A Day in the Life

I've been going to classes long enough that I think I can accurately assess my daily routine. So, for your reading pleasure - a day in Leslie's life.
Note - this describes a normal day at my junior high school. Elementary school is somewhat different, but I won't go into that just yet.

6.30.
My alarm goes off, though I'm not likely to actually get out of bed until 6:50 or 7. I shower (if I didn't take one the night before), get dressed, eat breakfast, and potentially talk on Skype for a half hour or so. I try to leave the apartment around 8:05 for my 5 minute ride/10 minute walk to Ikushina Jr. High.

8.10.
I arrive at school. This means changing my shoes at the door and saying "hello" or "good morning" to every student I see and "ohayo gozaimasu" ("good morning") to every teacher. (I have a strong policy of using English as often and as consistently as possible with my students, a stance that I do not take toward my teachers). I enter the staff room from the door as far away from my desk as possible so as to be sure to greet as many teachers as possible. Apparently, my "ohayo gozaimasu" is continually surprising to my coworkers, as I "sound exactly like a Japanese person." Many of the teachers have, thankfully, stopped doing double-takes when they look at me to respond to my greeting.

8.20.
The staff meeting begins. There is a serious art to these daily meetings. A different teacher hosts the meeting every day, acting as an arbiter of sorts. This "host" asks for any announcements from the teachers, then asks the kyoto-sensei (vice-principle) and the kouchou-sensei (principle) for their announcements. They then call on the head teachers of each year to hold their own, year-specific meetings. If all goes well, we are done in time for the teachers to head to their classrooms for homeroom at 8:30...though this is rarely the case.

8.50.
The day starts in earnest. There are 6 classes a day, and I teach up to 4 every day (by which I mean "I'm seriously surprised when I have fewer than 4 classes." This is, apparently, an unusually hard workload for ALTs). Classes are 50 minutes long, with a 10 minute break in between. I teach 4 classes of 1st years (34-ish students in each), 8 classes of 2nd years (18-20 students each), and 8 classes of 3rd years (18-20 students each). I usually see each class once a week. Unlike American schools, the students stay in one room and the teachers move from class to class, but for the split classes (2nd and 3rd years), half of the class stays in their normal room while the other half move to a special, English classroom.

I pretty much spend these 50 minute lessons acting as goofy and extroverted as possible. I'm here to make English fun and to inspire the students, which I find is best done by making them laugh. I turn into an exaggerated version of myself around my students for this reason, often being much goofier and much more upbeat than I have ever found myself in America (barring instances involving sleep deprivation and/or high intakes of caffeine). I'll talk about more of this in a later entry, I'm sure, but let it suffice for now that I will probably be much more extroverted upon my return stateside because of this constant exaggeration of my usual persona.

A day or so before each lesson, I meet with the teachers and ask what they would like me to prepare for that particular class. I usually try to come up with a game of some sort, as my class time is supposed to be the "fun, don't worry about grades and realize that English is communication, not just another subject" time of the week. Sometimes, though, I slide back onto a worksheet, especially for the 1st years, who generally spend my classes repeating their vocabulary words and textbook dialogues after me to acquire a good accent.

During my two free periods, I either plan for other lessons or study Japanese. I usually find myself skipping the Japanese studying, which is a bad habit, in order to prepare for a lesson, make some new bulletin board, or some other, student-oriented activity. I hope to rid myself of this bad habit in the near future.

12.40
Lunch-time! Lunch starts just after 4th period and lasts until 1.30 (if you include recess). There's no cafeteria in the school (or in many Japanese schools, for that matter), so the students eat in their classrooms and the teachers eat in the staff room. Students flow in and out of staff room (saying "shitsureshimasu" [excuse me!] every time they enter and "shitsureshimashita" [I've excused myself! (I think)] every time they leave), disappearing into the broadcasting room to play music during the break. The funniest part of lunch, for me, is once the meal is offer and all the teachers instantly pull out toothbrushes and start brushing their teeth. I still find this extremely amusing for no real reason.

Two more periods and then it's 3:30 - cleaning time. Each class is given a section of the school to clean for 15 or 20 minutes, though I have come to find that another ALT was very accurate in describing this time as "ritual moving of dirt" rather than actual cleaning. I have joined a group of first years who sweep leaves and dirt off of the paths around the front of the school. It's a good chance to interact with the students outside of class in a low-key, "no one's gonna hear you make mistakes" way. It's also great because I'm outside, and thus very visible - it's rare that I don't get a "LESLIE!!!" from a student who's cleaning in the building. :D

I technically get off of work at 4.15, but I often stay later, till around 5:00 or so, either finishing up lessons or doing some sort of school-oriented work. Part of this is because it earns me brownie points with the other teachers, who have to stay much later than I do on a regular basis. Part of this is also to make myself more available to my Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs), as they are usually horrendously busy and may not be able to plan the next lesson with me before 4.15. I consider it a show of goodwill towards the other teachers.

5.00-ish
I excuse myself from the staff room with the ritual "I'm leaving" declaration, "osakini shitsureshimasu" ("please forgive me for leaving before you."), and earn myself the ritual response, "otsukaresama deshita" ("you must be tired").
Point of interest - neither of these are sarcastic in any way, as the Japanese don't seem to understand sarcasm in the slightest. I find this amazing of a culture that relies greatly on subtlety in communication, but hey, whatever. :D

A change of shoes sees me outside and within the next 5 or 10 minutes I find myself comfortably at home again. At this point I decide either to go to the local mall for groceries/other errands or to stay at home and veg out, read a book, clean up the apartment, etc. I tend to stay in, mostly because I'm so tired from my full day at school, though going to the local mall is always a treat.

5.20-ish
The sun sets. No lie. I find this inconvenient for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my bike is my only mode of transportation other than my own two feet, neither of which is exactly the safest-feeling way to get around after dark.

9.30-ish
I go to bed. Again, no lie. The girl who used to have a hard time going to bed before 12 or 1 in the morning now finds herself yawning at 9. Part of this is because, as I realized around a year ago, a full night's sleep for me is 9.5 hours, while most people are fine with 8. Part of this, too, is the fact that it gets dark so early - it's easy to feel like you've been up a long time when it's been dark for 4 or 5 hours, which just so happens to be at 9 or 10 for me.

[Repeat.]