It's showtime!

So today...the hump day of the week. Today was not so bad. I was pretty pumped actually. All my morning classes were canceled...gone...switched! Which meant that I only had 2 classes in the afternoon! Nice! But that made the morning seem like forever and it went by pretty slowly...but I kept myself busy. I mean, I do have a lot of things to do, actually!

There is a document that I had a previous post about which I am in the process of translating from Japanese to English. So I worked on that for a couple hours and actually made some progress! It feels good to get some of it done and to have actually understood a lot of what I had to translate...knowing that I'm very illiterate when it comes to reading kanji! I also spent some of the morning practicing the piano. I also mentioned in a previous post that I would be performing at one of my elementary schools. I will be playing at the 6th grade sendoff ceremony which is on March 4th.

Then tonight I also had my eikaiwa class. Last week, I made a mini presentation on my hometown and what WI is famous for, some landmarks, and of course...The Green Bay Packers! I talked about how they won the Super Bowl and why it was important for people from WI. And after I finished my presentation, I turned to the class and told them that it would be their turn tonight...and they all looked at me with fright! Japanese people HATE presenting in front of people, especially in a foreign language. I mean, I guess I can understand that they would be intimidated speaking a language that they may not feel comfortable with. But presenting and practicing is the only way that they can get better, so I assigned them to do a presentation on something that is important to them or that has meaning for them.

I was very happy and entertained by all the different presentations! Everyone had something different and I learned many new things. It was interesting to see what kinds of topics would come up. They ranged from skiing in Zermatt, Switzerland, creating Haikus, people's hometowns, and personal photos that people treasure. All around, they were really interesting and I got to learn something new about the members of the class. And they are all really good at speaking and should do it more often! They are just shy!! Haha, well, I was pleased and hope to do a similar thing later on. As well, it was easy planning for me! I just had to sit there and listen and enjoy watching other people speak, instead of me doing the talking! Well, until next time...