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One year ago from today, I was finishing an agreed upon working period as a school photographer, and with no teaching job lined up, I agreed to work another month shooting retakes. The job was lots of fun, but it required that I wake up at 5am and that I also carry around heavy camera equipment. The pay wasn’t great either. I had finished a teaching degree a couple of months before, and with few actual teaching prospects in site, I was seriously considering teaching abroad. The deadline to apply for the JET Programme was still 2 months away, but if was going to put in a serious application, I had to show some commitment to my interest in going to Japan.

Today, I rode my bike for an hour – mostly uphill, to get to a special needs school that I will visit a total of 5 times this school year. The school is 3 years old, and a lot of money has been put into it to cater to the needs of its students. It also looks amazing.

First days at a new school are always exciting. Everybody is very polite and eager to meet me – especially the students. I think the teachers build a lot of hype around new ALT’s. I entered the first class to the loudest cheering and applause that 9 special needs students could possibly make (to clarify, the potential volume of these students is much higher than that of the students at my other high schools). The rest of the day was filled with more smiles all around than is typical for any school/work day. One student in particular, who stands about 3 and a half feet tall, measured himself up to me in order to draw attention to our height difference (I stand just over 6 feet). After making this quite obvious, he thought that when speaking to me, it would be quite funny to shout at the top of his lungs as if I was so far away that it would be hard for me to hear him. It was hilarious.

Today was a good day, gooder than most days – possibly the goodest day.

Being at a new school today makes me think about the first days when I arrived in Japan – and my first days at Iwaki Koko, when I knew maybe a word of Japanese. No particular comparison comes to mind at the moment. I think I just have an overall sense of nostalgia.

I have just about finished one sixth of my contract already.

Tomorrow I leave for Nagano to play in a soccer tournament for the weekend. I probably won’t get to post until Sunday night. In the meantime, if you’re new to this blog, or are feeling nostalgic yourself, you can check out some of my more favourable posts – as decided by me. Let me know what you think.

Iwaki Music

The Art of the Compliment

Cooking for One

The Dutchman

Fukushima-Maru

Shine: River Rave

Some like it Hot

Old Man on the Back Porch