The Training Week Blur

I apologize for not updating this week. Training has been intense. We were in the office for 8 hours a day, I was getting around 5 hours of sleep a night and every other available minute was spent lesson planning or preparing lesson materials! We got our first lesson on Monday, presented it to a trainer on Tuesday, presented the revised lesson on Wednesday to 2 actual Japanese students on Wednesday, taught another lesson on Thursday to the trainers and then taught our last lesson on Saturday to 4 Japanese students. It has been pretty much a blur of notes, lessons and rules.


[from left: David (super crreeeppy), Mateo (my fellow Obu teacher from Hawaii), Becky (from California - she cracks me up!) and Elspeth (my shopping buddy from Washington, D.C.)]


[Tommy (party boy from Orange County) and Neil (lived and went to uni in Wales, but insists he is not Welsh)]

There were 9 trainees (including me) and I liked 6 of the others. Two were super creepy and annoying. Especially one guy who kept talking about how he'd been in the JET program and had dated a Japanese girl (who we later learned was a JET student...making her a high school student?! ICK!!). It was all very awkward and uncomfortable! At night we would all usually get some dinner and then go back to the hotel and lesson plan, lesson plan, lesson plan.

It is interesting working for a Japanese company (AEON is quite a traditional company) especially when you arrive or leave for work. When you arrive you go into the office and say 'ohayoo gozainmasu' (good morning) and bow to everyone in the office. When you leave at the end of the day you say 'osakini shitsurei shimasu' (I'm sorry to leave before you) and bow to the whole office (because Tanaka Kacho, the Education department boss always stays really late). I think I've gotten used to the whole suit thing and I feel really professional...it's weird.

After the lesson on Saturday (which went really well and I think the 4 Japanese students enjoyed my lesson) we got our official AEON pins and a stack of business cards(!!). What I realized then was that I now work for the same company that Ewan McGregor worked for!!! That's right, Ewan was an AEON spokesperson a couple years ago (along with Cameron Diaz). For your viewing pleasure, here are Ewan's AEON commerials (This is especially for you, Taryn and Steph!)

After our 'graduation' we went out for dinner to this Chinese restaurant around the corner from the hotel. One of the waitresses there speaks amazing English (not that we needed it because Elspeth, Ultra Creepy David, Tommy and Neil know Japanese) and the food is awesome.





On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the convenience store and Mateo bought an ice cream cone. In Japan you do not eat on the street, or while walking so he received his ice cream cone in a plastic bag to bring with him. Here is how he was able to bring his ice cream cone back to the hotel...it cracked me up...

Ice cream in a bag

It has a cover made from the cone stuff

When you have arrived back at the hotel, you remove the 'cover' and eat your ice cream. Man, even eating an ice cream in Japan has rules with it.