Grade School

School has been wonderful so far this week. As I said before, the high school students are taking their exams so I am going to the grade school that is connected with St. Joseph's High School. And, I get done with school at 11:15! Unlike the high school, the grade school is co-ed. On Tuesday I met the grade school's English teacher, Sean Hashi. He is Canadian, so I am kind of following him around this week and helping teach his classes a little. We went to the 2nd grade classes and then a 1st grade class. The kids were so fun and cute! Here are some pictures.

Second Grade


First Grade


These kids were just awesome. At first they seemed a little intimidated, but once I was introduced and they got to ask me questions they were okay. They all had to say "Good Morning Abbey. How are you?" as a class. It was really cute. Then there was a question and answer session. They asked me questions like "What's your favorite color?" and "What is your favorite animal?". And then subject and food and so on. One girl asked me where I was from and the teacher had them guess. She guessed France. The next girl got it right. I answered them in English and they had to see if they knew what it was in Japanese. They were pretty good at it.

The first grade also got to teach me all the English they knew backwards. I learned how to say can I please sharpen my pencil in Japanese! That's real useful. I knew most of the phrases already, but it was fun to see what they thought I needed to know and I did learn a few new ones.

After all of that I went and sat in one of the empty desks and they all thought it was hilarious. The desk was a little small. I sat next to a boy and this girl up front turned around and made a little heart with her hands and laughed.

After class they all swarmed over to see me. Mostly to stare at me, but one girl tried to say something to me in Japanese. Realizing that I didn't know what she was saying she ran over to the teacher and then came back and said, "You're beautiful!" Ahhh, it was so sweet! And another little girl made me a paper airplane as a gift.

The whole experience made me think that I might like to be a grade school teacher. I really liked working with all the little kids.

Today was fun too, but not quite as much fun. I went to the 6th grade classes. They were a little more, well they're 11 and 12-year-olds. No offense Christy. :D The question and answer session was a little more interesting though. I got the usual "Where are you from?" and "What kind of food do you like?", but I also got "Who do you support for president, Obama or McCain?". Come on! This kid is 11 and trying to talk to me about politics! To be honest, he probably knows more about what is going on with this election than I do at this point. The only news that I have heard is on the Japanese news channel. In Japanese. I was also asked "Do you like Sean?" These 11 year old boys are pretty creative, right? Sean is twice as old as me! I said he was a good teacher. haha. Then another smarty-pants asked me if I like Jonny, an American English teacher at the high school. I said he was very kind. Then the first one asked me who I liked better! I told them I don't pick favorites. To make all this even better, Sean had to translate the questions for me.

So, that's all so far. I'll also be in the grade schools Thursday and Friday, so maybe I'll have some more stories in a few days.

Long Weekend!

Today was the last day of my long weekend. Today is Elder's Day, so I didn't have school. This weekend was really fun. Yesterday (Sunday) was pretty nice. I got to go to church again here. I really love that I get to go almost every week. It's really nice to do something so familiar and the members are so nice to me. I got to practice my Japanese talking to a lady there. She was very sweet and patient with my poor language skills. Then another lady sat by me and translated for me again.

Anyway, after church I went to my friend Ilianaa's house. She is a girl that I met at Rotary from Mexico. We went for a walk to see all the stores around her house and I had lunch then dinner with her and her host family. It was so nice to talk to have someone to just hang out and talk with.

Today, I met up with Ilianaa again. This time we went to Yokohama Station and Kamiooka Station. All the major train stations here are connected to huge department stores, so we wandered around the different shops and looked at all the ridiculously expensive brand name clothes. I would never be able to afford anything at those stores, and I honestly can't see why people would ever pay that much. Anyway, then we had lunch at this little Italian restaurant. It was really good, but I think the waiter misunderstood us when we were ordering. Go figure, right. We tried to order one spaghetti type pasta and then one pizza, and we were going to share. When the salads came, they brought 3 of them. Then, when the pasta came they brought two big plates out, and then they brought a pizza out. It was really good, but we couldn't eat it all.

After lunch, we went back to my apartment. We hung out and talked here. It is so nice to have a good friend here to talk to. I brought her back to the station at about 5 so she could go home for dinner. Once I got back, I helped finish setting the table and ate. We had this really good hot pot type thing with some little clear noodles, meat, tofu, mushrooms, and various vegetables in a broth. It was so yummy! I love my host mom's cooking. Then I helped with the dishes and took my shower.

Today I finally told my host dad that I want him to stop speaking English to me. I'm really starting to feel like I should know more Japanese because I have almost been here for a whole month. I really hope that I will start learning faster now that I will be hearing less English at home and taking Japanese lessons at school. My school even got me a really nice Japanese textbook in English to help me learn.

In school this week all the high school girls will have exams, so they won't be in class. Then what will I be doing, you ask. Well, they couldn't just give me a whole week off of school, so they have me go to the only classes that are going on. That's right, I get to go to grade school this week! I get recess and everything! I was told that I can either observe or participate. I plan on participating as much as my Japanese skills allow. I am so excited for this. I just hope they get me a little bigger desk than the ones the little kids are using... But seriously, I'm excited to go. Hopefully the kids won't be too scared of me or anything. I do have, I mean get to give a presentation to the class about Halloween. I wish I would have known that earlier so I could have gotten some American candy or something. Then the kids would love me for sure!

Sorry there aren't any pictures for this entry. I'll be sure to take some this week at school though.