Entries this day: Work

Work

9:59pm JST Monday 23 June 2003

Another month is rolling by in Japan. Now is the time when people say time just flew by after the first couple of months.

Work was mostly good today. Started off with a man to man that no-showed for like 10 minutes, and then I yakked it up with some level 3s and then with some level 4s maybe. or something like that and then during the 10 minutes before my lesson prior to lunch, I called NTT to find out what number to fax my gaijin card to so they can give me the hookup on a phone number at the crib so we can get ADSL. I figured the conversation would last about 2 minutes, but she asked for my address and then I was on hold and then good things started to happen and were just wrapping up when horror of horrors the bell rang to begin the next class. It was like "oh damn" cause this is not a dream the bell really *is* ringing and I really *am* late for class (in this dream called life)

Fortunately, they were level 4s, but they seemed unimpressed by my being late. By the end of the lesson, either they faked it really well or they were quite pleased with the results. I focused attention on each of them and gave them each some specific language correction and they helped one another... I think it turned out okay.

After the lesson, I'm thankful that it was Cory who told me that if he didn't tell me to be on time to class, that he wouldn't be doing his job. Enough said; he knew that I knew that he knew that I knew that he had to tell me and we both knew that we both knew I am almost always on time to class, and later he found out that I had been calling to get the ADSL so he was quite more interested in that than whether I had made it to class on time.

During lunch Cors showed me how to use the copy/fax machine to fax the page to NTT, and I'll call them tomorrow to make sure they got it.

Walked into the voice room and no students were there. I wrote "antidisestablishmentarianism" on the board before a woman came in. She was a high enough level that I could be all, "okay, this is the topic," and help her pronounce it and explain that I didn't know what it meant, but that it's often cited as the longest word in the English language (or something like that). She was the only attendee for most of voice, so I specifically wrote her name on the board, and since she was high level, I wrote it in hiragana, cause I don't mind (though it's a big Nova nono) sprinkling a tidbit of Japanese in a lesson if I'm with high level students. Ikumi, a level 4 or so, and we were just talking and then some other cat came in, about a low 7A. He seemed to do okay with the conversation, but I immediately wished there was no hiragana on the board. Oh well.

Man to man kids and then a nightmare class with two level 7Bs who were far better than the other 7B in the class; it was just a crap crap crap crap crap lesson. Over.

Last lesson was fine; I don't really remember it except the student was a woman, high level-ish, man to man, and she seemed happy at the end.

Oh!!! I remember she was the one from whom I got my student quote of the day:

My company is a street light sales company.

The teacher quote of the day was from Lyle: "Fourteen is my fortresss of solitude."