First week of school, Baseball game, and Hip Hop class

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I haven't written for awhile because I've been so busy. I finally started working. The first thing I had to do at both my elementary and middle school was to give a speech in front of the entire school. I started out with a short intro in Japanesse and then gave the rest of my speech in Engish and had it translated. Since then, I've been working at my junior high (my first day at my elementary school is Friday). I love my junior high students. They are so sweet and love talking to me with the sometimes extremely limited English they have. Some of the first years (7th graders) can only say "hello, goodbye, thanks, and my name is." Even so, they can't wait to talk to me. On my 2nd day, a girl came into the teacher's room and walked over and said hello. After talking for a few seconds, I realized she was the same girl I had had a brief conversation with the previous day in the hall. She began to walk away and then slowly walked back over and handed me a letter from her pocket. The letter had a picture of the two of us on it. She wrote how she was surprised when she met me because my eyes were green like a dolls. She told me all about herself including that she loved seeing people smile. She said she wanted to travel the world doing volunteer work so she could see all the different smiles of the world. The entire letter was in English. It must have taken her forever! It made me so happy I almost cried. I went home that night and wrote her a letter. I tied it into a scroll and attached candy with ribbons. I gave it to her the next day and I'm so excited to get to know her better. Today I walked around to all the various clubs. All the kids get so excited when I watch their club. A large group of kids from the basketball club came over when I walked into the gym. I told them that I would bring my shoes the next day and play basketball with them. The entire group cheered, then they repeated what I said to make sure they heard me right. When I said yes, they cheered again. I can't wait until tomorrow!

Last Friday I went to a community Hip-hop dance class with Kristine and Taylor. There were people of all ages there, about 60 people. We are going to start going to the class every Friday night. It seems so strange to be taking a hip-hop class in Japan, but they are very popular here. It's a great way for us to meet Japanese people of all ages. It's so much fun, even though we can't understand a word the instructor is saying! Tonight I got a phone call from Miri. She's a Japanese teacher at another school. She was friends with the girl who lived here and had my job before me. I guess I kind of inherited her as a friend. She knows a fair amount of English and is extremely sweet. She invited me to start going to a Taiko drum class with her on Wednesdays. I had been looking everywhere for a Taiko class, but everyone said it would be too hard without knowing Japanese. With Miri to translate, it should be ok though. I'm so excited and I'm sure I'll be writing lots about it next week!

This past weekend I went to Nagoya to see a baseball game. We spent the day exploring the city. It's a really big city, so we pretty much just walked around all day. When we finally made our way towards the dome, we had no problem finding it. It reminded me of being at Yankee stadium because everyone was wearing Dragon's shirts and hats. I bought a Dragon's shirts as soon as we walked in. It went great with my Yankees visor! The game was incredible to watch. Everyone had either two bats or this large clapper thing that they used throughout the game. The entire stadium tapped in unison. There were chants that everyone in the stadium seemed to know. There were no people screaming like at games back home, but the chants and clapping made the game extremely loud. It was strange to see people buying sushi at a baseball game though. They did have hotdogs, but I was too scared to try a hotdog in Japan. Even simple things are very different in Japan. Since I don't drink beer, I bought a cup of Sake at the game! The Dragons won which made it even better.