Chris’s Blog

Just arrived today, luckily it is a Monday. Only a half day for me. There are around 270 students, nine classes in total. Seems like a nice school. The kids are similar to those at Kaizuka, but on a smaller scale.The journey to school is much better too. While it took almost an hour to get to my last school, it is only taking me about fourty minutes now. Furthermore I only need to be at school at 8.15 instead of the usual 8am. This means I can wake up at a more reasonable 6.45.I need to get some photos up! A text only blog looks boring. Ill post a photo of my servers or something later on.

Too late! I should have written about this ages ago. Its not really the new school for me any more now that I have been here since school started again after the summer break. Its quite a new school, but the trip in the morning is horrible. Its almost a full hour to get to school, and there is only one train I can take in the morning, and then another 20 minute walk.

The students are / have been great and I am looking forward to the time I have left. The teachers here are really nice and seem to get along with the students well too. The English level is also fairly high. Makes my job easier

Its not that I don’t like introducing myself, its just doing it 18 times in a row. Still, the new school isn’t the biggest in Chiba. My mate James had to do 27 classes. So on average, I reckon maybe 60-70 a year. Its slowly improving, but still super boring.

I wish the duration at each school would be longer, because its not only a drag for me, but the schools. For example, I’m the second alt in this academic year at Mitsuwa, meaning that approximately 36 classes have been used (this year) for A.L.T self introductions, followed by 72 classes used for the students self introductions (Assuming it takes two classes to prepare and present).

I’m only at this school for 6 weeks, around 30 academic days. On average three classes a day, thats 90 classes during my stay. Take out my self introduction (18) and the students self introductions (36) – thats only 54 actual classes, or about 9 each – and thats not including the last day.

Its not very efficient to have two A.L.T’s doing only 6 weeks each in a year. But thats the way the onigiri rolls. HA Super Lame!

Been a while since Ive updated. Didn’t do much over the holiday break (28th to the 4th) but did spend a whole lot on traveling to the girlfriends house for new year. The new school is pretty good, not to big (about 370 students) and the students and teachers are a good bunch. Having the enkai tonight, so I’m not going be be getting up tomorrow. Ill probably post a couple pics of my new school later – when I’m really bored or can be bothered.