It's been a long while since my last post. I've been really busy busting my eyebrow open canyoning, taking a typooon-swept road trip and surviving another massive earthquake. Summer vacation has started, but the employeers decided that a holiday is too good for us ALTs and have forced us in to labour camps for the summer (okay, not labour camps but summer seminars. Not one but three. In a row. outside of Tokamachi).
I should hopefully get around to updating this week. But in the meantime, I just got back from enkai and have a vanilla supercup with my... [link to post]
This Facebook thing has been throwing up a few surprises. I signed up two or three months ago and it seems once a week or so I get a friend invite from mates I lost touch with ages ago. This week I got one from Darren, a mate from Durham Uni. I think I last saw him a year and a half ago, and can't remember when we last emailed. Bad Martin. Anyways, I clicked 'Yes' and we became Facebook mates. First message Darren sends me? "Hi Martin. How are you? I'm coming to Japan this weekend. Wanna meet up?"[link to post]
My face is red with sunburn. My legs are stiff and painful. There's a nasty whiff of sweat hanging around my apartment. And I can feel a coldsore coming on. Today is the day after another ALT soccer tournament. Once again, we came away from the Nagano tournament without the top trophy (Niigata ALT FC has managed to win every other tournament except this one) but once again it was a great weekend out with the footy lads.
The tournament had the same format of the group stage on Saturday to decide overall rankings in seedings for Sunday's knockout... [link to post]
The weekend is almost here which means it's almost time for "The first proper footy match for Niigata ALT FC since October!!"
This year's footy has been barren to say the least. First the Saitama tournament was cancelled. Then we found out the April tournament in Tochigi was also cancelled. So this weekend's tournament will be the second competitive outing for Niigata ALT FC (brewed 2006-07). Are we ready? Well, to be honest I can;t say either way.
We had a training session last weekend and we looked pretty sharp in the small six-a-side game we... [link to post]
I went for a health check today. Every teacher has to have a health check every year, but for some reason this was my first since I’ve been here (probably something to do with my old base school). Usually, the health checks take place at each school, but with my visit school schedule, I miss the health check day at my base school. To compensate, I had to go to the main health check centre. By myself!
It turned out to be quite easy. I’d already filled out my health check form with the help of my school’s nurse,... [link to post]
Niigata JET Blogs