Another day at the Kencho. The aviation academy is preparing for its school fesitival this weekend, thus, no classes. Can't say I mind though. Just finished a lesson plan that I have to submit at the conference the Yamanashi JETs are having at the end of the month. We all have to come up with something and submit it to everyone else, so after the conference I will have about one hundred new lesson plans. I'm sure some will be better than others, but if I leave there with only 20 usable plans, I'll be happy.
My plan, in case you are wondering, is about the weather. I actually did it last week at my Friday school and it worked so well, I thought I'd use it for the conference. I made up a word search with basic weather related words, handed a copy to every student and told them that the following week I'd be back to explain any new and unfamiliar words. All it had was words like "cloudy," "sunny," "temperature," you know, that kind of stuff. So the next week (last Friday) I was back with copies of the weather report from the English language paper I get. I went over the vocabulary really quick, then put the students into groups, and handed out the reports from the paper. I explained how to read it and then launched into questions. What matters here is both how you phrase the questions and how you allow the students to answer. So it is quite possible to make it damn easy for them or quite difficult. At first I asked things like "What the high temperature today in Tokyo?" "What the morning forecast for Sapporo?" easy stuff. Then I moved on to the major cities of the world, Moscow, LA, Madrid, London, Sydney, etc. After than, tomorrow's forecasts and temperatures. For this they had to be able to read a bit more of the report and listen to whether I said today or tomorrow in my question. Then I hit the big time; questions like "What world city has the highest temperature today?" "What city will have the lowest temperature tomorrow?" "In what three Japanese cities will it rain tomorrow afternoon?" As you can see, the difficulty level is variable. Anyway, the students seemed to have fun and be interested in the whole thing, so it went quite well. And what I liked is that they learned how to read the weather report, they practiced listening and speaking, and that we all had a few laughs. So hey hey, I just might earn my title of "sensei" after all.
Really the teaching is going quite well. Every school throws different challenges at me and I bend to meet each one. Some classes are damn easy to show up to as I just have to do what the Japanese teacher wants, and others require me to think ahead and plan something out. And I like having both styles as all of either would quickly get old.
Of all the schools I think I like Yuda best. It is my Wednesday school and is the all-girls high school (and no, that's not the reason I like it). The students are fun, the teachers are quite nice and joke around with me, and it's only about a 10 minute bike from my place. With how many times I've been there, I am getting quite familiar with everyone and we have a lot of fun.
Speaking of how many times I've been to Yuda, I thought, before I got here, that everything would stay relatively uniform and that I'd be pretty close on the number of times I'd visit each school. Except for my Tuesday schools, that is, since I have two of those. But get this, by this weekend I will have been to Yuda and Yamanashi Gakuen (Wednesday and Friday schools) six times each, Minobusan (Buddhist school, Mondays) four times, the Japanese Aviation Academy (Thusdays) three times, Sundai (one of my Tuesday schools) three times, and Shizen Gakuen (other Tuesday school) just once. Interesting, aye? No? Ok.

So the weather has changed here. And, man, when it changes, it changes. Just three weeks ago I was sweating and sleeping with only a thin sheet on me and the fan pointed right at me. But now, I hardly sweat at all, sleep with two blankets on me, and point the fan at the clothes I need to dry (remember, no dryer). And I like it! The days are quite comfortable and the nights are getting quite chilly. I have even run my heater a few times. Soon the leaves will be changing (have to get some pictures of that) and I'll have to go buy a jacket/coat. It is trully autumn. Only thing missing is live football and good beer. I realized last night as I ran the heater and enjoyed the chill that I love beer best this time of year. I love getting the dark, thick beers and pouring a few down. Stouts, porters, thick pale ales, ambers, red ales, I love them all and you know what? I can't get any of them here! I do love it here, but shit do I miss the good brews. I did manage to find Samuel Adams in a store the other day, but the cost might shock you as it shocked me. They were sold by the 12oz bottle and each cost 300 yen. That's about, and I just checked the currency exchange rate so that I would accurate here, $2.75 a bottle. So a six pack is $16.50! And that's before tax, I think. So yeah, I miss my good beer. Course, you don't have to move to Japan to miss good beer, just move go to certain places in the US and you'll see what I mean.

Ok, that's enough for now. Getting close to lunch time. And unlike the beer selection over here, the food selection is great. Gonna meet this girl I know for lunch. Not sure where we're going but I'm sure I'll like it.