Once more, into the fray

It's less than a week (two days, to be precise) into the new term and I'm already exhausted.

Monday Allie and Aaron came with me to Kirita to see the new term opening ceremony. Since it was their first time to the school, we had to go in early so that they could be introduced to the staff during the teachers' meeting at 8:10 am. I know that doesn't really sound early, but considering that I'd driven on the weekend to and from the Omagari Fireworks Competition (Akita prefecture), I really could've used the extra 50 minutes of sleep (usually I go in at 9am).

For me it was a normal day at Kirita (we left at about 4:30pm), but it was probably a little tough for Allie and Aaron, since Allie never has to stay past 6th period (~3:30pm) and it was Aaron's first school visit. Then too, Mukainakano-sensei asked us to go into the office after Kirita to get our school visit schedule for second term. It (the schedule) wasn't actually done, but that was OK since we needed to get lesson plans anyway.

That wasn't the end of my day, though. After I drove Allie and Aaron home, I went back to Kirita to help students practice for the speech contest. I was there from about 5:45-6:30pm. Then I went straight to the Minami Kominkan for Monday eikaiwa.

Then today I was at school until about 6pm. I had just enough time to pick up dinner from Lawson's on the way home, eat, and drop off my yukata at the dry cleaner's before going to my Japanese dance class. After class I went grocery shopping (Sanbongi JHS didn't order lunch for me, so I have to make a bento for tomorrow) and then finally came home.

Tomorrow will be a bit better since I don't have to be at Sanbongi until 10:15am and will finish at 2:30pm, but since some of my students still need to work quite a bit on their speeches, I volunteered to go into Kirita after school (around 5pm) to help them. Then I'm guessing I'll probably go straight from Kirita to pick up Bryan for eikaiwa. @_@

I guess I can't/shouldn't complain since helping with speeches is voluntary (i.e. I'm making my own workload heavier) but I've got to say the timing of the speech contest kind of sucks since it overlaps with the start of taiko practice (for Aki Matsuri) and the ramping up of my Japanese dance classes (since I'm expected to perform in October even though I don't feel ready at all).

And even though I've been lucky in the sense that I've never suffered from jet lag, admittedly I didn't get much sleep while I was home in Canada (I stayed up late trying to catch up on a year's worth of manga plus normal novel reading) so it's not like I came into the start of the school term feeling particularly rested.

But I guess the biggest contributing factor to my fatigue is that I care too much about Kirita. I mean, if I wasn't willing to put in all the extra time for speech contest practice (not to mention attending all sorts of school events on my own time--weekends, after visits to other schools, etc.), I'd have more down time between school visits and my other obligations (eikaiwa, taiko practice, dance classes). I think I'm going to have to be a little more careful about overcommitting myself to Kirita things this year, otherwise I'm going to put myself in danger of burning out.