First Day of Winter

On the Japanese calendar, today was the first day of winter. Lucky for me, this year has been unseasonably mild. It was more of a blustery fall day today, and would have been quite nice if not for the wind. I hear though, that the snow is coming and it will get good and cold later this week. Oh well. I have plenty of warm woolies now.

Today I was teaching at the high school, which can be a bit trying. The students are not very motivated (in any subject) and it's disheartening to go to the high school and see very little improvement in the level of English. On the suggestion of one of my JTE's, I have started an English club. It started as a conversation class with some students who were going to be doing a homestay in Canada, but we have continued to hold it. Today I only had three students, but these are the really motivated students, so we can cover more interesting topics. Today we had fun with tongue twisters -- next week the students will bring Japanese tongue twisters (hayakuchi kotoba -- literally "fast mouth word" in Japanese). The point is, it was a really nice class, and I left school feeling like I had accomplished something, instead of feeling frustrated.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Asahikawa with some of the Junior High students to watch them perform in the English contest. They've been practing really hard for months, so I hope they do well!