Doh!

The idea was to review a lesson on shopping. The kids had to think of what kind of shop they wanted, what their products would be and what their shop would be called! Then they would go around the class, to different "shops" practising the dialogue they'd learned.

This particular drawing is of a doll for sale in a toy shop. It's called The Natasha Doll and was the most expensive item for sale at this shop. Note all the zeroes behind that 5! And these are kids who haven't even mastered the 100's yet. Hehehehe... she's rather unrealistically proportioned, but she is sporting the same outfit and hairdo as I was today!

The kids always crack me up man!

Super Sanjo Social

Guess I'm the first one to blog about this then. Everybody else has pictures, but haven't seen them up on Johanna or Ros's blogs yet (thank GOD!! Some of those pics are total porn. I blame Johanna for that - she kept wanting pictures of boobs). On Friday night we had the welcome party for all the newbies in the Sanjo area, that would include Sam and me. It was a good one, nice evening. Here are some pics (carefully edited because Johanna will probably have the x-rated stuff on her blog, AGAIN!!).

James - a typical pose for him

Sam and Hanna-chan

James, Joey et moi

Jenny, Melissa and Paul

Phil doing some unspeakable things with that sausage-type thing

Kristen, Toshimi and me

Naughty naughty!

The gals

Kristen, Ros and Jenny - looking lovely!

Boys doing kawaiiiiiiii

Looking all coy and what-not

FGS

I kept feeling these tremors, which I dismissed as my imagination playing tricks on me. But twice now it's been so strong that I could even hear my flat creaking slightly - so I KNEW it wasn't my imagination... however, after a few wicked flashbacks to October 2004 and the "Big Niigata Jishin", I've come to realise that the frikking trains are making my flat sway... and the two so-called Big Ones?! Freight trains... I feel rather stupid now (*sulk*).

Guess what I'm supposed to be doing?!

That's riiiiiiight... planning a lesson for tomorrow (didn't have time to do it at school today). Guess what I'm doing instead?! That's riiiiiiiiight again: pfaffing around on my blog, sending fan mail to some photographer dude who takes cool pics of fish and sharks and stuff. I suck... I really do!

Anyway, here's some pics of my new English Board, at my new base school. I've started a weekly quiz (well technically, it will run every second week). A "Try to guess..." quiz. As I haven't had the opportunity to introduce myself to a lot of the kids I teach at this school (we just had to leap right in there with the actual teaching. Sheesh), I've started this quiz thing! So the first question was "Try to guess... what Natasha's home town is (hint: it has a very famous mountain). Answers: a) Johannesburg b) Pretoria c) Cape Town d) Durban" Then I directed them to the map on my self-intro poster! See the map has a pic of Table Mountain, on the border, with a number corresponding with Cape Town. Ballsing up the explanation, aren't I?! Okay, well, the aim is to get kids to guess. A small prize is offered to the winner (lucky draw... if I get more than one entry of course - which this week, I did, cos I accosted the kids in the hall with strips of paper and MADE them enter! I got nearly twenty entries). Today I put up the answer, the winner's name and tons of pics and random facts about Cape Town! Next week, I'll put up a new question. I've had kids coming up to me and asking me why THEY didn't win, so I blamed the teacher I asked to draw the winner (HAH! I don't do it myself, that way I can't be blamed for it).

K... I should probably stop this procrastinating, else I'll never get to bed!

South African Health Minister...

"Dr" (I'm beginning to wonder where she bought her medical degree) Manto Tshabala-Msimang is an IDIOT!! Our people are dying in droves and she wants to combat AIDS with beetroot and African potatoes?! Catch a wake up call woman!! You're not helping matters!

Hehehe

Chez Natasha's... uh Take Three!

So, here it is, my third apartment in three years. After three different apartments, I know exactly how I want things. I changed things rather a lot in here, so it looks quite different. You've all seen pics of my old aparto in Niitsu (if you haven't check the archives for my Bye Bye Niitsu entry), so am sure you're seeing PLENTY of similarities in decor (I pretty much just transplanted my old flat - furniture, curtains, niknaks and all - into my new flat)... So now it feels like home! Yayyyyyyyyy!!

Entrance

I still wanna put pics up in this hall. I hate empty wall space!!

Bathroom

Bedroom - I moved my bedroom from the other room! I prefer it here, it gets more sun.

Kitchen - moved the table against the wall to make more room for my desk.

Living room

Desk

Student English Camp

Student English Camp flag raising ceremony (at 6 in the MORNING!!!). After this we did aerobics (grimace).

Pic of the weekend

One of the many dragonflies that can be found all over Niigata lately! This pic was taken at the student English Camp last week.

New Glasses. Yayyyyy!

6 months after breaking my glasses, I have FINALLY gotten around to replacing them! Good thing too, my poor eyes were getting sick of nothing but contacts!

Noh! Noh! Noh!

Rosalind, Johanna and I went to check the Japanese-ified version of Othello at the Noh theatre in Niigata last Tuesday! A couple of students from the Niigata Women's college where we (female ALTs) sometimes go for English day, were a part of the company performing the play. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm grateful I know the story, else I would have been a bit lost, but it was a visual treat and I was pretty excited about being there!!

Johanna has a MUCH better reportback on her blog! So have a read through, I'm being typically lazy - but there ya go!

Hugs
PS. The dude playing Iago (centre pic on the right) was brilliant and Othello was totally sexy (top pic on the right)!
PPS. First pic shamelessly stolen from Hanna's blog!

Better late than never

To those of you who have been going on and on about it, here's that Sado post!! I know none of you are particularly interested in anything I have to SAY about Sado and that you all just wanna see if you feature in my pics! Yeah, I saw right through all of that.

But for the peeps back home!! We had the Sado Earth Celebration two weeks ago!! It rocked man, it was so bohemian and laidback. Amazingly enough I stayed sober enough to enjoy the experience, a first... maybe I'm finally growing up or something(GASP)!? The guest performers Tamango's Urban Tap, were fabulous! Have a look at the link... everybody was perving over Tamango himself. Dude has a nice butt, ask anyone! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

We camped on the beach, had a bonfire and went skinny-dipping (okay, not quite)! The toilets freaked me out, cos there were bugs EVERYWHERE!! HUGE, UGLY, CREEPY THINGS WITH LONG LEGS AND BEADY EYES (shudder)... I didn't much like that.

Anyway, enough waffling on about nothing at all, this is a bad and boring post, so I'll stop torturing y'all and post some pics ("finally" I hear some of you breathe in relief).

Pamela on the Ferry

On the Ferry
Having a smoke

Arriving in Ogi

One of those tub boat things (I forgot what it's called!! Sheesh)

Doing cute

Some kids and their dad (don't know them)

Consuming alcohol by the bottle (ick)

Anonymous Arses (kind of)

A visitor

A suitably creepy pic of Sam in an unexpected Sweden T-shirt (WTF?)

Ros - doing a little dance

Pop - Fidel's new Japanese Girlfriend

A stall in the market place

Pamela's new hat

Deccy having a snooze

Shanna sleeping off her hangover

Emma and Ros

Eccentric hippy dude

This dude was flying alongside the ferry on the way back - shamelessly begging for food!

Sunset