Omiyage!

Don’t you love it! A really important Japanese custom. Does buying omiyage for your co-workers win you extra points? I really don’t know. It does start conversation and you never know at the end of the year at a big school the school director may remember who you are based on that all important omiyage.

What does everyone else?

Back at work!

It’s the third day back at work. I’m over the back to work blues, especially after yesterday. I had a very easy day two FTLs, a kids’ class and one junior high school class. I got a new student as well that settled right into the class and now the numbers are even, great for team games!

Golden Week

I had a fantastic 8 days off. It was great to get away from the classroom. Yesterday, the students were really keen to study. Maybe a little too keen at times- I was still in holiday mode.

Can’t wait until the next break but it is a long haul until Marine Day in July and then the summer break.

My contract has arrived!

I got my new contract and I am very happy.  Three schools and relatively easy shifts.  Now I just have to hope they don’t change anything.

A lot of my co-workers have sub-shifts though!

Still no contracts!

Today’s mail has already arrived and there was no letter from ECC. The lastest memo was that the contracts would be sent by Wednesday, March 4th. Where am I going to be working?

How is it fair that ECC asks us to give them 2 months or as much notice as possible when we are going to quit, but they don’t tell us what is happening from April.

It is starting to get ridiculous!

SD Evaluations

SD evaluations seem to be a hot topic at the moment. It really does seem like there is no standard. I work with one teacher who got an overall evaluation of “outstanding or very good” from 4 schools and then got “needs improvement” from the web school director. It gets even funnier. When they questioned the web school director about their evaluation, the director didn’t even know their name. 

The message going around town at the moment is that web school evaluations are really hurting teachers and remember it does count towards your hourly increase.

2009 Contracts- Not yet!

I was really looking forward to seeing my new schedule. Originally they were scheduled to be sent out by the end of February.  ECC has extended the deadline- they will now be sent out by Wednesday March 4th.

Fingers crossed that I don’t have any major schedule changes.

It’s great to be back!

The winter break was really good. I had a great time back home and have returned to work really relaxed. The first week back was really easy. The Monday national holiday celebrating coming of age day was a nice extra bonus too.  I can’t remember the last time I saw my Monday classes.

Buffer Days

I’m now officially on vacation. Chirstmas Eve and January 5th are both buffer days. I usually work on the buffer days, but this year I thought that I would chill out before I fly home. I was going to go to Tokyo but in the end I just decided to hang out with friends in Osaka on the 23rd and 24th, and do a bit of chrissie shopping

Buffer day shifts are pretty hit and miss. There are no regular classes, only free time lessons and your work times changes and you may not work at your regular school. You either have 7 FTLs in a row, which I find extremely challenging, or no students sign up which makes it a deadly boring shift. Instructors working in the Kinki district will have one of three shifts today. A regular web school shift, a morning shift or an afternoon shift.

My winter break has started!

My last day for the year went really well. The FTL students I had were great. The kids seemed to enjoy the Christmas Iessons, but the C level lesson was a little on the boring side. I didn’t have to attempt to sing Silent Night this year so I really can’t complain.

I am still deciding how I’m going to spend the next couple of days. I’m definitely going to check out the German Christmas Event at Umeda Sky Building. It sounds like it should be a lot of fun and I’ve heard that the drinks are pretty good too.

There are lots of christmas decorations everywhere in Osaka. I hate to think how much electricity is being wasted every night.But the do look nice,