On the Move, October 1, 2006
I have gotten a sleepy start to my journey. I was busy all day Saturday and didn't get to bed as early as I had hoped. 4:00 am came early after a night of restless sleep. I flew from Milwaukee to Chicago, where I found a group of fellow Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund teachers from around the mid-west including Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Ohio. We are easily identifiable by our bilingual name tags and our puffy eyes from staying up too late packing and getting up too early to go to the airport. I sure hope that we will be able to get some sleep tonight in San Francisco! 
We arrived at the airport and made our way to the hotel. There after a quick lunch we launched into our first afternoon of lessons about Japan. I have had to switch from being a teacher to being a full—time student. I have a lot to learn so that I can really do a good job of bringing the story of Japan back to Fernwood.
I am surrounded by wonderful teachers who are all as excited as I am about this journey. We are a diverse group of men and women from all over th country. Some teachers are in their 20s and others are more than 6o years old!. We have art teachers, library media specialists, high school science teachers, elementary teachers and even a few principals and other administrators. I think I am the only Montessori teacher in the group. A lot of people are asking me questions about our Montessori School!
There is so much to know and do. There are also a lot of rules! The government of Japan is doing a wonderful thing for us, and we are expected to take it very seriously. We are learning a lot about how to behave in Japan, so that we can be polite and respectful to the people that we meet. One new thing I learned is that it is rude to blow your nose in front of other people in Japan. I will have to remember to take my allergy pill so that my nose doesn't run too much.
I also learned that it is rude to chew gum in our classes, or when we visit schools. Of course, we don't chew gum at Fernwood so that should not be too hard for me.
We also learned how to take a bath in Japan. It is very different from an America
n bath. I'll be able to tell you more about that later, because I am going to have an opportunity to try it out when I stay with a Japanese family in their home.
After all of the lectures we had a break to dress up for dinner. I didn't get to see much of San Francisco, but I did get to see a lovely sunset from my hotel window.
At dinner we sat with our groups. Mine is called Chigasaki, because 19 of us will be going to that city next week. We heard some more speeches and met some Japanese officials from the Consulate. They congratulated us for winning the opportunity to go to Japan and encouraged us to learn as much as we could and to enjoy their country.
Then it was early to bed. We all want to be fresh for the long plane ride to Tokyo.
We arrived at the airport and made our way to the hotel. There after a quick lunch we launched into our first afternoon of lessons about Japan. I have had to switch from being a teacher to being a full—time student. I have a lot to learn so that I can really do a good job of bringing the story of Japan back to Fernwood.
I am surrounded by wonderful teachers who are all as excited as I am about this journey. We are a diverse group of men and women from all over th country. Some teachers are in their 20s and others are more than 6o years old!. We have art teachers, library media specialists, high school science teachers, elementary teachers and even a few principals and other administrators. I think I am the only Montessori teacher in the group. A lot of people are asking me questions about our Montessori School!
There is so much to know and do. There are also a lot of rules! The government of Japan is doing a wonderful thing for us, and we are expected to take it very seriously. We are learning a lot about how to behave in Japan, so that we can be polite and respectful to the people that we meet. One new thing I learned is that it is rude to blow your nose in front of other people in Japan. I will have to remember to take my allergy pill so that my nose doesn't run too much.I also learned that it is rude to chew gum in our classes, or when we visit schools. Of course, we don't chew gum at Fernwood so that should not be too hard for me.
We also learned how to take a bath in Japan. It is very different from an America
n bath. I'll be able to tell you more about that later, because I am going to have an opportunity to try it out when I stay with a Japanese family in their home.After all of the lectures we had a break to dress up for dinner. I didn't get to see much of San Francisco, but I did get to see a lovely sunset from my hotel window.
At dinner we sat with our groups. Mine is called Chigasaki, because 19 of us will be going to that city next week. We heard some more speeches and met some Japanese officials from the Consulate. They congratulated us for winning the opportunity to go to Japan and encouraged us to learn as much as we could and to enjoy their country.
Then it was early to bed. We all want to be fresh for the long plane ride to Tokyo.
posted by Ms. Paula @ 12:41 PM
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