchi (8/18)
7 Long Hours of Intense Japanese Learning (Kencho 8/19)
Post-Kencho partying and Karaoke in Yamaguchi(8/19)
Hikari Beach Party, and all you can eat/drink beer garden in the evening (8/20)
Karaoke in Tokuyama until 3am (8/20)
Shopping and eating in Tokuyama and Yanai (8/21)
Finally an evening at home (8/21)
Super genki everyday for English Camp (8/22~8/24)
Hiroshima Baseball game (8/24)
To sum it up I have been away from home and pretty busy for the past week or so. While all of these events were extremely fun and worthy of elaborating on (excluding Kencho) I will dedicate this blog exclusively to English Camp and a little bit about Hiroshima.
English Camp
The English Camp I volunteered at was on Oshima island, I was one out of 9 JET ALT's to volunteer to spend 3 days assisting 33 students, from 5 different schools (JH and HS) on the island, speak and learn English. Before activities really began we had lunch with the kids and so I kind of got to establish a general idea of how well these kids could speak/understand English. During Lunch I was seated with Matthew and three JH Japanese girls Yuina, Kana and Chisato. All of theme were pretty shy and wouldn't really initiate conversation, but once I started asking them questions I quickly realized that Chisato and Kana could not quite understand what I was saying, or if they could understand they either did not know how to respond, or were nervous to make English mistakes and tried responding to me in Japanese. Yuina on the other hand, although a little reluctant to converse could understand every single word that I was saying and was able to easily formulate proper responses without much effort. After chatting with Yuina, I learned that there were two primary reasons why her English was so good 1) She had lived in Osaka up until a year ago and attended an international school, and, 2) She had spent 3 weeks in Australia learning English and living with a host family. I was completely blown away by her English capabilities, especially once I found out the average capabilities of the other students at camp. Anyway, needless to say, if you cant already tell I in a way had fallen in love with Yuina, she was so adorable and shy but friendly, I began to think of her as a little sister. But anyway, back to talking about camp.
At camp, we were randomly broken up into Family's or groups and we chose family names, for example, my family was Team Mickey! And, to my surprise and delight, Yuina was placed in my group, along with Kana T., Kana F., Naoki, Seiya, And Mizuki. At the start, I was a little weary with my group because both Kana's, Naoki, and Seiya were extremely reluctant to use English, let alone speak in general!!! And although Yuina had amazing English, she too was pretty reluctant to speak. Mizuki on the other hand was such a relief, she was very eager to speak in both Japanese and the English that she did know,which was great. Anyway, throughout camp we played various different games where teams could win points and prizes. And during break times kids would run up to us and ask us about a gazillion questions, usually in Japanese, and we would have to remind them that we were at English camp so they had to ask it in English.
During camp, i think I got some glimpses of what it will feel like to be a proud mama. Everytime my students won sticker points for speaking in English I felt really happy and impressed. I was certainly most impressed with one of my students, Naoki. He was extremely extremely reluctant to speak English to me at first, instead he would just nod or smile. But after spending sometime with him practicing how to pronounce words and properly formulate simple sentences I was so happy whenever I would hear him speaking English to me or any of the other ALT's! What made me the happiest was when my group was totaling up their sticker points (they got these when they won games or spoke to ALT's in English) and naturally I knew that Mizuki would have lots of stickers, and Yuina too (because the other ALT's were equally as impressed as I was), but I was so elated to see that shy quite little Naoki had almost as many stickers as them!!! I think it was in that moment that I realized that all of the overly perkiness (more tiring than you think) and long hours were completely worth it. Oh, BTW, my team won a prize for earning the most sticker points, so so proud of them!
Yuina and I (seriously she is so adorable can she please be my little sister forever?!)
Hiroshima
Okay, so directly after English camp finished on Wed. Jessica (ALT from Yamaguchi city) and I hopped into my car drove to the train station and caught the train up to Hiroshima to wander around and watch the Carps game (baseball). So, baseball games are such a crazy experience for me here in Japan because, although it is a traditionally American sport the Japanese definitely have fun making the experience uniquely their own. Throughout the game fans sing these cute little cheers and bang together weird noise makers, which I know can tend to be common in America, but here they are so enthusiastic about it that it seems completely different! And the funniest of all is that during the 7th inning everyone blows up these things (that oddly enough resemble condoms) and shoot them up into the air, why..., I'm not too sure but it is pretty fun and funny to see. Although I am usually not a baseball fan it was sooo much fun to watch all the crazy cheering and attempt to join in. Jessica, Emily, Anneli, and I all attempted to teach the Japanese fans near us some English cheers, as well as the wave, which was pretty fun. And, the Hiroshima Carps beat the Yokohama Bay Stars 8-1! YAY! I really enjoyed Hiroshima, I'm planning on going up again next weekend with some friends to do a little bit of shopping!
Interesting balloons that are released during the 7th inning.
Super Exhausted,
Keri
P.S. All of my posts have still contained something about fish. Sheesh Hiroshima Carps.
1 comment:
Hey, you must have some teaching talents if you make your team win. But you stay modest, giving your students all the credit. I still think it sounds pretty cool when you say "hopped into my car." You are in Japan with your own car. It's still unbelievable.
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