Home Made Curry, Videos, and NOVA students

Holy Crappola.

First time in about 4 days that it didn't rain.

And we had sun for most of the day too.

As I rode down to the cinema with Evan earlier in the day (only to find out the movie we wanted to see isn't out until Saturday), I was shocked to see how high the rice plants in the paddy had grown. They obviously enjoyed the non stop barrage of water that the heavens sprayed at them for 96 hours. I keep wondering how rice is grown. Is it a seed or a root ? I guess I'll find out in the next couple of weeks.

Talking of rice, I used some with the curry I made last night. Now, in Japan, they don't really have a curry sauce so I had to make this from scratch (Evan made one last week, and it smelt soooo good, I decided to have a go). I gathered some meat (beef, I think, but the Kanji/Katakana helpfully described this as "Curry Meat"....Geez), peeled and chopped a small packet of spuds, two carrotts, half an onion, half a red pepper, and two cloves of garlic. I boiled up the potatoes and carrotts in a pan of water, with a pinch of chilli powder, and lightly pan fried the onion, pepper, garlic and meat. I then added this to the pan of potatoes and carrotts and let the hot water soften the meat.

Now in Japan, they do kinda help you make curry, with these dry blocks of curry sauce. I crumbled one into the pot and before you could say Delhi Belly, I had a wonderous pot of smells and colours. And it damn well tasted good too. I even had enough for dinner this evening.

Now, since Steve left, it's fair to say that myself and Evan have got on better. I think this is down to several factors. Firstly I think there is more space in the appartment, and we both respect each other's privacy and space. Chores (hoovering, empty rubbish, and cleaning) seem to be down evenly with little prompting from either side. And even though I liked Steve, he was a bit of a "Dad" like figure, so there seemed an air of properness about the appartment. With that gone, both myself and Evan can relax, without being moaned at about the rubbish, washing up and air conditioning ( to be fair, the place is kept very tidy).

We have also rented several videos from the local video shop (we don't have a DVD player), which is cheap. So in the last couple of nights we have chilled out to Total Recall (Evan hadn't seen it, and I couldn't remember it being so violent), Braindead (a horror from Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson), The Bourne Supremacy and Aliens (another movie, Evan had not seen). Now we have had the usual beer and crisps malarky, but last night, as we watched Matt Damon run around like a headless chicken, we munched on Dried Squid. Very odd. Kinda nice with a good lager, and very fishy....

Now, I guess there are those of you at home who are wondering about two things. Firstly, what do my actual teaching days consist of, and secondly for some people (namely Mum, Kath and anyone else nosy enough) what are the Japanese girls like/have a got a girlfriend yet ?

To keep the suspense up, although those of you clever enough can skip right to the end of this blog entry, I will firstly talk about my NOVA day. My hours are a bit odd, as I only teach 34 lessons a week.

MONDAY 5-9
TUESDAY 1.20 - 9
WEDNESDAY - OFF
THURSDAY - OFF
FRIDAY 5-9
SATURDAY 10-5.20
SUNDAY 11.40 - 7

Firstly I have to clock in, which although presenting no problems to me, has caused Jason (USA dude), no end of problems. He forgets to clock in/out on regular occassions, and this means he has to get the staff to sort out his mess at the end of the month.

We are given a schedule, which is broken up into 40 minute lessons. These can include regular lessons (students are graded, so level 1 is myself and everyone else who is a native English speaker, and 7A is pretty shit), VOICE ( a freeform "lounge" area, and any level of student can participate) and Kids lessons. We have no more than 4 students (all of the same level) in each class, and we teach from Diplomat books. Each lesson has a theme, such as Cooking, talking about Werewolves and Aches and Pains (Chemists), with two or three aims that the students have to reach to pass the lesson. In our 10 minute breaks, we write up in the files and then plan our next lesson. It's pretty hectic, but good fun, and I usually like to try and have a banter with my students at the start of the lessons to gauge ability.

Now, the second point. No, I don't have a girlfriend yet.

NOVA's rather daft policy of not socialising with students is one that I believe is ignored throughout NOVA branches, although you have to be careful. Are there any cute gals at Saijo NOVA ? A few. But being my obtuse self, I won't mention any of them here. Sorry. What I will say, is that they are a lot more attractive than I first thought. Of course, you do get the occassional one, who looks like she's just swallowed a small pit bull terrier and been hit by a shovel.