Thoughts on a rainy Thursday Morning

I'm not sure whether its the result of Jet stream winds, or maybe I just happened to be placed somewhere where the prevailing winds are West to East. In any event, I find it comforting that the weather in Niigata follows the same trends (in terms of direction) that it did in Colorado and Kansas. The only difference is that over the mountains and plains, the storms that form are more precise- limited to whatever blob of convective activity created them. They probably are here, too, come to that, but the storms that form over the ocean seem big and sloppy to me- more ragged around the edges with impressive lightning forming in the clouds long before they reach the anvil-cloud shape of western thunderstorms. The big clouds come rolling in, usually in the morning or evening (another difference), and commit harakiri on the nearby mountains- spilling their watery viscera all over the hills and the rice paddies near my apartment (and often times on my drying laundry).

I met with the Junior High School teachers for the first time at length yesterday- and it was a very comforting experience. They seemed enthusiastic to talk with me about schedule and curriculum, as well as giving me some ideas for self-introduction activities (advice that was much needed). It was also nice to speak with some Japanese people who speak English pretty fluently- it helped to put me at ease- and also to see that the people who will be my co-workers (and in many senses superiors) are pretty much just great. I'm excited, although still very nervous, about working with the students- I'm more worried about classroom dynamics than I am about being motivated to teach English- I think language education will actually be a lot of fun.

In other news, I've started checking out the local sports center (supotsu sentaa: スポーツセンター), and have taken to running a few laps around the 0.2 Kilometer track that runs around the top of the complex. I'm not much of a runner, but it feels good to get out and do something. It also affords me some opportunities to interact with community members I might otherwise not- it's a very busy building even fairly late in the evening, and I've met a lot of interesting people as well as future students in my two initial visits.

Today will be spent putting together lesson plans for my initial Elementary and Middle School visits- now that I have enough information to put some stuff together. I imagine I will post about those visits as they happen next week.

That's all I have just now- I know that this post was a little bit fragmented- but that's what's on my mind. Maybe its the rain.