Wednesday, July 11, 2007

"Totoro-san, umegaemochi wo tabemasenka?"

This Totoro character is still a bit of a mystery to me, but he still cracks me up. I watched the beginning of the movie, "Tonari no Totoro" when I was in the Japanese class in Fukuoka. The Japanese isn't too difficult, but it's a little fast. I saw this furry guy on my way to the National Museum in Dazaifu, and he just looked so hungry...so I offered him some of my umegaemochi...

(click on the post title for a link to the Wikipedia site that talks about the movie) Since the other ALT here is moving back to Colorado next week, I think I need a neighbor like Totoro :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You gonna come home and visit? Are you the only ALT at your school? Do you teach any classes on your own or are you just team teaching? I wrote a comment a few posts ago...guess you didn't see cause i didn't get a response :P..hope all is well..

Jon Frashier

Tracey said...

Hey, Jon!

Yes, I'm coming to the States for a visit, but not until around Thanksgiving (Nov. 17-Dec 5). I'm going to fly into Atlanta, and then go down to Fort Wilderness with Dad to spend Thanksgiving week down there with my brother and some other friends. After that I think we'll go to South FL for a visit, then head back to LaGrange before I head back to Japan.

I am the only ALT at my school. And sadly, all the new Isahaya ALTs are boys :(
(Just kidding - I like acting like their den mother...)
Yes - I have the distinction of being the only non-Japanese staff, so that keeps me busy most days. Crazy academic school that it is! Since I'm a bit more familiar with the system here, most of the time I'm the one in charge for lesson planning and teaching. The teachers are so stressed here, I'm sure they enjoy the break. I'm also frequently the "sub" if the JTE has shucho, etc., but I don't really care. I try to get the JTE involved as much as possible, but most seem to really like fading into the background, so the kids HAVE to think in English. I'm actually doing several writing classes for sannensei now, too. It amazes me that there appears to be no set "standard" for evaluating writing - so I've been using a lot of stuff I got from the Florida Writes stuff from the DOE.
So what are you up to these days? Any suggestions for where I can go on my 3 days of summer vacation?

Tracey-sensei
(-,*)v

(alas, my keyboard doesn't have nearly as many fun symbols as my keitai)