It's Finals Week

It’s finals week. I can generally leave work earlier since I don’t have classes during this period, but have ended up being here later most nights this week.... things have been crazy lately!
Monday
On Monday, I spent the evening near Osaka and finally saw the movie There Will Be Blood. I usually try to watch all of the the Academy Award Best Picture nominated films, but have been slow at getting to the list this year (living in Japan probably has a lot to do with that). I will say I’m glad I saw this one, though, because I absolutely loved it. Superb acting and I can see why it got best cinematography...
Monday turned out to be a good night to just take it easy and relax. I was tired, but otherwise, not too bad. I had been worried that my bod would be in bad condition the day after the marathon, but luckily, my muscles weren't too bad at all. The tops of my toes are a little blistered (I’d say it’s my shoes, but it only happens in long races), my big toe is a little beat up and it hurt to go down stairs on Monday morning, but otherwise, I’ve almost forgotten the race was just last weekend!
Tuesday and Work
Grades were supposed to be due on Thursday this week, which means Wednesday for me, but I found out as I was leaving on Monday that I needed to have them done on Tuesday. While exam time is generally pretty free, the days between my last final and when grades are due can get pretty hectic so it added a little stress.



The biggest issue was that, this time around, I still had all of the notebooks (most of them with multiple journal entries that the kids didn’t do before but wanted to get credit for now...), which take a long time to get through. The notebooks were an amazing window into this culture and communication tool when I started doing them last year (and I think it really does benefit my students), but I also founded this project at a time when I had less classes and responsibility (none with the second-year International Studies class, for example, and five less classes a week). With more classes and general work at school, it's just a lot more work and has taken the balance out of my schedule. Granted, I do have enough time to upate a blog, read and send my friends messages during the day - and I still like reading my students’ journal entries - but it takes me forever to correct the grammar (black pen) and then go back and answer their questions or make comments (red pen); maybe too long. I'm pretty sure the structure is going to have to change for next year.



In addition, I also had to sort and count all the bonus points for the term (copies of money with names written on them), write three tests (the one for the IS class was 9 pages with two monologues and five dialogues - whew!), record two listening tests with my coworkers (we bring in a “system” and set up mics in my classroom), grade 300 first-year tests, make an answer key and overview (with stats) for the kids and then submit all my grades – all entered into Excel – to another teacher, who puts them together with the grades from the other English classes. And that’s just the beginning of my workday this week! I guess the busy schedule is perhaps explains why the marathon already seems so long ago and I like being busy, but this has got to be a peak time for teachers and it's insane when it all hits at once.



So I was busy, but as a little reward for actually finishing everything on Tuesday, I went out to dinner with three female coworkers, Nozaki Sensei, Junko (the nurse) and the old nurse, who is about my age. I've hung out with all of them outside of work before, but never together, so it was a fun little girls night. We went to a place in Higashi Kakogawa (near my house) called World Buffet. It’s cheap (only about $10 for all-you-can-eat and no time limit) and I thought the food was really good. A friend of mine insists that the branch where he lives isn’t that good, but the fresh spring rolls were the best I’ve had in Japan and the curry and pasta were good too. I loved the salad, but I'm a little nutso about lettuce... and it's hard to mess up lettuce, so I guess I won't judge a restaraunt based on that. After dinner, we headed to the karaoke place down the street for a little while, but one of the women had to catch her last train around 10:30, so we did less than the standard 2 hour stint.

I'm still no karaoke rockstar, but I do like going once in a while and was excited that they had the new song from Sara Bareilles that I like and I learned the lyrics to the Japanese version of YMCA. There was another Japanese song that I really liked, but hadn't heard before, and Nozaki Sensei showed up the next day with a CD of Japanese songs that would be good for karaoke (including this song), so I think I’m going try to learn it for next time. Incredible surprise, though!


Yesterday (Wednesday), I met an old friend in Himeji for dinner. It was the first time I’ve been out for yakiniku in a really long time (at least the kind where you grill it yourself at the table) and it was good, but I was a little shocked by the price of all the dishes we had accumulated by the end. Not the cheapest meal... After din, my friend at I stopped by Nobu, a standing/cocktail bar where another friend of ours works. I was only going to stay for a bit, but we got to talking over a beer (hilarious impersinations from It's Always Sunny in Philedelphia!) and ended up staying out until last train.

I’m not sure if it was the nightcap or dinner that did me in, but I woke up feeling pretty awful this morning and had to come into work a few hours late when I got sick. So much for Wednesday night catch-up dinners... I'm supposed to be a friend for dinner tonight, too. We're not going far from where I work and I haven't eaten much today, so I am still going to go, but it's definitely going to be an early night.

Anyways, this is a long post (about everything and nothing...) so I'll stop here. I think I'm going to check out the Munch exhibit in Kobe and take it easy tomorrow night, but I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend and just spending time with friends. Planning a lesson about Munch and Norway for my first years next week, so I'm looking for some inspiration (and am honestly just a little excited to see the paintings again; it's been a while and they are sentimental... visited them once a week when I moved abroad after high school and was homesick in Oslo at first!).

Have a good weekend!