Team.

So what I am supposed to be doing as an ALT is this thing called "Team Teaching" where the teacher and I share responsibilities in the classroom.

Not so. At my junior high school, I am usually not even the tape recorder for most of my classes, and most of my suggestions are ignored.

On the other hand, at all of my elementary schools, I am the main teacher and have to prepare lessons and teach everything, and a lot of the time the other teacher doesn't even come in the room or help or leaves as I'm teaching. 

But today I went to one of my ES schools and it was awesome. Last night I freaked out because I realized I had no idea what we were supposed to be teaching, and I had to get my supervisor to send me the schedule, and on it were two lessons I had never taught before, so I had nothing prepared.

But I figured I would wing it, and I had a suspicion that someone told me my teachers were supposed to help me with it, so I wasn't TOO worried. I've learned by now that having a relaxed and positive attitude usually makes my day better, so I'm trying to be calm in situations like that.

So I showed up to school today and I had first period free, so one of my teachers told me he was going to be doing both the 6th grade class's lessons with me, so we went upstairs and walked through EVERYTHING we would do for the lesson, and really nailed it down to make sure we both knew our roles. The classes went fantastically from a teaching standpoint (some of the kids like to ruin games so there was that one brat who kept messing it up for his team, but I couldn't have fixed that anyway) and I was really happy to have such a proactive teacher for once. My next teacher was a 5th grade teacher and she used to be a junior high school English teacher, so she was really energetic and good at teaching, and she did a lot of the lesson but always asked for my help, and it felt really nice.

The last class was with a teacher I had previously thought of as a big brutish stern guy, but in English class today he was so cute and the kids really respond to him. He was really nice and helped me out a lot.

Overall, I just felt so relieved to know that at least at one school, I'm doing what JET taught me to do. Kind of sad, because this is my FOURTH month in Japan as a teacher.

Anyway. I came home from a long day and a long week and made me some good food and watched a lot of youtube and caught up with friends. I wanted to write this post before midnight to keep with my one post a day thing, but I haven't written for NaNo today yet. I might not hit my word count today because I'm already sleepy and I have ALL WEEKEND (almost) to write. Also, I don't have the energy to write this scene, and it is very important and it isn't something I want to word sprint my way through, because those get my word count up but the quality is usually lacking because I'm competitive and I just want to write and I don't care what it is I'm writing. And this scene calls for precision. It's the turning point, heading on into the climax, and I really need to focus on it.

Just thinking about it makes me want to go to sleep haha.

So yeah, probably not going to get many words in today, but I am feeling really bookish and I have a huge list of things I want to read in December and onward once NaNo is over. 

I have so many wonderful people supporting my writing, so I am really lucky and I really appreciate all of you, if you are reading this! ^_^ Hugs all around! And cupcakes. Although I need a proper oven to bake those in, but maybe after I get paid and .... well after my trip to Hong Kong... haha

I hope all of you have/had a wonderful Friday!