First off were two of the biggest workshops of the year in the Keio Plaza hotel for re-contracting members of the Japan Exchange & Teaching Porgramme.

I don’t know what it was today, whether it was the fact that I was taking things a bit more slowly ( after listening to a recording of last weeks’), or because I was explaining more about why rather than what I do, or whether it was just because I’d been chatting to so many JETs this week, but today’s workshops seem to have been the best and most friendly ever.

Basically everything I was talking about everyone was totally supportive, taking the ideas and running with them and really getting all the psychology and stuff beneath. In both groups they were a really top bunch of people, and even the high school JETs were coming at the end and saying how much they got out of the workshop. Eventhough there were several hundred people in each one, it felt that I was talking to a room full of best mates, which is pretty cool.

Then in the afternoon I popped in to the publishers of my Kids English series. I’ve been so busy with Genki English that I haven’t really done much with Kids English recently, but it was good to catch up with people. And it was also really good to hear all the customers’ feedback. I never usually have much direct contact, but it’s amazing to see how much the parents appreciate the series, sending in photos of their kids and pages and pages of stories about their kids using the English. That is really nice to hear and it makes my monthly newsletter into something I really want to work at, rather than just being something sent to people I don’t know.

Then for the first time in quite a few days I had a quiet night in and read some of the left of Time magazines from Monday.