The birds and the bees

Today is one of those days that feel like a midsummer morning, just before the air has gotten hot. It's a balmy 6C outside right now, and the sky is blue blue. And after visiting the Nita Town Board of Education every other Monday for seven months, I've finally realized that the nests that hang under the eaves at the neighboring town office aren't those of wasps, but some sort of bird. I should have known better, because the openings are much larger than what wasps require, but today is the first day I can remember actually seeing anything in those nests. And they are full of birds.

They look cozy.

I'm enjoying the relative quiet of the BoE before I go to Minari Elementary in half an hour. I have no idea yet what I'll be doing with the second graders, but that's not unusual. The fifth grade teacher faxed me a lesson plan, photocopied out of an English lesson plan book.

Oh, wait, I just realized I do know what I'll be doing with the second graders. The second grade teacher is the mother of one of my students at Nita Junior High School, and she (the student) gave me the lesson plan two weeks ago. And it's still in my purse. Safe safe.

After lunch, I'll be off to Fuse Elementary (that's "foo-say," not the thing what's used instead of a circuit breaker). I think I've seen the fifth grade class there before, but almost every time I go I'm there to teach the sixth graders; I haven't seen any of the younger kids, except to walk by them in the halls. I guess that makes more sense than spending all my time with the younger kids and not teaching the older. So today I'll be talking to the sixth graders about graduation ceremonies in America. I don't know when they'll be graduating, but it'll be soon. The senior high school students have mostly all graduated, and my junior high school students will graduate next week. I look forward to seeing the sixth grade students as first grade students in the junior high school (U.S. seventh grade is the same as Japanese first grade junior high school). I'll probably be the only teacher any of them know at their new school, and the experience of other JHS JETs is that the sixth graders who move up to JHS are their best buddies (and also more likely to pull the dreaded kancho, but I think they're less likely to try to pull that on a female JET).