Day 205 { My Schools / Tax } - Friday, October 10, 2008

Day 205 { My Schools / Tax}

Went to my nearest and one of my overall better school today. My best would probably be a tie between this, my main school and my Thursday one. And let me explain just in case one of the teachers at any of my other schools happen to visit my blog :) and start to show me bad face... I know that about 2 of the teachers at my main school visit my blog occasionally... How did I know?? I remember when I mentioned something in my blog about a class misbehaving. Then this school invited me to a barbecue. While at the barbecue a teacher said to me...."You really thought my class was misbehaving" ... I was shocked out of my witts and I started to stutter. But then she said it's because the parents were viewing the class thats the reason for that behaviour. I do not show any favouritism though but this is just my personal feelings towards all the schools...And I do thoroughly enjoy all of them, just some more than the others...

Main school - Because I visit them twice a week, I think the kids are somewhat used to seeing me around. This is good for the most part. But some kids are just too quiet in the classes. Many times, my feeling in the classes are totally based on the responsiveness of the kids. Hey, but they give me a laptop here, and what more could I ask for than that :) Plus most of the teachers speak English... So in terms of communication with the Japanese teachers, this school is definitely number 1 by farrr. They are so used to seeing me around at this school that when visitors come and look at me strange and possibly start to ask "hey, who is that black guy?"... The people here would possibly say, "where??" Then when they realize it's me they will say, "ooh thats just Dave Sensei the English teacher".

Tuesday school - Those guys in the 6th grade class need to be controlled even though the teacher is a cool guy. A few in the grade 5 class are also rotten. The teachers here hardly speak English but they are nice.

Thursday school - The kids here teach me Japanese, they draw me away to play basketball and run around and they always want to show me new stuff...So this is why I really like this school. Some of the teachers here speak English but some don't. Most of them don't speak to me that much though.

Friday school 1 - The kids are always happy to see me and this in turn makes me glad to see them too. I also think this is because they don't see me that often. They all have this incredible vibe and they all want to learn...Most of the teachers here also seem very happy when I am around.

Friday school 2 - They are just normal, but this very rotten kid from the grade 1-2 class get on my nerves, and the teacher does very little to try to stop him. This kid march out the class at will and not even the vice principal seem to can control him... The teachers here are very cool though even though most of them speak very little English.

So in general, I enjoy all of them and most of the kids enjoy my classes it seem.

There is this tax thing I heard that we have to pay either before or after leaving Japan... I call it the "Foreigner living in Japan tax"... And it's about 150,000 yen... I heard that if you don't pay it... Then where ever in the world you are, they can draw it out of your bank account... If you don't have a bank account then I don't know what they will do. I thought it was strange, but the head ALT around here said it's the same thing in Canada and it's probably 3 times the cost.... What I don't know is if its as long as you live in Japan as a foreigner or as long as you are working here..

After work, I went to Friday's English conversation where the leader reminded me that I am preaching this Sunday in the main city.