Asian Giant Hornets

About a week ago, I found out my house was infested with some really big wasp looking-like bugs. When I say really big, I mean HUGE! They were flying around outside my house, and Pastor Stahmann noticed that they seemed to be going into the door to the balcony. So he did some testing and we could hear them in the walls upstairs and the ceiling of my laundry room downstairs. These hornets are very dangerous and serious. They can kill people. So we called an exterminator to get rid of them.

I left the house when the exterminator arrived because I didn't want to be around the bugs when they got angry. Pastor Stahmann thankfully oversaw the whole thing. The exterminators at first couldn't figure out where the nest was to remove it. Finally they figured it was in the ceiling of my laundry room and to get it out they would have to punch a hole in the ceiling. So they did and they found not one, not two, but three different nests. Apparently I had been housing thousands of wasps. The nests filled up three whole plastic sacks. The exterminators had never seen such an infestation. Thankfully all the hornets should be gone now, and I never got stung! Here is a link if you would like to read more information on the hornets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet.

Beginning My Adult ESL Class

On Friday, I had my first adult ESL class. ESL stands for English as a Second Language. I was very nervous because it is one thing teaching children, but a completely different thing teaching adults. All of my students are older than me, ranging from early thirties to sixties. So I wasn't sure exactly how things would go. Everything however went very well. I have 6-7 students in my class, and 4 showed up that day. I started the class by introducing myself and then talking about what I liked to do and had done over the summer break. Then each one of my students did the same. Sometimes it was difficult to understand them, but most of the time I at least got the overall gist of the conversation. By the time, we had finished chatting and telling about ourselves the hour was up and class was finished, and I didn't even start the lesson I was going to teach, accepting and declining invitations. It would have been interesting. In Japan when you are declining an invitation, you don't give a reason for the decline. You can just say "I'm busy" or "I have other plans." It's also rude for the other person to ask why you declined. Whereas in the United Stated, it is the opposite. People expect to be told the reason and it is rude not to give one when declining an invitation. Anyway, I was looking forward to hearing my classes thoughts on this topic. Oh well, I'll just have to wait for next week.

Kareoke

A couple weeks ago, I got to experience Japanese kareoke. I went with Pastor Stahmann and his family and my friend Rachel. We had so much fun. You get a little room with a table and everyone sits down around it. There is a screen on one side of the table and a couple microphones that can be passed around. You then type in which song you want to sing, and the words are shown on the screen. We ordered food and got drinks while we were singing. I really enjoyed the experience. The girls love having their pictures taken! Here are the pictures: http://ghdunn.smugmug.com/gallery/3335050#185729509.

The First Week of School

Wow. I made it through my first week of teaching alive. Not only alive, but extremely excited! Everything went so well. Rachel, my preschooler, even cried at the end of the first day because she didn't want to go home. The rest of the days went just as well. I made sure I was prepared for each day, and my work definitely paid off. The girl seem to really be enjoying school as well as learning. Just this first week, Hannah, my kindergartner, has become an excellent sorter; Rachel has painted some beautiful pictures of flowers with her watercolors and become a magnificent counter (she can make it to past 60); and Rebekah, my 2nd grader, is a spectacular estimator and has figured out how to play the computer game Treasure Mountain.

I have learned many things this week as well. I have gotten to know my students more. Rachel loves to sing. Hannah is very sweet, but needs to be encouraged to speak up, especially when her sisters are ready to talk for her. Rebekah likes to be up and moving. She makes it all over the classroom while sitting in her desk. Don't ask me how she does it. I am also learning how to balance my time with the younger girls, who still need lots of personal attention, while still being able to teach lessons to Rebekah. I have also realized sometimes it's just better to go with the flow. The girls had been begging since the first day of school to paint, so today for art I changed my plans and we painted. Hopefully that gets it out of their systems. I have also learned to be thankful for small blessings. The computer ON switch broke Thursday. This was spectacular. No more children asking me every 5 minutes if they will get computer time today. Well I'm sure I could write pages more about this week, but I am exhausted; so I'll stop here. I love teaching and my students, and I am so thankful for everything God has done to get me here.