A call came in at the BOE at 3PM, and it was from the new Elementary School of Doom (the Double-Length school lost that title upon my realization of how much I actually loved it there once I left)–the one where I’ll be teaching all the students. The kyouto–who’d previously been kyouto at a different elementary school of mine but was switched there during the annual staff change–came by the BOE last week and told me that she’d moved there, and wanted to know when I could come in, and I volunteered to come in this week. I volunteered. I then proceeded to put it out of mind as I got back to what I was doing, and didn’t write it down in my planner or on my calendar.
Anyway, that kyouto called today saying that they’d thought I was coming in, and would I be able to come in the afternoon for a little bit? This was at 3:30 PM. I immediately apologized (while going, “oh, crap” mentally) and said I’d be there ASAP, and left within five minutes, and arrived there just before 4:00. I finally got home around 5:30.
While I’m glad I did spend time at the BOE today, since I spent about half my day planning for tomorrow’s eikaiwas and next week’s intro elementary school lessons, I do wish I’d gone to this school earlier. What I completely forgot about was the obligatory staff introductions and my own jikoshoukai, plus meeting the new kocho. We also had an hour-long planning meeting. I actually am not teaching every student in the school after all–they’ve brought in a teacher from Kumon to teach the 5th- and 6th-years, but as a result, they decided not to combine the 1st- and 2nd-years after all, so I’m still teaching four separate classes. They did already buy a lot of materials and said I probably could just use the same lesson for several classes, though, which will make things much easier–but right now I’m teaching three consecutive classes on Thursdays. (Hopefully, that’s subject to change.)
And on top of that–I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, and they want me to do a self-intro to the whole school, which is fine, but then they want me to do a 40-minute game class with the 2nd-6th graders. That’s eighty-two kids. And immediately after that, they’d like me to do an intro lesson with the 4th-years! I’m especially glad I stayed at the BOE this morning, then, to iron out my intro plan for next week.
We have an enkai tonight, just across the street, in about 20 minutes. I think I may drink something alcoholic there after all.