Ohh the kids

Today was a day at the elementary school....I have been at elementary schools all week. Just the way the schedule worked out, this is how it has been. But this Friday is graduation for the junior high school students and I will be there for that. But this morning, I taught the 1st and 2nd graders who are extremely cute! They are all really funny and they absolutely LOVE English! For now at least....it's all the games and the fun they have. I hope that they do continue to like it and will always be enthusiastic about English! Check out the pic below with my kids! See if you can find me in the mix with the other Japanese people! It's like "Where's Waldo"...but "Where's Kent?!" haha...:)

I finished off the day by teaching one 6th grade class at the first elementary school and then heading over to my second elementary school and teaching the 5th and 6th grade. It was an alright afternoon and I was glad when it was done. It gets pretty exhausting teaching for 5 or 6 periods per day. I'm just glad that I'm not teaching at elementary schools everyday! That would be VERY tiring!

Today was a rather warm day. it was sunny which was nice for a change. The past couple of days it had been raining.

On another note, I had been trying to make a homemade "Onsen Tamago" by myself. An Onsen Tamago is an egg that is cooked rather evenly but not completely like a boiled egg. There is still some part of the yolk that is left raw so that it is gooey inside...and it's absolutely delicious! It's difficult to make because obviously you are not able to see inside of the egg to see how done it is while it's boiling in the water. If you boil it for too long, then it turns into another boiled egg. On the other hand, if you don't boil it for long enough, then it's just a raw egg. Not only is the timing important, so is the temperature! Too hot...you'll have a normal boiled egg....too cold/cool...you'll have a raw egg. So there are a few variables to try and master in order to make this. Well, I had made a few attempts and hadn't gotten it quite right...until tonight! For dinner, I tried to make 2 of them and they both worked! They were absolutely delicious and it turned out perfectly and just how I wanted them to! I just hope that I'll be able to do it again and on a more consistent basis. It's still difficult and I will have to keep a close watch on the cooking time and temperature, but I hope that I'll get better and better and be able to make it any time that I want it!

There was also an earthquake that happened today. I didn't actually feel it, but apparently they could feel it more up in Tokyo. The real major earthquake happened up in Northern Honshu up by Sendai and around Miyagi prefecture up in the Tohoku region, about 150-250 miles north. It happened right about noon. I was teaching class at the time and did not feel it on the 3rd floor of the school. But an announcement came on during class and all the kids went under the desks to protect themselves just in case. I guess the whole earthquake lasted a few minutes and even rated at 7.2 on the Richter Scale up in Tohoku! I think it was only a 2 or 3 down around Chiba and Tokyo...I'm just thankful that there was no major damage! It's especially scary since we've seen what an earthquake can do and we saw what happened in New Zealand just a couple weeks ago. Well, I hope that nothing major happens, and there was even a tsunami warning today which was later called off, thank goodness! Well, to keeping safe!