In the Heat of Summer

I’m just about all set up in my new ALT position after a few busy weeks of paperwork, moving and what feels like a thousand other things that are all part and parcel of moving work & home in Japan.

The school I’m working at now is pretty high level and offers not just English but several other language courses for kids such as Spanish and Korean.

It’s also far bigger than my previous school, almost 3x as big! I think I will miss the fact that I could recognize almost all the students in my old school though. It’s going to be hard knowing that I won’t see many of them again and I’ll miss the many crazy lessons I taught them.

I’m sure though that my new schools will hold just as many fun times in store for me though and I want to look forward to the next few years rather than being sad about the past.

One thing that is high on my list of priorities right now though is to get my Japanese driver’s license. I tried to get it a few years back but had no luck and since my town had no way for me to get through to the test center using public transport I had no choice but to stick it out and walk or cycle around town for everything. Now though I can use the local train to make it to the test center and I’m frustrated by my lack of ability to drive so I want to put my nose to the grindstone and try as many times as it takes to get my South African license exchanged for a Japanese one.

So now that most of my moving admin is done I have two or so weeks of little to no work seeing as it’s the middle of the summer vacation and Obon is coming up which means that for most of next week there will be almost no teachers at school, except for me of course!

• Personal