Yesterday was a really surprising kind of day. Mostly because my assumption that all the students would be back was totally wrong, but also because I actually spent most of the day talking in Japanese. From the student side of things, they actually had one more day of holidays - whoops! I'd even gone to the bother of getting pimped up in my suit and a nice shirt. Oh well, hehe. The speaking in Japanese thing was a surprise even to me. I guess the negative side of my weekend really had an impact on me. I had slept earlier on Sunday night so I wasn't feeling as tired as normal, and perhaps as a result I felt more motivated to study and speak Japanese than before.

Most of the teachers were in and out of meetings all day, but I wandered the staff room and managed to strike up random conversations with unfortunate senseis who just happened to not look too busy at the time. I had quick chats to Hashimoto-sensei, Takeuchi-sensei and Mitsumoto-sensei, and a long chat to one of the new office ladies, Juuta-sensei. It felt really good to have a proper conversation i Japanese and to actually understand and be understood most of the time. I could tell that Mitsumoto-sensei was very surprised by my sudden outpouring, and he commented that my Japanese was really improving :) I was even happier when Juuta-sensei said that the ALT at the school she came from never spoke any Japanese, even after 8 months in Japan. I've still got a long way to go, but I realised that I've come a long way. The level I'm at is far beyond what I had when I first came to Japan, and is even a long way above what I could do even just 4 months or so ago. I guess I'm finally progressing!

One thing I found recently that has helped me out quite a bit in relation to speaking and listening Japanese is JapanesePod101. I signed up a while ago but never really had a good look. They offer various Japanese lessons in audio format, and they're actually pretty damn good. I listened to a few and then just kept on going, and before long, I had filled up nearly 3 hours of the day. Good stuff! There are plenty more lessons, too, so if I'm ever stuck for something to do, I can definitely jump on there and fill up some time. I highly recommend checking the site out if you're trying to learn Japanese. The basic content is free and it helps a lot with your listening and vocab skills, so there's really nothing to lose.

Today has been a little more laid back, in a way. In the morning we had the opening ceremony for the ni and san-nensei students, which was all rather 'normal'. The most exciting part was when a student fainted. I didn't catch exactly what happened, but I heard the word 'souji', so perhaps she'd gotten a rather strong whiff of some of the cleaning gunk they'd been using before the ceremony. Poor thing! She was carried off by Morita-sensei, and seemed to perk up after a while. So all was good.

After lunch, the new ichi-nensei students finally arrived. Although I wasn't officially invited, I did my usual 'I think I need to go to this so I am going to go' thing and went outside to stand with the other ichi-nensei teachers. It was a lot of fun, actually. As I'm now really used to living here and being at school, I was totally comfortable with just standing there with a sea of Japanese kids in front of me. After a while, the students all lined up and filed out in their class groups, heading for the gym and their welcome ceremony. A lot of parents had come too, which was nice to see. The ceremony itself was very 'normal' as well. The new Kouchou-sensei spoke for a while, but I couldn't understand much. I like him, he's very cheerful and seems a little more laid back and open than Doi-sensei. He seems to like speaking for just as long a time as Doi-sensei did, though, hehe. One of the perks of being the top of the food chain, I suppose :)

Now I'm just waiting to leave school, really. I'm off to a Japanese class tonight, for the first time. AIFA has started them again and apparently get a pretty good turnout. I don't know how suitable it's going to be, but at least it'll be a place I can definitely speak Japanese at for an hour and a half or so each week. Some of the Indonesian boys who live in Aioi and work at the ship builders there come down, apparently, which should be interesting. They seem like decent blokes, from what I saw of them at the last badminton tournament. I'll go check it out, anyway.