School. No wait, I mean work

So I’m at work. It’s been an interesting day. A little busy here and there. Lots of e-mail chatting with my sisters and cousin (yea!!!) and even a little online chatting via gmail, aim and skype! (that was getting a little crazy…
I’ve been helping 2 students prepare for Friday’s speech contest. The first year needs a little help (kinda what I expected) but the second year student has great pronunciation and gets the feeling of the speech. (she even helped me work with the first year student) Sadly though, I have not been invited to attend or judge it. But a fellow JET buddy has. Lucky her.
Oh right, on the note of chatting online. I just found out last night that my laptop has a built-in microphone! xD Good thing I found out now before I bought a headset! Hahaha. I still need to get a camera though…but that can wait. (have a little regret for not putting the extra money to buy the laptop that came with a camera…but ah well). So yea, if you want to chat, just find me on aim or skype! ^^
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So I tried to write another blog entry on Monday but it never made it up. In fact, it was only a 3 sentence paragraph and I was just starting the second when…I guess I got busy with something…
Anyway, tomorrow starts off the school year here in Chikushi High School. In the morning, I will give my small introduction to the entire student body. I’m not sure how big it is…but being that most classes are about 40 students…it’s going to feel like my high school… And after their Sports Day (which is September 7th) I will get to teach my first class. It’s an introduction class so at the moment I have a small powerpoint about who I am, what I like, my family, where they’re from yadda yadda yadda. I’m also wondering what sort of activities to do with them. Something fun and educational…and that the teachers will be alright with…woo…
On Monday, all the teachers came back (most, if not all, were gone for Obon). So I also had to give a small introduction to them that day. I wrote a really quick and small one (my advisor said to make it about a minute long) the night before. And I did in Japanese. It felt like I was back in college on the first day of the semester where we had to introduce ourselves and give a brief of what we did over break. Anyhoo, it really wasn’t all that great (and with editing help from my supervisor, it was grammatically correct. Haha). But I was told by some of the teachers that I’ve gotten familiar with that the others were impressed. One of the teachers later told me she was impressed how well my Japanese was after only studying for 4 years (really? I think it would be better if I had reviewed everything and remembered my kanji…).
But in all honesty, I think my Japanese was horrible when I first landed in Japan (because I didn’t really study over summer break…). But since I’ve been here for 3 weeks already (really? Only 3 weeks?) and I’ve been talking to other teachers, hostmoms, talking with cab drivers and asking people in the community for directions, I think it has gotten a little better (at least I think my listening is getting better. And that was the toughest part for me!).