First day back at computer work and I got a ton of stuff done!! One thing I’ve been working on is having photos of the gestures to all the songs on the site. Each song has it’s own online teaching video, but for people who come to the site for the first time I think actual photos would help them better understand how to do the songs. So I worked on that ( should be online later this week). And another thing I’ve been wanting to do is to have me speaking the articles on the site, especially the Japanese versions. That way instead of just skimming through the written article, you click on “play”, sit back and relax as I read through the article, of course in an amusing way! So I managed to get those done for the games page, curriculum page and the “pronunciation guide” pages!
I also transferred the motivation CDs I bought in Singapore over to my phone, went to the hospital to get some new asthma medicine ( it’s going to get colder now, so best to be prepared!), and even to the gym ( I’m going to be doing only computer work for most of this month, which isn’t that healthy!).
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My scheduled day off and a big typhoon comes. I came seem to win with the weather this year! But I took the chance to do all the errand things like going to the bank and stuff.
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After a very good night’s sleep it was up for a very big breakfast. Then I popped into the onsen. Oh my goodness, it’s massive! With great huge Greek statues of horses and gods, pouring water into the baths.
The owner caught up with me again and had a chat about how it would be great to make a Genki English programme for hotel staff, now there’s an interesting idea. Then to set up the show. And again, crazy! It was a full on 3/4 size classical opera house complete with chandeliers, velvet wall upholstery and hand painted ceiling artwork. Not your usual gym then.
The show was also cool (with great acoustics) and the kids belted through “Rock, Paper, Scissors“, “How are you?“, “Rocket Launch“, “Mingle“, “What are you doing?“, “Harry Potter“, “What’s your name?” and back for an encore of “Rock, Paper, Scissors“. Now that’s quite a lot!
Then a chat with the parents ( “What, you mean the kids should learn to speak before learning to write English? Hehhhhhhhh”), and a nice rest in the very posh ryokan before hopefully flying back to Kyushu ( if the typhoon doesn’t hit!!)
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Today I was due to go up to Ishikawa for a private kids show and parents Q&A. But the way the finances worked out it would effectively mean I’d be doing it for free. This month I’ve already done a heck of a lot of volunteer work at schools in Fukuoka ( I’ve only been paid for one day’s work in August!), so the thought of traveling up there so near a typhoon and again as a freebie made me think I was mad!
But as usually happens with these things, however much I think it would be easier just to stay in one place, these trips always turn out to be fantastic experiences. And today was just crazy! Tomorrow’s show is in an onsen resort, but it’s not just any old onsen it’s a massive, massive complex with huge Roman columns, Greek statues and massive murals on the floors and ceilings, talk about luxurious! And as the girl who organised the show knows the owners I got put up not in a room, but in my own suite!
Plus then the poshest dinner I’ve ever had in Japan ( even beats the whole live octopus I had last year), it was a full on banquet with loads of sushi, sashimi, then a Western Course, then a steak and a rock to cook it on. At 10 the owner came down to chat with us, then after a while it was decided to do Karaoke, it must be cool to have your own hotel where you can just pop into your own Karaoke bar. And that was decorated in the most amazing Louis XIV style, like a French palace. All the staff knew I was with the owner so were treating me like a ambassador or something, unbelievable!
So quite an interesting day to say the least! I wonder what tomorrow will be like?
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Today was the last of the Summer Workshops for this year. In previous years August has been the fund raising month doing private shows and bookstores to fund the free school visits, but this year was the real thing with hours and hours of elementary school workshops. And it is really great because in the Summer the teachers have the time to think things over and really are looking for help with their lessons.
Today’s first school was great. As usual you can always tell how things will be by the head teacher’s greeting, and the guy today greeted me with a massive thick folder of print outs from the website! He was totally into things, and hence the workshop was great. Actually yesterday I was given a DVD of one of the July workshops and man do I talk fast!!! I always talk as fast as I can until people start getting lost, then I slow down a touch and have found their level. But that means at some schools I’m fair belting along. So today I did things a bit slower and as we had 3 hours it was cool. Again lots of questions ( always the same ones but that’s OK!) which every seemed very happy to learn the answers to!
Then in the afternoon it was in another city. This time the teachers had no idea who I was! I asked the teacher what she needed help with and she said she desperately needs to find some lessons plans, songs, games and pronunciation materials but can’t find them anywhere. I love these types of school, where the teachers have absolutely no idea what I do, but in the workshop I give them all the tools they are looking for. Needless to say they were very surprised and very happy at the end of things. I also had a bit of time free before the end so did the “Birthday Song“, and they just loved the funky intro!!!!
So I great end to a great Summer, but it’s not really over as my schedule is getting full up right until I leave for Europe at the end of November!
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I have a very strong affection for today’s school as when I first took Genki English out of Ehime and was going round Fukuoka on a bicycle, in a typhoon, cold calling on schools asking to do shows and seminars today’s school was the first school that put their trust in me and asked me to do a show for them!! That was in September 2000, so it was great to go back today and show them how big Genki English has become and how much I really appreciate the support they offered me in the beginning. The teachers were great and it was a cool workshop. Then afterwards the Head teacher asked if I could help out with some classes later on in the year. I don’t usually do normal classes as the amount of requests would be crazy, but for this school no problem at all!
Then a quick lunch and off to today’s other school in a different city! This school was also really good and the teacher in charge had actually taken the time to meet up at Starbucks for a chat a few weeks ago. She specifically asked for “What do you do?” ( I hadn’t done that for a while and was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is!) and topics for 6th graders. The other teachers also had lots of questions, so it was really good. After the lesson the teacher wanted some help with doing an email exchange programme with China. In the GE projects I always recommend epals.com, but today it only showed up 3 suitable schools in China! Hmm, that could cause a few problems!
So after 5.5 hours of workshops it was back home to get mail work done. But I was really, really happy to be able to go back to that first school today, it really did make me see how far Genki English has come, how far I have to go, and how much support people have given me all the way through, for which I’m very grateful.
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