Yesterday I took the two trains and the bus...



... back to everyone's favorite place, the Immigration Bureau! I applied for permanent residency.

You have to attach a photo from one of those photo booths to your application, but mine turned out really haggard. And this was the BETTER of the two shots I took. D;



Going to Immigration is almost always a horrible experience. It's located in Bumfuck, Nowhere, the staff are surly or sullen, and you have to wait forever in a room full of screaming children. But yesterday all three staff members I spoke to were super nice and helpful (one of them even spoke English!!! wow!!!!) and there was hardly any other wait.

They said they're really trying to improve service and asked me to fill out a questionnaire asking if I was happy with my the service I received that day. I was indeed, and I let them know it! Yay!!!

Now allz I gots ta do is wait and see if I get approved. The dude said permanent residency applications take 6-12 months to process. Whee~~

Gotta love the Immigration Bureau cos you see all these weird posters you don't see anywhere else. Like this one...



Hopefully no one will ever catch on that my seemingly-happy marriage to RooG is, in fact, a PALSIPIKADONG KASAL! (Just kidding, Immigration Bureau!)

Today I went to School B for a meeting, attended by three of the school's teachers and a guy from my company. Two of the teachers were super nice ladies that I team-taught this year with, and the other teacher, I'll be team-teaching with next year. It was just a short meeting to discuss how the year went and what we plan on doing next year.

I feel kinda silly tooting my own horn here a bit, but the ladies I team-taught with all said really nice things about me and my class. They've been teaching these students for two or three years now, and they said they've never seen the students work as hard at English as they did in my class.

And they also said... (and I'm paraphrasing here, of course): "Even students that have always hated English, would try their best in my class, because "they want to make Roren-sensei happy. Students that usually sleep through English class, are awake and trying their best in Roren-sensei's class.

Roren-sensei is a good teacher because she remembers everyone's names, and the students are so happy because they feel like the teacher's really making an effort to get to know them. Roren-sensei praises the students when they do well and encourages them to try their best, but whenever they act up in class, she's not afraid to get strict."

(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) You so rarely get feedback in this line of work, especially from other teachers, so I was really happy to hear that both the students and other teachers think I'm doing a good job, and that I'm actually reaching the students here.

To be totally honest I think the way they teach English here in Japan really blows. They teach it like it's a dead language-- the kids just read boring passages and translate sentences from English to Japanese and vice versa and memorize verb conjugations and stuff like that, but they don't teach them how to SPEAK it. This isn't the fault of their teachers, it's the whole system that's the problem.

The way I see it is, my job is to show the kids that, despite the impression they may have gotten in their other English classes, is that English is FUN!!!! Something that's fun is something they'll want to study harder at, right? Well, anyway. I'm really really glad that it seems to be working, even a little bit. I'll keep at it!

I really love School B! I love teaching! I love my students! <3 <3

And today kicked ass because the weather was warm enough outside that I just wore my beloved Tomahawk hoodie. No hat! No gloves! No heavy coat! It was GREAT.

On my way home I passed by a vending machine selling the sakura milk tea, and I just could not resist. I know I shouldn't drink them because they have zero nutritional value... but they're cold, and wet, and tasty, and I know they won't be around much longer. So I donned my assassin's robes and assassinated the tea. mmmmMMmMmmmm


Today wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. I was 7 minutes into TurboFire HIIT 25 when I tweaked a nerve or something in my back. Ouch. I turned off the TurboFire and did 30 minutes of gentle yoga instead. That was the right thing to do, and my back feels better now, but I had really been looking forward to doing the TF. wahh

AND I tried out a new recipe (thanks neslihan!)... RooG declared it delicious but I thought it was kinda meh. Can't really put my finger on why. Hoom. I think I'll make it one more time, and this time I'll serve it with yogurt on top.