Felt the travel bug again recently, so I planned at trip to Tokyo with a friend for this weekend. I did everything on my smartphone, while on the train home from work in Mie. We plan to leave from Yokkaichi Saturday night and come back to Nagoya Monday evening.
Here in Japan, March is seen as the end of the year, and April is the start of the next. School years end this month. Companies hire new employees next month. Right now, it’s a super busy and stressful time for everyone, myself included.
So, whenever I get a little downtime, I try to look at something pretty or do something fun. Now that it’s been getting warmer, there are more things to look at, and I’m a lot more willing to go outside.
I dub this the fluffy pompom flower. It’s another one of the strange plants I saw at the Higashiyama Botanical Garden greenhouse.
From Higashiyama Botanical Garden:
I have no clue what this thing is called but it looks like a pack of q-tips my friend bought once.
Today is my last day teaching classes, while tomorrow will be my last day working at Anjo school. I can hardly believe it. In September of last year, I started working there part-time. In April, I was re-assigned to Nagoya HQ, but I returned in mid-May.
Since then, I have been working exclusively in Anjo. Now, a new teacher is here and I am supposed to teach her my entire job in a span of about 18 hours.
I have also had to tell my students that they were switching teachers again, some of which are very unhappy. Never have I thought myself much of a teacher, but some of the people I have met are really lovely.
Tomorrow I sign a lease for my new apartment. The new teacher is coming to Anjo a couple of days after my birthday and will be taking my current living space. To make things easier for myself, as well as have a space to put off my stuff, I asked my boss if I could move early. She said yes, so I will be moving back to Nagoya the day after my birthday and will be making a commute for my remaining four days of work.
August is almost over and with it, my time in Anjo. In mid-September, my contract ends, and I will be returning to Nagoya. I don’t have much in the way of plans yet, other than to move into a new apartment and look for a new job. Now I have a little over a year of EFL classroom experience under my belt, and a JLPT score to help. I do need to improve my Japanese a lot though, if I want a really good job. I think I can pass the N4, but I want to aim a little higher this year with the N3. That means I need some serious study and a teacher. Any takers?
