3 day weekend!

So today will mark the start of my 3 day weekend! Wooohooo!! I love holiday weekends! Although it makes it more difficult to return to work when it's over...but it will be fun! Tomorrow I will go snowboarding with a couple of friends. We are going to make the trek to Gunma Prefecture, closeby to Tokyo, and hit up a slope called Kawaba Ski Resort. I've never been there so it should be a fun time. Then on Saturday, my girlfriend and I are going to celebrate an early Valentine's Day, and then Sunday I will just relax!

But anyway, today was another day at the middle school (and my Friday for the week!). I only had 3 classes this morning and 0 in the afternoon, so it was a great day! Yesterday I had the same thing and was literally falling asleep at my desk in the afternoon...but today I worked on some translation with my Vice Principal so that kept me awake! This morning when I went into work, I thought it would be a normal day. I walk in to the teacher's room and greet everyone and we had our morning staff meeting. The first class starts at 8:30 and at around 8:28, the teacher who I teach first period with asked me for a favor that went something like this...

"Uh, excuse me, Mr. Kent...I have a favor to ask you. I can't make it to today's class (the one that starts in 2 minutes) so could you teach today by yourself? Did you have any activities that you wanted to do with the class? Or else I have some printoffs ready for them to use to study and work on in preparation for a test next week."

Yeah, so I opted to use those printoffs/worksheets. I was in no condition to think of a whole class period's worth of material in 2 minutes, so I did that. It wasn't so bad. I'm used to teaching by myself because that's what I basically do at the elementary schools. And I've been in enough of the middle school classes to have a good grasp of how they go. So I taught the class by myself this morning and it wasn't bad! I reviewed the grammar point we introduced yesterday, started reading from the textbook, and then worked on those worksheeets.

Another interesting thing happened, that was a surprise to me. Today was an eventful day, full of surprises! One of the elementary schools that I work at had heard that I played the piano at our school's culture festival and wanted to hear me play. So one of the teachers at that school had asked me to play during one of the breaks for the teachers there on March 1st, one of the last days I'll be teaching at the school for this school year. So I happily agreed and thought nothing of it. It's just going to be during the mid-morning recess for 5 minutes and won't be a big deal. This conversation was on Tuesday earlier this week. Then later that day, I heard that teacher talking to the Vice Principal about my "mini performance" and when it should be...etc....

So today at school, I guess the elementary school had talked to my Principal at the middle school to inform me that they wanted me to play the piano for the entire elementary school on March 1st, as well as have an encore performance on March 4th in the morning....why an encore performance?

The students' parents are coming on March 4th to listen to me perform again! What?!!?! Hahaa...I couldn't help but laugh. What was going to be a small show of the song has turned into a large performance that I will be in charge of and performing for...well, good thing I've been playing that song and keeping it fresh. But I guess I will have to practice it more again just to make sure, since there will be a large audience awaiting my performance....haha. Anyway, I'll enjoy this 3 day weekend and then begin practicing again next week!