It feels strange that last summer, just after I had arrived in Fukushima and started work, went so slowly. Maybe it was because it takes a while to settle in or the mostly free days sat at school doing nothing made time almost grind to a halt.
This year I helped all the new JETs at Tokyo Orientation (by help I really mean took them out drinking) so I spent almost all of the first two weeks of summer down in Tokyo instead of coaching the speech contest kids. I also popped to Fuji Rock music festival in that time and followed up Tokyo Orientation with Fukushima Orientation (this one is held for the new JETs coming to our prefecture in Fukushima city). So for the first three weeks of work during the summer I managed to do a whole three days of real work at school. Brilliant!
I feel a bit bad that I haven't been there to coach my speech contest kids, especially with a couple of them who really could do with the help, but then I remind myself that most of the teachers get extra summer vacation days and take most of summer off too. It just so happens that speech contest is one of the biggest responsibilities for Junior High School ALTs during the whole year.
Despite my absence, it looks like one of the schools has a winner among the kids so if she wins I will make sure I take credit for all the hard work I put in this summer. In all fairness, I picked her out months ago and made the teachers choose her. And she has a British accent. So, that's two things I an cling to if she wins.
Other than being down in Tokyo I haven't actually been on holiday this summer. After doing all the orientations I was truly exhausted so don't think I would have had the energy to go anywhere anyway.
Meeting all the new Fukushima JETs was good fun. So many different kinds of people from different places. I can't say that every single one of the new JETs was my kind of person but as a whole they are a good bunch of people and a very welcome addition to the Fukushima group.
