May 2015

Message from the Editor May 2015

                   After adjusting to new teachers, new students, and perhaps even new schools this past April, Golden Week came as a welcomed reward. Although a much busier time of year for the hotspots in Japan hopefully you found worthwhile activities to spend your four days off. This month’s Naha review from Brittany couldn’t have been better timed for my own Okinawa trip.While there, I was able to visit Shuri Castle, Okinawa’s Peace Memorial, Seifa-Utaki, and Tokashiki Island to spend a relaxing day on the beach. Oddly enough, I also found myself at a concert where at the age of 26 I was one of the oldest people there –that is besides the parents sitting in the cornersupporting their children on stage. That hardly mattered however, due to the week’s consumption of delicious taco rice and Okinawa’s Orion beer.

Back at school, May should be a time when you begin to feel a lot more settled and comfortable in your position, especially for those April arrivals just joining us.In fact, comfortable is a perfect adjective to describe May. Surprisingly, the first term is often the easiest for the ALTs. Golden Week comes a few weeks after classes get started, then midterms begin a few weeks after that, often followed by a culture or sports festival, and then finals starting in early June, and before you know it, you’re off on summer vacation. Again, it’s a comfortable balance between work and play. More importantly, the weather is not unbearable or suffocatingly hot this month and as we get into the groove of teaching and lesson planning, we mightseamlesslyinsert ourselves into other areas of the school. With the nice weather take the time to watch different club activities and find out when games, practice or regular ones, are being held. The beginning of May is a big time for tournaments for most sports and many third grade students will have their last games. If you’re responsible for ESS, find activities you can do outside. Recently, I played Duck, Duck, Goose with my students and taught them how to throw and catch an American football. It doesn’t take a lot of planning and the students get really into it.

As always if you need something to do during your spare time, look through this month’s issue of Hyogo Times. Rackle shares here experience in AJET Block 6’s first Kinosaki Car Rally, I delve into the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Larisa revisits her time at the last HAJET Book Club, and Nicole Finch gives us a taste of life inside Okayama Prefecture. Also find this month’s recommended books and attractions, a new recipe from Helen, and the newest chapter of The Durants. Enjoy the comfort while it lasts, soon we’ll be blanketed in heat and surrounded by the screams of cicadas. As a friend once said, “I always wanted to live this life. I always wanted to wear that ice. I always wanted a paradise. I always wanted a paradise.”