Happy Monday Everyone!

The weekend was fun.  Not quite what I expected, but fun.  I went out friday night to the duck, which is our favorite bar, and hung out with Takumi and one of his co-workers.  Lo, and behold! The rest of the ALTs showed up, too.  Apparently, someone had made plans for us all to meet there. I missed that memo, but luckily we all got there at the same time.  A few hours flew by, and I met this cool guy named Jason.  He works for JET, which is another program that fosters English teachers.  He's a nerd like me, so we sat around getting drunk, talking about D&D.  Then we ended the night with a few rowdy hours of karaoke.  Woke up late on saturday. Turned off all the alarms and managed to sleep through the first few rays of sunlight.  Saturday night was supposed to be a big fun night out for me, but I refuse to associate myself who refuse to behave like decent human beings.  I tried to be a bigger person, and look past all of the bad qualities they were portraying, but add potential $30 cover and $50 cab ride home.......no thanks.  Not to hang out with those guys.  So I caught the last train back to my town and ended up back at the duck.  Had a good time there, as usual.  I should just live there.  Then yesterday was the bbq with one of my student's family.  It was fun.  Not really as wild as the one with the band folks, but that is to be expected.  Musicians around the world all know how to party.  Then I went home and spent the rest of the day relaxing.
Today was a tremendous amount of fun.  "D says" is a great game.  It's like simon says, but ya know...me.  We also did lots of fun singing, played onaji jya nai, and blackboard battle.
Onaji Jya Nai
Step 1- Place 6 flashcards on the board for feelings: Happy, Sad, Tired, Hungry, Sleepy, and Fine.
Step 2-Number them 1-6
Step 3:
D: Hello!
Students: Hello!
D: How are you?
Students: I'm ~ (They pick whatever) How are you?
Step 4-Reach into a hat/bag.whatever where you have numbered cards 1-6, and pull one out.
Step 5 D-I'm ~ (Whatever your card corresponds two)
Step 6-Those who are the same as me, are out.  The rest of them say "Onaji jya nai"
Step 7 Remove the card you picked out, and its corresponding flash card from the game.
Repeat steps 3-7 4 times.  Pick the most genki child, or the one you feel will have the most success, and have them lead the class in round 2.  They become D.

Blackboard Battle
Step 1-Line up flashcards of the vocabulary on the board.
Step 2-Line the students up into two teams on opposite sides of the vocabulary words.
Step 3- Gesture dramatically for them to start.
The lead person on each team reads toe vocabulary as fast as they can, making their way towards the other side.  Once they meet, they Janken (Rock, paper, scissors) and the winner continues forward, and the loser retreats to the back of his/her line.  Meanwhile the second person in line on the losing side begins.  If any person makes it from one side to the other, their team gets one point.  It's a great game, because there are lots of opportunities to succeed.  If you are slow at english but rock at janken, you're like a tank that slowly makes lots of progress.  If you are quick with english, but unlucky at janken, youre great at giving your team some room to play with.  If youre slow at engligh, and are slow at janken, you still love playing janken because you're a japanese child, so you are still excited and willing to try. win.

So I played those 4 times today, got my planning for tomorrow done, found out I get to dress down cuz its so hot, and have a work excuse to go buy new clothes. Huzzah!
TO THE MALL!