pyroyale: (Persona 4 - Yukiko)
I officially accepted the position in Chiba a couple of days ago.

I had been worried about living costs there, but after the manager of the Chiba branch gave me some information on apartment costs and I did some research myself, I wasn’t as worried! I’ll probably be living in a Leo Palace apartment (a company that specialises in apartments for foreigners that are easy to move into but tiny), but that has its advantages. Less money needed upfront and they usually come with a ready internet connection, so no six week wait like I’d have with a private apartment.

He will be contacting my current branch to tell them and the scheduler in Chiba should be getting back to me with a more firm idea of possible locations later.

So, er, YAY!

I was at my main school on Monday, and Matsumura-sensei started asking me all of these questions about exactly where I lived right now, what type of housing I lived in, how much rent I paid... looks like he's going to have at least partial responsibility in finding suitable housing for the new teacher and was asking me for help.

I didn't know whether to be helpful (it isn't his fault the contract was lost and it isn't the new person's fault either) or be offended and angry (maaan, you take my job from me and expect me to help?). The good Samaritan in me won out and I helped.

The company are coming to observe one of my lessons tomorrow. Joy.
pyroyale: (Gackt - glasses)
Other than dreams related entries, it's been two weeks since I've updated.

I wish I could say that was due to me being so busy that I haven't had time, but it's more due to me being so dull that I've had nothing to update about.

School is plodding along nicely. I had a group of first year girls introduce themselves to me in the teacher's room today. It was a fun conversation and I learned some important things about my colleagues, such as to stay away from the maths teacher Murakami-sensei because he ate three people for lunch. The conversation became crazier and crazier, the girls got louder and louder, and it ended in one of the other teacher's kicking them out of the teacher's room for being too noisy and disturbing him.

I apologised to him after, but he explained that he didn't really care, it was just his job and the "Japanese style" to keep them quiet.

I was kinda glad because they were giving me a headache.

I had no lessons today (my new JTE at this school is a waste of space and is never organised enough to have lessons with me, but he's a really nice guy and keen to improve his conversational English, even if half of his sentences are in Japanese...) so I was preparing for Friday. I've been asked to model a presentation as the students will be expected to make their own in the next couple of weeks.

The title of this presentation? "My Favourite Artist."

I can't believe that I am, once again, getting paid to fangirl about GACKT. I never want to leave high schools. NEVER.

While on the subject of the Spambot, I sent in my SYH photo at the end of April and they've added it to the site - SYH messages @ gackt.com

I'm quite easy to spot, being the only white girl in the Japan section, haha. I explained to the staff that I was English but living in Chugoku area and gave them free reign to put me where they wanted and they chose Chugoku. I'm glad they did. I feel more affinity towards Okayama right now than I do towards England.

Strange, huh?

Here in Okayama it seems that rainy season is upon us with avengeance. It was crazy hot on Monday and is still really hot and humid now, despite the almost non-stop torrential rain we've been having. Surrounding prefectures have seen their highest daily rainfall in pretty much ever, so it seems like this is going to be a rainy season to remember.
pyroyale: (D - Asagi)
I wrote an entry last week about how the second year students in one of my high schools (Katsuyama) wanted to talk about GACKT in their English lessons with me

I joked that I was going to base the English syllabus around GACKT.

I was at a different high school today, Ochiai, and it was my second lesson with the first years and also my second batch of lessons with my new Japanese colleague, Matsumura (please call me Masa) sensei.

The first lesson last week was my self introduction. GACKT got a whole slide to himself.



This week, Matsumura-sensei Masa, decided he wanted to teach the students the sentence patterns:
I feel happy when I ____________________
She feels sad when she ______________________
I felt happy when I _________________

Because he's very hands on and remarkably well organised (why can't all teachers be like him? He plans activities TO THE SECOND and makes sure that they work like that) he prepared the worksheet for the class.

He wrote some examples:



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

(And I haven't, it was just an example he wrote)

I've only worked with Matsumura-sensei Masa for a week and he knows me so well already. He was telling me, on the way to class, that he used to listen to MALICE MIZER when he was in Junior High School. There's a surprising number of men in their late 20s who used to listen to MALICE MIZER, I've discovered.

That means that now, after two weeks of being back at school, GACKT has been mentioned in every single lesson I've taught. And, as next week will be just more self introductions and this lesson again, he's going to make it to every single lesson in three weeks

I feel like I'm being stalked.

[As an aside, letting the students know that I fangirl for GACKT is actually a good tactic. They all have their own little thing that they love, be it a band, manga or character, and it puts me on their level and makes them more open to me. It's strange, but it works and it works well.]

I have to work tomorrow :-( I don't actually have anything to do, but I have to go anyway. Sucks.
pyroyale: (Cloud x Sephiroth - maids)
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I'm not sure on the numbers, but I'm pretty sure it involved Final Fantasy VII.

That game ate my LIFE for several months.

I have it on my PSP but I'm scared to pick it up again because it's been so long since I played it, that I know it'll just hook me back in and take over again.

Oh, and there was, of course, the night of the earthquake when I spent 9 hours standing in the street for a taxi simply listening to nothing but GACKT. That probably breaks some sort of personal record (for standing in the street waiting for a taxi - not necessarily for listening to GACKT, haha)

Going to bed now. Have to be up early in the morning to introduce myself to some new first year students. It should be fun though, the teacher in the class with me is the wonderful Nakashima-sensei (the teacher who went to RRII and named her phone email address after Belle) and I have a little bit of my self introduction dedicated purely to GACKT. She doesn't know this. I want to hear how loud she screams when he shows up in the powerpoint presentation XD
pyroyale: (Gackt - Dance!)
I had no lessons today (again... grrr) but one of the teachers I work with asked my second year classes what they want to talk about in their lessons with me this year. I taught them last year so they know me pretty well by now.

Their answer?

They want to talk about GACKT.

ME TOO KIDS.

Let's just plan the entire English syllabus this year about GACKT. We can learn all sorts of new vocabulary (tits, sweetie, guaranty, (ir)replaceable, batshit crazy), sing lots of English songs (feel the fiyaaah) and watch movies ("it's a fucking famous ninja's name in Japan!")

I could do a whole lesson on teaching the names of different body parts, complete with lots of photos as reference material...

THEY'D BE THE MOST AWESOME ENGLISH LESSONS EVER, BRO.

(Heh, I have these kids well trained, don't I??)
pyroyale: (Default)
The subject of today's lesson was the sentence structure "I wish _______________ "

The students were asked to write down their wishes, and look what one of my sixteen year old boys wrote -



(The smiley face and heart are my additions ^_^)

I dunno if the boy is a fan... or it's because he knows *I* am (and he does know I am. GACKT has made many appearances in my lessons at that school).

Other than this, it's not been the best of days but ho hum.
pyroyale: (Gackt - Swimsuit Live)
I'm having a bit of a debate with myself here.

I've been asked to do a presentation tomorrow to my second year English advanced class about what I did this summer.

I have the powerpoint written up and am now adding images to it.

Every other slide says "went to a GACKT concert". The class is just ten 16/17 year old girls and they'll get a kick out of me fangirling in class slightly so I decided to emphasise the concerts more than the sight seeing.

So, I'm adding in photos of GACKT to illustrate who's concerts I went to and I'm trying to decide what photo to use for the Swimsuit Live...

...do I use a shirtless one?

I'm using promo photos for the other YFC shows but as I've pointed out this last one had the special dress code and no covered abdomens were allowed, I can't really use those or show GACKT in an Hawaiian shirt can I?

But they're a pretty nice and innocent bunch of well performing academic girls. I don't want to corrupt their sweet little minds.

Ahhh, they're only shirtless photos. It's not like I'm showing them him molesting Chacha or that gif of him pulling his waistband down is it?



Yeah... that one. Yum.

It'll be fine. They'll cope with a bit of GACKT flesh on a Thursday morning I'm sure!

My Alice Nine ticket arrived today and I've entered the lottery for Dir en grey in Okayama *fingers crossed* This whole saving money initiative is starting to stall.
pyroyale: (alice nine. - lol)
Me : If a married man is called a ‘husband’, what is a married woman called?
Student : ‘Honey!’

And that was a serious answer from one of my second year High School students today.

If he believes that, I can’t see many of his future relationships lasting long.

(And I think I have a serious lack of self control problem. I've just bought tickets to see Gackt twice in Sapporo next month. Oh well, at least it means I'm gonna see a lot of Japan this summer)
pyroyale: (Gackt - YFC)
I finally pimped out my iPhone slightly.



Problem now is that I am officially more worried about breaking my iPhone case than I am about breaking my iPhone.

I find it highly amusing that Japanese online stores that refuse to ship to foreign addresses will still quite happily take payment from foreign cards. Even cards that are still registered at the same foreign addresses they refuse to ship to.

I found out today that it's highly illegal to make any kind of copies of British bank notes. This includes crappy black and white photocopies that can be used during role plays in classrooms. In fact it's so illegal it's impossible to even find a decent image of a current British bank note that is good enough to use.

So instead, I'm using US dollars. If any of the kids ask me about the stories behind the notes and coins I'm going to be just as clueless as they are :-(

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Kellie

December 2020

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