A busy week… this is starting to resemble work!!!
Well, the past 7 days have been pretty hectic, which is one of the reasons that I’ve not been able to write an update to this blog for so long. The other reason is that I’ve not had too much to say, and I’m always an advocate of the phrase “If you have nothing good to say, it is better to say nothing at all”. But with that in mind, here’s Dave’s quick-capsule review of recent happenings in Okinawa.
From Wednesday to Friday, we had our foreign teachers’ Mid-Year Conference, where we supposedly are meant to share ideas on activities we can use in class and how we can become better teachers. Personally, it’s the most tedious 3 days of the year. I’ve nothing against the concept of this conference; it’s just that I’m at a high level school agnd most of the workshops and activities mentioned can’t really be applied to my classes. For example, it’s hard to implement music and games into a Model United Nations class about AIDS in Africa. But I have to admit it was marginally more interesting than I thought it would be. I was pleased with the response I’d got from other teachers who came to me talking about the recent suicides caused by bullying at school and what we could actually do about it. And in one of the workshops on classroom management, the presenter asked me to say a few words about it to promote awareness. I’ve a few ideas in my head at the moment and am just checking them out with the Prefectural Board of Education, but if they get the go-ahead it could turn into a big, Okinawa-wide project. In addition to attending the conference, this year I was asked to make a presentation on preparing students for speech and debate contests. Initially I wasn’t that keen, but I decided that I had a couple of ideas that I could share with people. Plus the fact that I would have a co-presenter helped too. Saying that though, 10 minutes into this 90 minute presentation, the mic was handed over to me, my co-presenter having exhausted their material. Slightly unexpectedly, I ganbarimasu-ed and managed to make it through most of the workshop giving little anecdotes and stories along the way.
After the conference ended on the Friday, I taught my first EFR course to some of the teachers. Originally 4 people had signed up to the course, but only 3 turned up (the 4th was absent, despite being told repeatedly by myself and other candidates to turn up). That went pretty well, and there were some very interesting questions thrown up about situations that could happen in real life. I think I managed to answer them adequately though, and thecourse students did really well on the skills. I also managed to get the details of a couple of other people who are interested in taking the course, so I’ll try to schedule another one in the not-too-distant future.
Saturday morning was spent finishing up another OW student, and she did really well. She was a little nervous after OW dives 1 and 2, and delayed finishing up the course for a few weeks. I was starting to get a little worried about her finishing at all, but she did both dives without any problems, and was great on the skills. I could see her confidence building as we went through the dives (as it invariably does) and she seemed really pleased to have finished the course and to be certified as a PADI Open Water diver. That’s the most rewarding part - when you see the confidence building in the student as they realise they can actually dive by themselves and their comfort level underwater increases.
And that’s about all I’ve got to report. This week is a 4-day week as Thursday is Labour Thanksgiving Day in Japan. So I will hopefully celebrate by going diving - all I need is a dive buddy! A bunch of my regular buddies are going to Ishigaki so I might have to call on some of my reserves. If all else fails, I’ll borrow a pony bottle and go diving with Han (i.e. solo). I’m still no further do deciding where my next international trip will be… it will probably depend on whether I go ice diving in Hokkaido or not in March, as that will eat up quite a bit of my money. If I don’t, it could be another trip to Thailand, or maybe somewhere a little more exotic to go diving
Last of all, a big congratulations to an old friend from Maldives, Miki Fukamachi, who got married in Yamaguchi on October 22nd. She’ll be heading back to Maldives and Malhos for her honeymoon, and it’s made me realise 2 things: firstly, how long it’s been since I’ve seen her & that I should go up to Yamaguchi next year; and secondly, how much I want to see Maldives again! Until next time, take care and dive safely.
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Hello!
Thank you for visiting my blog.
You’re an instrucor in OKINAWA!!
(I thought that you are in U.K…)
I hope that some day I will cross paths you in the sea of OKINAWA.