Back to reality

So after a lot of free time during spring vacation and no classes, I am back into the full swing of heavy schedules. I had a little quarrel with my Tuesday school today because they have me scheduled for every single class of the day, six classes, which is about twice what Japanese teachers have to do. This problem came up before at different schools and I have to argue for a couple free periods a day to breathe and do my lesson planning for the next day, next school. The problem is that each school usually only has me for a day or two a week and they can't see the big picture of my weekly schedule, so they cram me into their daily schedule to take advantage of my short time there...but it wears me out fast and my motivation gets slowly sucked away. So that put me in a foul mood, which I alleviated after school by stopping in at the spa on the way home and taking an hour-long hot soak followed by 30 minutes in the massage chair with a cold Kirin.

Tomorrow I have four classes in a row and then my base school on Thursday and Friday which always keeps me busy. But it's been fun meeting all the new 1st year kids (who still think they are in elementary school and haven't learned that they should act too cool for English yet) and doing my self introduction again, which I have down to an art. Between my introductions and everyone's little questions about me (like "What do you play sports?" and "Are you a good ski player?",) I've gotten pretty good at telling people all about the most basic of things, like what I like, what I don't like and where I'm from. All in a fun but sometimes mind-numbingly slow-wittingly remedial-vocabulary filled day's work.