Tuesday 2 February 2010

End of the School Year... Almost

The school year in Japan starts in April and ends right around now. We are in the middle of finals week, but after next Monday I am done with my first year of teaching.

Of course, there are plenty of other projects to keep me busy until the new year starts in April, but its hard to believe my classes are done.

At the moment I am buried in nervous students wanting my help before they take their final exams. The only reason I got lunch today was because I ran downstairs and bought two rice balls while one of my students was working out how to change a passive sentence to an active one. I ate while I talked with her and then was quickly spirited off to interview returning study abroad students. I don't think I stopped moving for more than 2 minutes today. It was exhausting.

I also haven't had an evening without work to bring home. I think I complained about that earlier as well. It shows I'm getting soft. I used to do hours of take-home work every night when I worked in Oregon. Now I'm getting pretty used to having my evenings free.

Once the week is over, though, things are going to get real quiet. I will still be busy, but I will be able to focus on just textbooks. No more balancing final exams with paper checking, presentation checking, grammar help, interviews, test writing and voice acting. I look forward to the monotony.

Remind me of that in a few weeks.

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