Day of Firsts

Tuesday was a day of firsts. It was my first (half) day in a school. All of us (AB, AH and I) went into the office in the morning, but I went to my base school, Kirita Junior High School in the afternoon to help some students practice for the Towada English speech contest. It was also my first of many taxi rides to Kirita.

At first I had no idea what I was doing, but after listening to the comments the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English), N-sensei made, I started to figure out what I was supposed to be listening for in the speeches. The students were great, too. They really paid attention to what I was saying (even when they weren’t 100% what I was saying) and tried to make the changes I suggested.

That night was also my first taiko practice! It was a lot of fun, and I mostly had the rhythm down by the end of the practice, but I definitely wasn’t hitting the drums with as much force as I was supposed to.

Oh, and I rushed home after taiko practice and made it back just in time to watch the "Hanazakari no Kimitachi e" drama on TV! (Another first!) I didn’t realize it before I started watching, but the male lead character (Sano Izumi) is played by Oguri Shun, the same guy who played Hanazawa Rui in Hana Yori Dango! Unfortunately I didn’t really like his portrayal of Sano. In the manga, Sano is a cool but slightly aloof character. In the drama, however, he seems more like an anti-social jerk. And I’m not sure how much of that characterization comes from the drama’s scripting, and how much comes from Oguri’s reading of the script, because I definitely got a “Rui-like” feeling from “Sano.” =/