It seems like the last couple of blogs have been lacking information about our daily lives. Therefore, I wanted to write about a few day-to-day occurrences now.
Last week at the supermarket it was absolutely precious. As I pulled up on my bike, one of the fourth grade girls who absolutely adores me was walking in with her mother. She came up to me, hugged me, and her mother basically allowed her to be my personal shopper. 
She followed me around the store and kept asking what I needed to get next. I would say something like “tofu,” and she would lead me to the back of the store and show me the vast selection of tofu. I said “carrots,” and she took me to the produce aisle. Ha! It was as if it was my first trip to the supermarket! Whenever I was checking out, she was with her mother right behind me. It just so happened that I had a couple of American dollars in my wallet, so I showed those to her, and she was utterly amazed. 
I love kids!
Ian’s international driver’s permit expired exactly two weeks ago….meaning that he could no longer legally drive in this country until he got his license. I didn’t mind driving all the time, and the only situation that we had to work out was how he was going to get to work. Since Ian works in Nishiki, which is a good thirty minute car ride from Yunomae, it’s not exactly like he could walk or bike (Okay…he COULD technically bike, but by the time he got there, he’d be a sweaty mess! 
) We worked it out that if we dropped the bike off at Ichibu station outside of Nishiki, he could ride his bike to work from there. This plan really worked out! We crammed the bike into our tiny baby car, dropped it off, and later that week Ian was able to ride it to work. The only downside was that Ian had to be gone a total of six hours for a two hour class. He had to take the 12:42PM train from Yunomae, putting him in Ichibu around 1:15PM. (The next train would have put him there too late.) Since his class didn’t begin until 2:30 and it was only a fifteen minute ride to his factory, he had a lot of down time. 
His class ended at 4:30, and he said that he JUST missed the 4:45 train heading back to Yunomae, so he had to wait an hour and take the next train, putting him back in Yunomae at 6:20.
This plan worked well for us, but I’m currently happy to say that he no longer has to use it since he got his license on Monday! !!!! Hurray!!!! The Reeds are officially finished with that hellish place known as the Menkyo Center. Apparently the 5th time is indeed the charm. Both Ian and I got our licenses on the 5th try. In order to pass one must receive a 70% on the test, and Ian said that he got exactly a 70%. Hurray!! We’ll take it! Now both of us can legally drive in Japan. (Side note: Together we’ve spent about $1,000 in our collective ten attempts. That’s a depressing stat, isn’t it? That’s $1,000 that I would have liked to use for ANYTHING other than a stupid Japanese driver’s license. Grrrrrrrr……)
In other news…..I started my TEFL (Teaching English as a Second Language) program this week. Melissa’s back in school! Please remember that I blogged about this back in July. The JET Program was offering grants of $150 to selected participants who wanted to be TEFL certified. Only a few participants were selected throughout Japan, and I just happened to be lucky enough to be one of those. I received the announcement shortly before I went home, so I didn’t start the program then, and once we got back Mommy was here. Things were too crazy to get it started then, so here I am doing it now. It’s all online and only twenty lessons long. If I complete one lesson a day, I’ll be finished within a month, and then I’ll have to take a ridiculously long six(ish) hour test (of course, it is all open book….) So far I’ve completed two lessons, and I don’t want to jinx myself, but it seems pretty easy and straightforward. Hopefully It’ll stay that way! Why am I doing this, one might ask. A lot of teaching abroad jobs require TEFL certification. If we do any other teaching abroad jobs after this, I feel like a TEFL certification will give me a leg up. Even if we don’t, I can put this on my resume, and it shows that I am experienced with teaching non-native speakers English…..which ups my credentials.
Last Thursday and Friday Ian and I participated in Taragi’s English Camp for 6th graders along with Rachel, Joe, and Krista. There were about twenty kids there, and just like last year, it was a ball! It’s so much more fun to get out and be able to play with kids instead of sitting at a desk on a computer all day. We were broken down into groups. Each ALT had his or her own group, and I don’t want to brag, but Group 2 was where it was at! 
The first day we played Mother May I, gesture game, telephone, made fortune tellers, learned a folk dance, and other fun activities. The second day started off with an obstacle course in which one of the kids had to be blindfolded while the others shouted directions in English. That was fun! We played a board game, and then it was time for lunch. After lunch, we made butter cookies. Our dough was too sticky to roll out and shape into cookies, so we put it in the freezer for a bit before the kids cut out every shape possible with the cookie cutters. Each group had a heaping plateful of delicious cookies, but they went fast! Taragi BOE provided ice cream to go along with the cookies, and it made for an awesome mid-afternoon snack!!
One of the best things about English Camp was the benefits. Not only was our lunch paid for, we got delicious snacks both days, it didn’t feel like work, and we got paid to do it. That’s right! It’s part of my contract, so it’s just another work day for me. I did get paid “travel expenses” for driving to Taragi for the meetings and both days of camp. I got paid about 1,300 yen for English Camp, but Ian took home the cake. He got paid a full day’s salary for both days and ended up taking home a whopping 9,000 yen!! 
That’s about $115! Hurray! Another of my favorite things about English Camp (other than the amazing kids) was that at the end of camp, all of the kids had to stand up and say what their favorite things were. Most of the kids said a certain game or making cookies was their favorite, but one kid said that Ian and Melissa were his favorite. Things like that just melt my heart!
Woo-hoo! I’m soooooo happy to be getting back on (blog) track. August has been a good writing month! I haven’t written this many blogs in one month since last spring! I’ll definitely squeeze in one more blog tomorrow before the end of the month. Woo-hoo!
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