Dirty Diapers, Aotearoa-六本木 and The Big Freeze

Hey, how's it goin'? Today I'm enjoying my first paid public holiday in over two years!!! Yet another good thing thats come out of Nova closing down. If you look back at my last post you'll remember I jumped off the sinking ship of SS Nova as I predicted it going down. Well, that ship went under on October 26th, leaving thousands of teachers jobless and tens of thousands of students no longer able to learn Engrish. It has been pretty big news here with people being evicted from their homes and teaching English for food. For some reason Nova is not officially bankrupt yet, so I still can't get a piece of the NZ$3500 owed to me but life goes on.......

I started my new job a month ago and so far its been great!! I'm teaching the toddler class with two other teachers (there's also a pre-school class). We usually have around ten kids (depending on the day and time) who range in age from 18 months to 3 years. This of course means I have to change dirty diapers for those who can't quite control their bodily functions yet, but most of the time they save their #2's for Mummy! The kids are all really cute, some of them can speak great English, some just cry and others just speak Japanese or a mix of the two(good practice for me....the Japanese part). My days are a bit longer than before, but a lot more fun. The new daily routine calls for me to wake up earlier to start work at 9am. The kids arrive by about 9:30 and we have a morning snack then go outside to play til lunchtime. After lunch some kids take a nap, that's when I take a lunchbreak. The afternoon consists of art activities, playing with toys or going outside again. The kids are usually gone by about 6pm then I clean up and leave about 6:30pm. We also do special events like the Halloween party, where I scared heaps of children with my Scream mask and last week we had a fieldtrip to the zoo. Next event will be the Xmas party and yours truly will be playing the Big SC!! Because of strict contract laws I can't post any pics of the kids here, but you can check out the company website (which doesn't seem to be updated very often?) http://www.toyaku.biz/html/imagine_e/tpprogram_e.html

With my job situation nice and secure again, I was able to go and enjoy some Kiwiana in Roppongi last weekend. It was awesome to drink some Tui and Speights, eat some lamb and steak, and enjoy the sounds of Nesian Mystik and Rhombus.....and all for free!!! Well, actually the food and drink cost heaps so I guess it evened out....It was really awesome to be in a Kiwi environment for the day, just wish they could've shipped over a beach or something as well!!!

It's gotten freezing here very fast. The temperature drop was amazing, going from low-twenties to low-teens very fast (where were all those 17, 18 degree days?). Luckily we have a kotatsu to keep us warm this winter. A kotatsu is a small table with a heater underneath and a thick blanket round the sides so you can lie under it and stay really cozy....and that's where I'm going right now! Later....