School for special needs children

This Monday, with the Aussie teacher, we went to our sort of field trip to a special school for physically and mentally challenged children. We were supposed to teach two short, 15 minutes lessons, one to junior high kids, and the other to elementary 2nd and 3rd grade kids..

To be honest, the night before I got really nervous...I was terrified. My experience in elementary school was a rather horrible one, and I never intended to teach kids again. Even this trip was supposed to be just a trip to that school, take a look around and come back thing. One day, all the teachers from my school went, and we were supposed to go with them, but they canceled for some reason...still have no idea why.

They asked us later if we wanted to go, if we have a chance again, and I said yes. After teaching in so many different schools, I wanted to know what this kind of schools are like. Then turns out, this time it's only the two of us going (plus one teacher to help us with Japanese), and well, why not killing two birds with a stone, they asked if we could teach two lessons. We were taken advantage of...as often is the case. Whatever...at least we can try out ourselves I thought.

Anyway, the big day came, and I woke up with a headache, in a really bad mood.  I cursed myself thinking "curiosity killed the cat, and gonna kill me too...I should have said no". But how could I? Our principal is the kindest Japanese woman I've ever known, she came to the school the same time I did, and she was a principal in such a special school before. I could never turn down her offer or say no to her request. So, I added a 400 mg Panadol to my breakfast and headed to my school. We talked a bit about what we would do there...that made me less nervous. At least we had a plan.

The vice principal of the other school came and picked us up by her car. The principal and all the other teachers we met at the special school, called "Shien Gakko" in Japanese, were very kind and welcoming. I didn't feel out of place there at all. My headache was gone too. 

We went to the junior high kids first. They were about elementary 3rd grade 4th grade level, 8 students in total. Classes here are much smaller, usually with about 3 teachers supervising the kids.  I was surprised that some of them knew the alphabet, and with a help of a chart they could write their names in English. They were all cheerful and friendly...maybe more friendly than my self-conscious regular students. We played fruits basket game with colours, everyone enjoyed it. I was relieved. 

Then we went to the elementary school kids...they were a bit more difficult to teach, because there were a lot of students. You would think 26 is not a big number when you face classes of 40 students everyday. However, I have to admit, 26 is a big number when it comes to kids who are mentally or physically disabled, or have some behavioral problems. They were constantly jumping around and screaming. 5 classes together. Probably it would have been a better idea to teach only one class at a time. Somehow we survived, passing time with shaking hands, some kids were eager to hi5 us :) So cute. Some of them just came up to us, and hugged.  We had flying shoes and a pig, long minutes of screaming, and one kid even practiced for days to say "Thank you" when our lesson was over.  

Honestly, these kids made me feel so much better. By the end of the trip I just felt happy. That's what the principal was telling me about before, but you wouldn't understand until you have the experience. I think I'm lucky I had the chance to go there and meet these kids. They are far more adorable than those spoiled  little brats I taught at those regular elementary schools. 

We even got some presents: a small hand towel from the kids, a box of Halloween cookies and hand made tissue case covers (made by the principal's wife) from the principal. They asked if we could come again, once in a semester (there are 3 semesters in one school year here), and we said yes without thinking. 

The neatly wrapped presents.

The hand towel: designed for the school.

Getting in mood for Halloween

This is my new love in the kitchen!!! I ordered this cake stand on the internet from Rakuten...it's like the Japanese version of Amazon. As you can see from the packaging, you can use it to display not only desserts but other food as well. Can't wait to have a luxury Continental breakfast at the weekend with my boyfriend. Unfortunately I gotta get up so early on weekdays, I just force down a bowl of cereals and rush to the train station....

Also, it means I can throw some lavish home parties, coz now I have everything to serve a stylish lunch or dinner! Can't wait to actually have some friends over. I don't know if I have mentioned it here already, but my hobby is baking sweets and stuff...so...maybe a smaller Christmas or New Year's Party would be nice. Of course with a limited number of people. The apartment is small and we don't have enough chairs either...lol

It just would look soooo gorgeous with a Christmas cake on top, some gingerbread cookies in the middle, and maybe a few orange chocolate cupcakes in the bottom. Or beigli? But I don't think I can make beigli... (Hungarian Christmas rollcake)...I don't think I could find all the ingredients here, plus it's troublesome. Well...we'll see.

And here are some Halloween cookies I made last weekend, mainly for my co-workers. They are just simple vanilla butter cookies with royal icing. It was the first time I tried royal icing, and turned out pretty good. Although it was quite time consuming, but I guess it's gonna get better with experience.

I was trying to be very Japanese her. I wrapped them all up in Halloween cellophane bags and put them in a lovely box. 

Looks pretty cool, huh?

Fall has come...

I just noticed it's been a while since my last post. Things got a bit busy here after coming back from holidays, and the school year started. We had a cultural festival, which was quite fun. All the clubs and classes of all grades performed dances, plays, showed videos they made, and played music. They were wearing nice costumes, and had a few games and competitions. I might post a few videos later I took about the performances. 

About 3weeks ago, we saw in TV program we regularly watch a special Hawaiian pancake. It's called Haupia, and is basically pancake with OMG Delicious & Creamy Coconut Sauce...Last weekend was a 3 days weekend, so we went there again. The restaurant is in Tenma, very close to the station, it's called Mauloa. Even though it was a long weekend, the place was not crowded and we could indulge ourselves in coconut flavoured stuff....by accident everything we ordered this time had coconuts LOL. My Prince ate coconut curry, while I enjoyed my haupia, and we shared a volcano (a frozen drink made of coconut milk, pineapple juice and strawberry sauce). The urge to travel to Hawaii just got stronger...good old ABBA..".money, money, money....If I had a little money"....I would totally move to Hawaii.

Drink, curry and pancakes...

My Love-HAUPIA

Also, Halloween is coming up. Ever since my first Halloween party in Japan, I was always wearing the same witch costume I bought at Claire's. I always said, next year I'm gonna be something different. That plan was never realized...until now!!! YEP! I bought a new costume...actually, two costumes. Carefully thinking about my personality and rank :) I decided on somebody, who would be a perfect match: Marie Antoinette. One of the costumes is a beautiful long blue dress (I'm going to change the bows though, coz those look cheap), the other one is a sexy version of Marie. A beautiful fuchsia and gold minidress with black lace decoration. I also got a matching wig, and some victorian shoes ( those were the closest match I could find). The website had a special 20-50% off campaign, so I didn't even pay too much for these 4 items. The long dress I plan to wear at the high school for a special Halloween lesson, and the mini dress I'll wear at the language schools drinking-Halloween party. I'm soooo EXCITED!!!

wig

the Victorian boots

...and the dresses... :D

Except for the special Halloween lesson, we have a few other fun things going on at school. With the Aussie teacher we started showing the kids movies in English in lunch time. Also, we were invited to visit a a school for special needs children and do two lessons, one for elementary and one for junior high school age kids, who are mentally challenged. We are now planning the lessons. I'm a bit nervous about the outcome.